Thursday, March 8, 2007

Appetite for destruction

The more I learn about sexually active young adults, both the supercharged "hookup" generation in their late teens and 20s, and the bored "whatever" generation in their 30s, the more I believe the overriding reason they seek premarital sex is nihilism — and that nihilism is built upon fear.

They preprogram their relationships to self-destruct because their own parents divorced, or they are immersed in a culture of divorce, and so they cannot imagine a love that would last a lifetime. Because a happy, committed marriage is inconceivable to them, they set themselves up to squeeze out the maximum amount of romance from a relationship in the shortest possible time — killing the opportunity to nurture real love and intimacy.

A "revolution" that began in hedonism has bred a generation of cynics.