Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
Society tells us that sex is an act of self-expression, a personal choice for physical pleasure that can be summed up in the ubiquitous phrase: “hooking up”. Millions of American teenagers and young adults are finding that the psychological baggage of such behavior is having a real and lasting impact on their lives. They are discovering that “hooking up” is the easy part, but “unhooking” from the bonds of a sexual relationship can have serious consequences. A practical look into new scientific research showing how sexual activity causes the release of brain chemicals, which then result in emotional bonding and a powerful desire to repeat the activity. This book will help parents and singles understand that “safe sex” isn’t safe at all; that even if they are protected against STDs and pregnancy, they are still hurting themselves and their partner.
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(out of 22 reviews)
List Price: $ 13.49
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Review by grneyelady for Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
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This is one of the most important books any parent will ever read. Why? In scientific terms (that non-scientists can understand) it lays out the convincing evidence that sexual activity before adulthood/marriage not only can be psychologically and emotionally damaging to men and women, but can create a chemically patterned response in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, affecting even future relationships. Know a man who goes from woman to woman to woman, unable to commit to any lasting relationship? Have a female friend that consistently chooses bad/abusive men to ‘love’? There is no mention of “GOD”, or religion, other than in a generalized way, which means that you can feel comfortable in sharing this book both with people of faith and non-religious folk. After reading it the first time, I ordered 5 more copies for friends and family.
A must have for anyone with children, anyone who works with children, or who once upon a time……..was a child.
Review by Anthony Markello for Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
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As a retired psychiatrist and internist, I found the book informative and challenging for today’s adolescents and young adults especially. The chemical changes that occur in the brain as a reaction to exciting events (values neutral) in one’s life are verifiable and the behavioral conditioning that occurs is scientifically true. That is why behavior that has been conditioned over a period of time and becomes habitual is very difficult, but not impossible, to change. Harvard research psychiatrist George Vaillant reported that long term follow up studies has shown that the ability to delay gratification and tolerate frustration are key ingredients to a happy and successful adjustment in life.
Other studies have shown that the refusal of people to delay gratification and engage in irresponsible behavior partly explains the marked increase in marital and family fragmentation, sociopathic behavior, sexually transmitted diseases, criminality, suicidal ideation, selfishness and self centeredness, hostile intolerance to differing viewpoints, and a lack of concern, compassion and sensitivity towards others. The challenge is to weigh the long term consequences of immediate gratification behavior, return to greater civility and become more respectful of other’s feelings, attitudes and values.
Review by Tracy Tucker, R.N. for Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
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This book is a must read for every healthcare professional, educator, pastor, parent, teen, and abstinence organizer. It is Phenomenal. It is informative on every level. Just as another commentator wrote: “It exposes the dark side to teen sexual behaviors.” I agree totally. We need to really sit down and start evaluating why these young people are in such trouble. As a Registered Nurse who sees young people daily, I am comfounded as to why they are so angry. This may be one of the root causes. I see them hurt and confused, and frankly they are so young and “Boy and Girl Crazy:, for lack of a better word. This book will give us a professionals, parents, and as adults an insight on something that these kids are do closed mouthed on. Please take the time to read it. You will be amazed as to what you will learn, and how true this book actually is. I am recommending it to everyone that I know.
Tracy Tucker, R.N., Indiana.
Review by Sylvia Haefer-rose for Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
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The book should be required reading for young people who are just starting to think about their sexuality as well as on college campuses. I particularly liked the way the information is presented. It is based on scientific evidence and can’t be condemned by anyone who is ready to negate anything that encourages abstinece as coming from the “religious right”.
Review by Charles Soper for Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children
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This book combines two priorities, on the one hand it is an interesting summary of psychological, neurochemical and imaging medicine for lay readers. It is well referenced and easy to read.
On the other hand it seeks to justify and defend traditional family values, the judicious choice of a life partner and particularly focusses on the emotional havoc done by multiple short term sexual relations. In this it is plentifully furnished with short testimonials, has a gentle, persuasive and sympathetic tone.
There are plenty of illuminating sociological statistics which highlight just how caustic an amoral lifestyle is:
*80% of unwed teen fathers don’t marry the mother of their baby.
*20% of 12-18 yr oral contraceptive users get pregnant within 6 months.
*cohabiting couples show much more violence than married couples, are more likely to divorce if they do marry after cohabiting than those don’t cohabit first, most cohabiting relationships break up or end up in marriage after 2 year.
*Unfaithfulness is reported 4 x more often by cohabitees than married couples.
*in one sample (NCPT 2007), 70% of female and 55% of male high school students wish they had waited rather than rushed into sex.
So far so good, but the problem is that very often the science is used to justify the ethics in a way that seems stretched and speculative. The retrospective claim about the development of the brain is used to justify waiting till personal judgement is better settled in the 20s – good sense, but is this conclusion really vindicated by MRI and PET studies per se? The overemphasis on the importance of oxytocin and vasopressin in bonding is claimed to justify not rushing for a ‘quick fix’ – is this really demonstrated by case control studies with behvioural correlation? – I don’t see the evidence here if so. Dopamine is described rather simplistically as the risk/reward hormone, and promiscuity to a kind of addiction to a ‘dopamine rush’. All this looks tendentious, and may mislead parents into simplistic and mechanistic discussions.
This book is illuminating, sympathetic and well intentioned, but it also suffers a serious flaw. There are vital moral grounds for the sanctity of marriage. These need to be championed vigorously, and our societies have vandalised them at tremendous cost to our children. However trying to sneak these precepts in under the guise of over-extrapolated science alone is unnecessary and needlessly gives detractors legitimate fuel for criticism.