Unhooked

Visit the Unhooked Website For Excerpts and Interviews
Statistics show that fewer teens are having intercourse and teen pregnancy rates are down. But we’re living in an increasingly sexualized world, and kids are having more sexual contact than ever, and at an earlier age, often as early as middle school. But what is all this so-called “hooking up,” anyway? According to Laura Sessions Stepp, a reporter at the Washington Post, hooking up isn’t exactly anything. It can consist of a kiss, sexual intercourse, or anything in between. It can happen once, or many times over a period of months. The partners may know each other well, only slightly, or not at all, even after hooking up regularly.
As Stepp makes clear through her own reporting and research woven into compelling narrative evidence, the only constant in these encounters is the tacit understanding that hooking up carries with it no commitment. It is not intended to lead to romance. Its defining characteristic is actually the ability to unhook from someone—at any time, for any reason. And while it can be fun, it also can be harmful, particularly for young women who discover too late that hooking up is no preparation for a healthy long-term relationship.
In this eye-opening and absorbing narrative, Stepp looks at these consequences and discovers that, as she puts it, “the need to be connected intimately to others is as central to our well-being as food and shelter . . . If we don’t get it right, we’re probably going to get very little else in life right.”
Visit the Unhooked Website For Excerpts and Interviews
“A riveting and shocking book. Laura Stepp’s superb investigative work raises questions that are as compelling as they are appalling: Are young women accepting as okay sexual behavior that isn’t okay and never has been? Can girls really act like boys and get away with it emotionally? What happens when boys who have no sexual boundaries place upon them grow up to be men? This is a book you can’t stop reading and you won’t stop talking about.”
—Patricia Cornwell
"Vivid and engaging...Stepp avoids breathless sensationalism, preferring instead to explore the meaning of 'hooking up,' its fallout, potential long-range consequences for women and men, and the factors that have allowed such a shift to take place - wisely asking, 'Where are young women's teachers?' rather than 'What is wrong with these girls?'"
-Publishers Weekly
"Laura Sessions Stepp does not sugar coat...This book is bound to continue to cause controversy, not just among parents but on college campuses. Hopefully, it won't just be young women and their parents who read it. Young men are not the subject of this book, but it still takes two to tango."
-The Boston Globe
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