By Verity Johnson
Apparently I'm part of the Tinder Generation. I've known this for quite a while, but only in a vague, subconscious way. Like when I need fabric softener. Or when local body elections are happening.
But it’s been dragged to the front of my mind recently by the Gable Tostee trial, where the media threw around the phrase tirelessly.
It happened just two days ago, when journalist Peter Jackson (the non-famous one) wrote an opinion piece on why Warriena Wright's tragic death could only have happened to the Tinder Generation.
As far as I can tell, this phrase refers to all current 20 to 30-year-olds. Apparently we're all using Tinder, the symbol and storeroom of casual roots, to source senseless shags.
So when tragedies like Wright's death happen, the subtext is, "this is what happens when young people are such horny narcissists".
This is just wrong. For a start it ignores the fact that there are a significant number of older people who are right swiping.
But more crucially, we're not just ruthlessly pursuing casual sex. Young people have serious relationships. Yes, we have Tinder. But it's not just for using as a way of hooking up with anything that breathes.
Almost all of my friends are in long-term relationships. And you know how we're doing it? Through Tinder.
Of course some people are using Tinder for casual sex. But that doesn't mean that the pursuit of casual sex is because we're hedonistic. People have casual sex for a lot of reasons. Maybe they feel insecure and want to have sex to prove that they’re attractive. (Yep, done that.)
Maybe they feel trapped and want to blot out the grinding reality of life for a few hours. (Yep, done that.)
Or maybe someone gorgeous comes over and something simply beautiful yet fleeting happens. (Haven't done that, but I live in hope.) We have casual sex, but that doesn't make us hedonistic.
And it certainly doesn’t make us any different from previous generations. They had lots of casual sex for lots of different reasons. They just didn't do it through Tinder.
What is with this idea that they only had sex as an expression of love in a wholesome marriage? Yeah, right. This is not new. It's just a new online way of doing it.
Finally, even if we are habitual horny narcissists, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we will be subjected to sexual violence. It might do. But all young women, even the most proper and conservative, are faced with this threat in many aspects of their lives. It's not just on Tinder with strangers, but in bars, workplaces or even in relationships.
According to the NZ HELP centre for sexual abuse survivors, one-in-five adult women experience a sexual assault, and in 90 percent of those cases they know the perpetrator. It could happen on Tinder, or on Friday afternoon in the office.
So I don’t know why this "what did you expect when you're the generation who root around?" mentality persists.
The only thing I imagine is that it's held by people who don't have Tinder. They know lots of young people have it, and they know its reputation, so they assume we’re all trying to shag anything that breathes. We're not.
That Tinder Generation does not exist.
Newshub.
