Besides the usual monotony of hot weather this summer, I noticed an unusual monotony of trashy television shows. It’s a popular time for producers to air the most pitiful excuses for entertainment while we, the young and gullible, are meant to ogle at the television.

I noticed a theme throughout these shows: casual sex, but not just casual sex between adults who have jobs, support themselves, and can deal with the emotional and physical effects that inevitably come with sex. This was casual, meaningless sex between 14-20 year olds in shows like “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” or “Teen Mom”. Oh, don’t raise your eyebrows; we’re all guilty of watching these sorts of shows.

The last I remember, when I was in middle and high school the farthest thing from my mind was hooking up in my parent’s basement with the pre-pubescent guy sitting next to me in pre-algebra. Even now, I have too much on my mind to think about casually hooking up with every random guy I meet at college.

But this seems to be something our generation has come to expect. Sex, especially on college campuses, is shoved into our faces and presented like something no more meaningful than going to get your teeth cleaned at the dentist.

Having sex, though, is supposed to be more meaningful. Now, I’m not advocating being a bunch of prudes and wearing chastity belts. I’m merely advocating for a middle ground and learning to respect ourselves and our bodies before partaking in the “hook-up” culture.

Do we really kid ourselves that we can have care-free sex and not have emotional consequences like many of these shows would have us believe?

Yes, these shows do tell us the physical consequences, but notice how usually everything is fine and dandy in the end. And as viewers we can immediately disengage.

In reality, we can’t disengage and make the monsters go away. What we do with our bodies especially when we’re young has both emotional and physical consequences. In those olden days long ago when entertainment had some sense of decency, seeing sex on television was akin to seeing pigs fly. It just didn’t happen; it may have been implied, but more important than sexual gratification was the actual human being and the significance behind a relationship. Sex is not an insignificant part of our lives. When we devalue sex, we lose what is so essential to our humanness – love.

I speak especially to young women. Did the sexual revolution go too far? Did we go from objectifying ourselves as subservient to men to objectifying ourselves as merely sexual objects? Wasn’t the whole idea of the sexual revolution to give us choices? Then why does entertainment present us like this? Why at college is hooking up with someone you’ve just met a norm?

There’s a piece missing – respect. We have to respect ourselves and really think about our actions before we dig a hole too deep and do something we’ll regret.

As we enter a new school year and adulthood, we have to ask what we want for ourselves, not what society expects us to want.