Fairly interesting ABC show which follows women in New York City while they attempt to find male companionship through online dating. What is also compelling to watch is how, once again, feminist political forays from the '60s and '70s have wrought a climate where the women behave much like men (or, if possible, more aggressively!) but yet still find themselves bamboozled on how to tame and move beyond the male sexual mindset and into the realm of commitment.

By David W. Taylor (Email Me)
Reality Reel Media
07.30.05

The easy political answer many women have adopted is to embrace sexual glibness such as a man does, or to even exceed his bruising appetite. While this has certainly, as some say, "liberated" sexual pleasure for women as a corollary to some once lofty human goals, such as dedication or self-sacrifice, it has done little to impress upon men that they should reign in their lusts for a greater purpose; i.e., marriage and children. In fact, this impetus to bridge female equivalency to maleness has done the exact opposite. Men see no need to commit to women any longer when they can harvest endless sexual and romantic trysts from an endless pool of sexually ambivalent estrogen-laced hosts.

In Hooking Up this fractured theme is featured in the travails of the South Dakotan woman named Amy, 28, who eagerly awaits marriage and "kids jumping on the bed on Saturday morning" but dates men younger than herself and jumps into bed as soon as glances are exchanged and a kiss is sloppy enough. Amy's reasoning? "I'm just having too much fun with him not to sleep with him tonight. And, uh, he's really expecting it... I almost think it would hurt his ego if I don't.

And, "We're attracted to each other. We like each other. What's the big deal? It's not like we're 18 anymore. It's not like we haven't done this before..."

Of course, once the gymnastics are over and done with, David, 27, doesn't call her for four days and then when he makes contact suggests that they "could shag, go shoot guns, and then shag again." Amy is mystified. She just gave a relatively strange man a night of sex and she wonders why he's nonchalant and dismissive. "He's looking to have fun... I'm trying to find a guy." It's 2005 and women still don't get it. Men are sexual pigs. Being one yourself doesn't engender you to a man in the way you want to believe, dear.

Naturally, when Amy decides to put a halt to the obligatory humping, David's better angels begin to perk-up and he starts thinking about being "responsible." Funny how that works! Men's brains begin to clear; harmonic thinking resumes. At least around Amy. David tells us he's "shagging" a few other harpies in between. Yet he seems to have turned a small corner.

Hopefully the 28-year-old doctor Amy met at show's end will prove more grounding. At least Matt sounded more seriously consequential. Amy thought he was "definitely" marriage material. But banked it all on his "kissability." Good God.