Susan Walsh, the slut-shaming, chart-making dating guru behind Hooking Up Smart, has made yet another chart! This time, it’s a flowchart attempting to diagram “the anatomy of a hookup.” While not quite as impressively incoherent as her infamous flowchart trying to explain the dire economic costs of sluttery, or as plainly incorrect as her diagram purporting to show that hot dudes get all the sex, this one is impressively daft nonetheless. I suggest you click here to see it full-size.
Well, I’ve followed all the various little arrows around on the chart, and as far as I can tell, her point is that if you have sex with someone, this may not result in true love for all time. There’s a shock. In other words, all these little boxes and arrows are intended to draw our attention to the fact that, as Cliff Pervocracy has put it, “every relationship does either end or continue. I salute your tautological genius.”
The other thing to notice about Walsh’s chart is that she apparently can’t conceive that people can remain friends, or even become friends, after sex. As Walsh loves to remind her female readers, having sex with someone doesn’t automatically make them fall in love with you. But it doesn’t make them automatically hate you or want to have nothing to do with you either.
So I present to you a somewhat more simplified hookup flow chart, which nonetheless manages to cover the possibility that people who hook up with one another can sometimes become friends afterwards.
Super Obvious Note: All friendships and relationships may at some point come to an end, or change into something else.
Despite the clear flaws of Walsh’s chart – it’s a strange mixture of obviousness and obliviousness — many of Walsh’s readers hailed it as a work of genius. One anonymous commenter wrote:
I don’t think there has ever been a better visual representation for the hookup that shows its futility from the woman’s point of view.
Sassy6519 agreed:
That diagram looks as pleasant as trying to cross a minefield.
And that, of course, is the real message Walsh is trying to get across with her (probably deliberately) muddled chart: hookups are scary!
As Walsh put it in a comment:
The point of the chart is really to highlight the odds of getting to dating via a hookup. Studies say 12% of the time. All those yellow and red boxes are just a visual representation of those odds.
Of course, in Wash’s vision, not “getting to dating” is apparently as bad for women as getting an STD, or finding out the guy you’re fucking is a feminist, or something.
Ian Ironwood agreed with her analysis, more or less, but urged his fellow dudes to exploit the situation for their own advantage:
Men are starting to learn their own value in the dating world. They’re beginning to learn Game and use women’s desire for a relationship as leverage. And that means that they’re raising their expectations (which sucks for feminists, who are constantly trying to lower women’s expectations of themselves while raising it for men) and getting a lot more canny about just who they want to spend their lives with.
Men are, indeed, the keepers of commitment. It’s the masculine equivalent of our “virtue”, our ability and willingness to ally ourselves with one woman (or just a few). Those fellas in the Puerarchy who are still hooking up like mad, y’all are the rest of that leverage. With Game-savvy PUAs pumpin’ & dumpin’ like it’s on sale, they provide a bleak alternative to pursuing commitment with a quality dude, which means his value as a high-status male goes up with his willingness to commit. But that also means his expectations of his future bride go up as well.
Guys, recognize your value to women, and use it to your advantage. Remember, a woman in a crappy relationship enjoys higher status in the Matrix than a woman without a relationship, all things being equal. They crave the validation they get from their female peers in the Matrix more than they even crave the romantic connection. That provides a tremendous amount of leverage for the dude who understands that.
Other dudes, nonetheless, still feel that women are too icky to deal with. Herb put it this way:
[I]f there is one lesson Game types and MRA should be pushing it is this:
“A man needs to be ridden by a woman as much as a bicycle needs to be ridden by a fish.”
And yes, I changed it from “have” to “ridden by” for a reason. In the combat dating era, especially in marriage 2.0, men are saddled and ridden too often.
You don’t need a woman in your life to be a man or be complete. …
If you physically need sexual contact there is no shame in deciding the way women have organized the current SMP is a losing game and just turn to the world’s oldest profession (which too many women let themselves become even if they don’t realize it)
You know, if you’re running a dating site ostensibly to provide useful information for young women, and your most enthusiastic commenters are either PUAs hoping to use that information to better exploit women, or MGTOWers looking for more excuses to denigrate and dismiss all women, maybe you’re doing something wrong.
Friend-of-Man-Boobz Ozymandias tried to inject some good sense into the discussion over there. Unfortunately, very little of it stuck.
EDITED TO ADD: I added a quote from Walsh.
I don’t understand why fade and dump are the only possibilities from a NSA relationship, and not also date. I mean, wasn’t that the entire plot of some romantic comedy from last year?
I think that’s what the “Catch Feelings” branch is supposed to represent. The “NSA” branch is to drive home the warning that if you become Friends With Benefits, you only have a 1-in-4 chance of reaching The True Goal, and if you go NSA, then the only options left to you are “Fade” and “Dump”, and either is the! worst! thing! that! can! happen! to a lady.
So Susan sez:
It’s been years since I’ve been single, but from what I can remember, when I’ve “hooked up” (I kinda hate that term), it’s because I wanted to have sex, either just with whoever or with this one particular guy. Occasionally I thought there was the possibility of a relationship or something beyond just the one night; often I knew for sure that I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever had sex with someone with the goal of turning it into a relationship, although that’s certainly happened at least once, with my current boyfriend.
I’ve never really understood Susan Walsh. I’ve read enough of her to know that she’s full of the bad ideas, but frankly, what I actually expect from a blog called “Hooking Up Smart” is endless posts saying, “Hey, remember to use barrier protection when you’re hooking up!”, with other possible topics being “Stay away from abusive people!” and “Use your words!” From what I can tell, that’s not actually what she does, and that kind of scares me.
So…hooking up may or may not lead to an ongoing relationship, which may or may not be serious, which may or may not end at some point in the future? Did we really need a complex chart with scary red boxes to communicate this?
A) *facepalm* Probability does not work that way. Not all possibilities are equally likely.
B) How many hookup partners want to “get to” dating?
Oh, right, exactly 50% because all women want love and hate sex and all men want sex and hate love. (and queer people don’t exist.) SILLY ME.
Ozy, don’t you get tired of explaining on that thread that, no, really, 40 year olds should not be sleeping with 14 year olds? You got responses that seemed pretty much like apologetics; it’s ok, cause she lied about her age and how could anyone resist/predict that! Seems to me that the desire of 14 year olds to appear older is yet another really good reason not to sleep with them.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! The comments over there are inveruriating…I also just had to comment on that fool that was scolding you for for saying 40 year olds should not be sleeping with teens because the bitch lied! Shye said she was 18 btw if you don’t beleive me thats MISANDRY!!! Bullshit, I have 0 sympathy for these men who take no responsibility for there actions and come up with excuses that the 14 year olds are seducing them even though there is strong socilization in our culture that men are thye ones taht do the asking and women are the gate keepers…plus use your brain its retty easy to tell if someone is underage! /end rant
Also got a love the tone of breakups are always the women’s fault! and only women are serial monogomists and cheat in the comments
Anyone who believes that “men are the keepers of commitment” really ought to try the Seattle dating scene. Maybe it’s the gender imbalance but virtually every guy seems to want a girlfriend. I’ve had a guy pull out and say that if all I want is a one night stand then he doesn’t want to fuck anymore.
slightly ot, but apparently hhs just added a program called Heritage Keepers to the list of ‘evidenced based’ federally funded sex ed programs that sounds like Susan Walsh could have written it.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/04/30/he-men-virginity-pledges-and-bridal-dreams-an-hhs-endorsed-curriculum
Yes. Two things that are different are not the same. People who want to get married should get married, and people who want to live together should live together. Next?
Wait a sec. Not getting married is more likely to lead to divorce than getting married is? This seems … wrong.
>>>I’ve had a guy pull out and say that if all I want is a one night stand then he doesn’t want to fuck anymore.
That seems to be taking Amanda Marcotte’s facetious view of traditional morality as “you poke it, you own it” to a whole new level.
I’m a little new to the shaming PUA/MRA jargon, but being a breastfeeding mom, I really didn’t need to have “pump n’ dump” redefined for me – not what I want to visualize while pumping, and sometimes dumping. Ugh, seriously?
Something like 90% of couples cohabit before marriage, or something like that. It is not surprising in the least that these days where it is possible to sample living together without signing highly binding contracts that people in marriages tend to stay together more often than people who are in cohabitation. Cohabitation is now basically about filtering out all the bad matches BEFORE you get married! (At least for those people who use it as a path to marriage, rather than its own end game.)
It’s kind of like saying that you shouldn’t do job interviews before hiring an employee because there are so many more bad employees doing job interviews than there are bad employees with a job!
“When couples live together outside of marriage, the relationships are weaker, more violent, less [equal], and more likely to lead to divorce” (Heritage Keepers, Student Manual, p. 26)”
I’m pretty sure living with someone will never lead to divorce, while marrying someone puts you much more at risk for divorce.
All of that abstinence-only crap is pretty much guaranteed to produce higher rates of teen pregnancy, so yay. /sarcasm
The fact that they list that “Heritage Keepers” shit under Evidence-Based Programs really ought to be a crime. But hey, at least the program generates (bad) poetry:
A Shining Pearl
“Girl, let me tell you, you wouldn’t believe
The things he did, what he did to me
You have got to get with it! You’re so way behind
Shoot! I was 15 when I gave up mine
You’re 17 years old, quickly approaching 18
Graduating in June to live the “College Dream”
Come on Virgin Mary, it’s not such a big deal
If you let him do it, love you? He will!
So tell me girl, tell me please!
Why not join the crowd, be a little tease?
“I tell you now my body’s a pearl
It will shine alone without the world
No need for love if love is just pleasure
For my “Love” is golden, only a “Marriage’s Treasure”
I’d rather wait ten years for an unknowing mistake
Than give up my innocence from a bad choice I make
I’d rather study books than cater to a baby
And let us not forget, that STDs are traveling daily
So call me what you want as Virgin Mary I may be
Just note: My pride in my self respect is never taken lightly.”
Source.
By which I mean, the act of hiring the employee will somehow magically make him a good employee, whereas if you did something as ‘distrustful’ as interviewing them before, then there’s a very high chance you would not hire him because he’d be a bad employee. It’s so backwards that it hurts the brain, and yet that’s the entire argument for traditional conservative values re: marriage VS cohabitation.
I…. am very confused. This is literally the first time I did not understand an MRA/whatever screed until Futrelle told me what the point was supposed to be. My entire reaction was “Yes, and…? Weren’t you going to tell me the horrible part at some point?”
It really feels like visiting a completely alien planet. On the one I live on, literally every single person I know hooks up because they want sex and dates people they find attractive and enjoy spending time with. There is broad overlap between the two things. And… no one finds this horrible or in any way akin to war?
why is this a thing
Because not-getting-laid is the plague of our times.
The only worse plague is the wrong people getting laid.
NSA means no strings attached, right?
Because I checked wikipedia and there are tons of NSA abbreviations. And I get confused, a lot.
There also seems to be this idea that relationships ending is a bad thing. I know it is sad for those involved when it is happening, but the alternative, to stay in a relationship in which there is no longer bi/multilateral love sounds very unpleasant. I have seen couples stay together after they no longer loved each other, it looked awful from the outside. Having dumped someone, been dumped, and having engaged in a mutual breakup, I can say all seem preferable than a loveless relationship.
” That seems to be taking Amanda Marcotte’s facetious view of traditional morality as “you poke it, you own it” to a whole new level.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that, but if you’re worried I didn’t pressure him for anymore sex. Just a shrug and good night.
Am I reading this chart right? Having casual sex can lead to the National Security Agency disappearing you?
@tetragami: I guess that your partner had every right to reevaluate his desire for sex at any time based on his values, but it seems to me problematic on his part that he was assuming a long-term deal was implied in the first place. I was making a joke that he was following the conservative idea that if he ‘poked’ it he should therefore implicitly own it, and that you disabusing him of that notion made the sex undesirable.
Teragami – I think what Blackbloc was saying was that the fellow was no longer interested in poking you if there was no possibility of owning you. Zie’s referring to Amanda Marcotte’s observation that much patriarchal resentment of women’s sexual liberation is that many men still believe “if you poke it, you own it” (a reference to a very blatant double entendre in a beer commercial from a few years back), and resent the fact that this is no longer the case. The charmer you had the misfortune of sleeping with is apparently one of them.