Off the Hook recently hosted a student panel to highlight students' experiences with the hookup culture at UVA. Read what attendees had to say about it! What do you think?
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2013/09/students-discuss-u-va-hookup-culture
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2013/09/virginia-and-virginity
http://thevirginiaadvocate.com/2013/09/17/uvas-hookup-culture-in-response-to-the-cavdaily/
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Monday, March 12, 2012
Recap of Dr. Hilton's Presentation
A few weeks ago, Off the Hook at the University of Virginia had the privilege of welcoming Dr. Donald Hilton Jr. for a talk on Pornography and Male Malaise. Dr. Hilton was able to effectively explain the correlation between the increased use of pornography by men and boys and the erosion of responsible and culturally emasculated men. He also put forth a powerful defense for classifying sex as an addiction and proving the neurological harm done by pornography.
Dr. Hilton claimed that the debate about pornography and sex being an addiction is often silenced by political motives and political correctness. He showed the chemical and neurological basis for classifying sex as an addiction, in the same style as a drug addiction, though, and shared studies correlating the presence of the chemical ΔfosB and hypersexual activity. This correlation, along with a number of other studies, helped prove Dr. Hilton’s point that pornography and sex are addictions that negatively affect brain function.
Dr. Hilton also reflected on how pornography is contributing to the end of masculinity. Pornography supports the objectification of females, but also in that same act dehumanizes the male, who separates the act from his emotions. The 1948 Alfred Kinsey study claimed that unattached sexuality was a right, as expressed by the emergence of Hugh Hefner and the ‘playboy’ as the ideal man. But this unattached sexuality and the pornography that often accompanies it can desexualize men, because pornography is a brain pheromone. As said by Naomi Wolf, today, real women have just become bad porn. That is a reflection on the end of masculinity, where men see women as objects to consume and discard, not people to love and cherish.
This talk was a challenge to men to reclaim masculinity for what it should be, which is a devotion and love for all women. Pornography is a weakness that many men have to deal with, but the harm it does is lasting and its negative consequences are vast. To reclaim and revitalize masculinity, it is up to men, with the help and encouragement of women, to step up to the plate and stop trying to find easy outlets to express their frustration.
-Joseph Chelak
Monday, February 13, 2012
a community of excellence
Our beliefs about sexuality and its purpose lie at the heart of how we relate to other people in our communities. The fact that these beliefs are many and varied is nothing new. What is new, however, is the normalization of sexual behavior that expects increasingly less virtue and commitment from both men and women.
Our University of Virginia community is no exception to this trend. As students at one of the best public universities in the nation and as young adults living in community, we are called not only to contribute our minds and our selves to the disciplines we pursue, but also to honor and respect the intrinsic dignity and sexuality of those around us.
In his closing speech during the “Day of Dialogue” last September, Fr. Michael Suarez challenged us to “understand the aim of our time together as a community not as about success but as about excellence. And the first and most important form of excellence is to fashion lives that body forth an excellence of humanity.” An integral part of this excellence of humanity in our UVa community is a sexual culture that promotes long-term committed relationships. Similarly, this culture must discourage impersonal sexual exchanges where each individual views the other not in light of their sacred personhood but as the means to an end of self-gratification.
Supporting dating relationships that foster the values necessary for a healthy future marriage instead of “hooking-up” in a limited commitment relationship must be no less important for students than pursuing academic excellence in their disciplines. Before we can move beyond the hook-up culture at UVa, it is essential to understand the effect this culture has on the good of the community and the long-term well-being of the individual. The exchange that takes place in a hook-up is one that forfeits a holistic view of human relationships, objectifying the other to a mere body to be used.
Hookups denigrate our university community because they “trivialize our own sexual nature, fail to show respect for ourselves and for our partners, and remove ourselves further from genuine love and true joy" (http://betteryale.org/faqs). The long-term desire of every human person for true acceptance and emotional intimacy can only be fulfilled in relationships of fidelity and total self-gift.
It is a mystery that by freely giving one’s heart, one comes to a deeper knowledge of self. This can happen only in the form of long-term, committed relationships in which each person shares the joys and sorrows of the other and cares for this person in every aspect of his or her being - from moral formation to faith to emotional health to physical well-being - and college is no hiatus to this responsibility.
Our University of Virginia community is no exception to this trend. As students at one of the best public universities in the nation and as young adults living in community, we are called not only to contribute our minds and our selves to the disciplines we pursue, but also to honor and respect the intrinsic dignity and sexuality of those around us.
In his closing speech during the “Day of Dialogue” last September, Fr. Michael Suarez challenged us to “understand the aim of our time together as a community not as about success but as about excellence. And the first and most important form of excellence is to fashion lives that body forth an excellence of humanity.” An integral part of this excellence of humanity in our UVa community is a sexual culture that promotes long-term committed relationships. Similarly, this culture must discourage impersonal sexual exchanges where each individual views the other not in light of their sacred personhood but as the means to an end of self-gratification.
Supporting dating relationships that foster the values necessary for a healthy future marriage instead of “hooking-up” in a limited commitment relationship must be no less important for students than pursuing academic excellence in their disciplines. Before we can move beyond the hook-up culture at UVa, it is essential to understand the effect this culture has on the good of the community and the long-term well-being of the individual. The exchange that takes place in a hook-up is one that forfeits a holistic view of human relationships, objectifying the other to a mere body to be used.
Hookups denigrate our university community because they “trivialize our own sexual nature, fail to show respect for ourselves and for our partners, and remove ourselves further from genuine love and true joy" (http://betteryale.org/faqs). The long-term desire of every human person for true acceptance and emotional intimacy can only be fulfilled in relationships of fidelity and total self-gift.
It is a mystery that by freely giving one’s heart, one comes to a deeper knowledge of self. This can happen only in the form of long-term, committed relationships in which each person shares the joys and sorrows of the other and cares for this person in every aspect of his or her being - from moral formation to faith to emotional health to physical well-being - and college is no hiatus to this responsibility.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
being brilliant
With a new semester comes new classes, new friends, and new resolutions of varying ambition levels. These aims tend to involve healthier habits, exercise endeavors, and strengthened study schedules, all in the hopes of realizing the best version of oneself. If we are willing put in the hard work towards constructing this ideal, should we not also be willing to stand by what we’ve built? After all, do we not consider ourselves persons wholly worth knowing?
Along these lines, should we not pursue only relationships that we foresee as worthwhile – gathering trustworthy friends and seeking a significant other who is truly significant? Through grade school, high school, and still now, we’ve tried our hands at various sports, activities, and other obligations. Inevitably, some were rejected, often because we found that they weren’t as interesting as we’d hoped, that we weren’t succeeding or progressing, or that they were just not worth our time. Every decision we make or commitment we assume requires a gift of self, whether or not we explicitly recognize the endowment of our time, talents, and energy.
Perhaps we should all make an effort this semester to analyze how we are giving of ourselves. Are our current engagements making the best use of our time? Are our relationships with organizations, coursework, peers, and loved ones challenging us to be better people or guiding us towards our idealized selves? If not, now is as good of a time as any to make some changes.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Welcome to Off The Hook's new blog!
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