Are we in the midst of a dating apocalypse?
Romance is in its death throes. In the future all hetreosexual fornication will be of the ‘hit it and quit it’ variety. We will not fall in love. We will not respect each other. We will simply stick it in and slip out unnoticed before the alarm goes off in the morning.
At least, that’s what Nancy Jo Sales is suggesting in her long-form piece for Vanity Fair’s September issue Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse.
In the opening paragraphs, we are introduced to three mid-twenties Manhattanite men with well paying jobs, and attitudes towards women that border on pathological. One man, Alex, explains that he loves Tinder for its “large sample sizes”. The location based dating app gives him access to hundreds of women in a night, which is important because “Guys view everything as a competition… Who’s slept with the best, hottest girls?”
Not only is it a competition – Alex is winning. He’s slept with five girls in eight days, and his friends can remember these women’s names better than he can.
There’s a word for men like Alex, we learn. Economically aspirant party guys whose ability to see women as humans extends only to the exchange of bodily fluids are called ‘fuckboys’.
Fuckboys have always existed (we used to call the cads), but the piece argues that dating apps have sparked a rapid evolution. Now fuckboys have access to willing women whenever they want, and because being nice is no longer a necessary component of sexual success, more young men are becoming fuckboys.
A 20-year-old uni student tells Vanity Fair that “one hundred percent” of the men she encounters on dating apps are fuckboys… And yet, she fucks them.
Top Comments
The sooner we stop talking about what boys should do or what girls should do the better. Sexuality is fluid for most (time, place, mood ect) and certainly does not uniformly break down a gender line. The sooner we all stop trying to define ourselves by what some columnist says or what your bbf told you is the 'BEST ADVICE CLEO EVER GAVE!!!' the better. Design your sexual attitudes based on what you want; you will find that changes on your mood too.
The kind of experiences guys like Alex deserve are ones where HIS name gets dropped in female conversations about what a dud lay he is, an attractive woman hooks up with him and later he finds out HE was the DUFF! Etc