SWM 155 – Hookup Culture – When You Take Relationship Out of Sex

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We live in a world that has learned to separate what God never divided.

Hookup culture is the next stage of sex stripped of meaning – where bodies meet, but no one truly connects.

I’m continuing this series exploring how, when we remove aspects of God’s intent for sex, we end up with all the examples of sexual immorality we see in our world.

Last time, I tackled what removing covenant from sex gets you: sex before marriage, and the fallout from that choice.

Today, we’re going to push that even further and look at hookup culture. At first glance it might seem like sex before marriage taken to the next level – but that expansion comes with new problems.

This isn’t just the removal of covenant – it’s the removal of the relationship itself.

It’s an attempt to deny that sex has both physical and emotional weight, despite that being God’s clear design when He created it.

Sex was designed to unite two whole persons. Hookup culture tries to do the opposite: to have sex without any emotional connection at all, to the point that emotional connection during sex is now treated as a risk to be managed rather than an intended outcome.

Why Sex Without Relationship Defies God’s Design

Sex was never meant to be detached from relationship or emotion.

God designed it to unite two whole persons – not just their bodies, but their lives.

That’s why it affects us so deeply. It bonds us to another person in ways we can’t simply undo.

This is also why Scripture repeatedly warns against fornication and prostitution.

Even when we try to treat sex casually, it never stays casual. Every part of who we are participates – because that’s how God made us.

Paul doesn’t warn us about sexual sin because God wants to limit pleasure – he warns us because sex touches something sacred.

When we misuse it, we don’t just sin against God; we wound ourselves.

You can try to deny the spiritual and emotional toll, but it will still take effect. God built the system to work that way.

Solomon gave the same warning centuries earlier:

For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, and be embraced in the arms of a seductress? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths. His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

– Proverbs 5:20–22

Both Paul and Solomon are saying the same thing:

When you join yourself sexually to someone outside God’s design, you create a bond that was never meant to be temporary.

You can’t “unite” and then pretend it never happened – your whole self was involved.

What Hookup Culture Is (and Isn’t)

Now, it’s no wonder our culture is moving in this direction.  For the last few decades, our media has been pushing this idea that sex is just sex, nothing more, nothing less.  It’s somehow the most important thing in  the world but also trivial.

There are now dozens of apps where you can go on and shop for a sex partner in the same way you can order a hamburger.  You can see who is close to you, who is available, what they’re interested in and how quickly they can be at your door (or order an uber to bring you to theirs).  Now, granted, finding one who is interested in you is not as easy for everyone, but for some, it definitely is.

No dating, no exclusivity, often no last names.  This is purely sex, stripped of relationship, expectation or emotional investment.

Alternatively, people have “friends with benefits”, where they were friends, and decided to simply add sex to the relationship – in the same way they might add watching movies together or playing board games together.  People now have “situationships” in which they don’t even know what their relationship status is because they don’t talk about it.  They’re just “having fun”.

The Reality – What hookup culture produces

However, the problem is that we were designed for sex to affect us deeply – to unite us with a spouse.  People engaging in this culture face two problems as a direct result of this.  The first is that sometimes their “friends with benefits” or “situationships” get more serious than they intended.  Either the other person “catches feeling” or they do, as though it were some sort of sickness.  When that happens, the standard protocol is to cut all ties, because a relationship isn’t the intended outcome.  

They don’t want the emotional closeness.  They don’t want vulnerability. They don’t want intimacy.  

The problem with this is that eventually, you train your brain not to bond with your sexual partner.  After dozens or even hundreds of partners – their brain no longer knows what to do with all the hormones released during sex.  Eventually it stops working as intended.  Repeated bonding and breaking teaches the brain that connection is unsafe (McIlhaney & Bush, 2008).

When they do eventually want to settle down with a single partner, they struggle to do so.  Their brain fails to bond them sufficiently.  People who engage in hookup culture have much higher rates of both divorce and infidelity.

And it’s not just because they fail to bond, but also because this lifestyle encourages bad character traits.  

You don’t learn sexual self-control because sex is on-tap.  There’s no need to wait when you can broadcast that you want a sexual partner who is interested in exactly what you want when you want it.

You also don’t learn how to deal with conflict in a relationship because as soon as conflict emerges, you can just ghost them and start over again.  

They also train themselves to expect and need variety.  Some people keep a roster of sexual partners around and rotate through them, constantly adding as opportunities present themselves, or removing as they “catch feelings” or simply move out of each other’s areas.

And ultimately, this leads to an escape of any emotional vulnerability, which is problematic when you one day want to build an intimate relationship with someone – because intimacy requires vulnerability, and if you have no capacity to be patient, to deal with conflict, and have wired your brain to crave variety over monogamy, then marriage is going to be very difficult.

It’s not just a “future” problem either.  Studies show participants in frequent hookups report lower happiness and trust (Regnerus & Uecker, 2011), increased rates of depression, anxiety, and regret (Armstrong, Hamilton & England, 2010), and it’s no wonder, because hookup culture is, at its core, a culture of using and being used.  

It trains you for loneliness, not love.

This is why the Bible teaches that sex is never “just physical” – we weren’t designed that way.  When we violate the way God intended us to have sex, we fail to get the benefits, and bring natural consequences down instead.

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

– Romans 1:24-25

Sex was meant to glorify God through faithful union. When we twist it towards self-pleasure, we shift worship from the Creator to the created.

Hookup culture turns the person into a tool of self-gratification rather than self-giving love.  And that’s the ultimate consequence of removing relationship from sex – it leaves only the shell of the act, stripped of its purpose.

The Heart of the Matter – False Intimacy

Hookup culture offers the sensation of closeness without the reality of being known, its physical exposure without the intimacy of emotional revelation.  It’s pleasure without trust, desire without devotion.  

Sex was intended to be with someone who we would open up to completely, to know them and to be known by them, to have someone to share everything we are with and still know that we are loved, despite all of our imperfections, flaws, even outright sins.  

Hookup culture sets all that aside, it’s the rejection of intimacy, of vulnerability.  They think it will keep them safe, but in reality, they’re losing out on the best part of sex.

It’s pure selfishness while completely avoiding anything approaching love.  Hookup culture teaches people to hide behind pleasure instead of being seen in love.

The Biblical Contrast – Sex as Covenant Knowing

Now Adam knew Eve his wife – Genesis 4:1a

Biblical intimacy is about knowing, not merely touching each other’s bodies.   

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. – Genesis 2:25

True intimacy is exposure without fear – possible only through trust and covenant.

Real intimacy thrives in exclusivity and permanence – what hookup culture rejects.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. – 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

Pastoral Path to Healing

Now, if you’ve been a part of hookup culture – are you doomed?  Of course not.  You may have some struggles others don’t, and you may have to heal some wounds others won’t experience, but there is always hope.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9

You may need to relearn how to engage with real intimacy, and that takes time.

If you’ve spent years teaching yourself that sex doesn’t matter and that vulnerability is unsafe, then opening up again will feel uncomfortable – maybe even frightening.

But the same way you trained your mind to avoid intimacy, you can retrain it to pursue it.

Freedom isn’t found in avoiding bonds, but in forming the right ones.  This is what God intended for us, and following that intent is one of the ways we worship Him.