In reporting from New York City for The Sunday Times Oct. 10, Sarah Baxter identifies a "new" trend among young adults and teenagers. It's called "hooking up." It involves a range of illicit sexual activities including heavy petting, oral intimacy and outright intercourse. This damaging practice has already spread to many schools and campuses.

The article describes this so-called "new" phenomenon in the following terms. "You hook up with them, nothing more. You are free to string them along or hook up with somebody else at the same time. It is important not to "catch feelings' or fool yourself that you are in love." This practice obviously contemplates divorcing sex from love.

A new book about it titled The Happy Hook-Up: A Single Girl's Guide to Casual Sex, has recently been published in America. Apparently 3,000 women were interviewed and fully one quarter agreed that they could indulge in one-night stands without becoming emotionally attached to their partners.

"Hooking up" is viewed as a way for young women to focus on their careers and still indulge in sexual intimacy. One famous actress, now divorced, even said that one-night stands "give her time to be a mother."

Other new names have emerged for similar behavior. "Friends with benefits," "bed buddies" and "hookup buddies" are now the popular terms for young men and women who are acquaintances or friends, but whose relationship also includes casual sexual relations with no commitment, no strings attached and no expectations. Sexual activity between the two is purely for self-gratification, nothing more.

The fruits of this destructive lifestyle are amply illustrated by what is now happening in Britain. Said the Daily Mail (Sept. 30): "Teenage promiscuity has led to a record number of girls being infected with sexually transmitted diseases which can destroy fertility. Shocking statistics show that one in eight girls aged 16 to 19 are carrying chlamydia, which often has no symptoms."

Single motherhood and abortions as a form of birth control also emerge as even more negative results of old-fashioned casual sex, dressed up a little differently to make it more attractive to its unsuspecting victims. And, as might be expected, the emotional toll is proving to be devastating in the long run, as some are discovering.

If you would like to know how God views these lifestyles, please request the free booklets The Ten Commandments and Making Life Work. The publishers of The Good News also publish a free magazine for teens and young adults called Vertical Thought. (Sources: The Sunday Times, Daily Mail [both London].)