The underlying tone of the piece is that no-strings-attached sex could prove to be bad, or at least unsatisfying, for girls. The piece gets more serious (and differentiates itself from other similar trend stories) when Taylor points out a possible link between hook-up culture and incidences of sexual assault.

Then we have Lee Siegel at WSJ, bemoaning the decline of our nation's institutions in "Who Ruined the Humanities?" Apparently, colleges have been bastardizing the study of literature for years:

The disheartening fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few—the British scholar Frank Kermode kindled Shakespeare into an eternal flame in my head—there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two hours in the periodontist's chair. In their numbing hands, the term "humanities" became code for "and you don't even have to show up to get an A."

Siegel argues that the marked decrease in English majors since the 1970s could actually be a good thing, as literature is more meaningful when discovered outside the classroom. "Literature requires only that you be human," he writes. "It does not have to be taught any more than dreaming has to be taught." He wants today's youth to come to appreciate literature outside of the classroom, but of course, they probably aren't all that interested in reading Homer in this "digital age." Still, he remains hopeful:

Young people will read them when they are touched by inexpressible yearnings the way they will eat when they are hungry.

I mean, college kids definitely eat. He could be on to something there.

University trend pieces like these are just a new way for writers to look back fondly upon a "simpler time". Just six months ago, the NYT published a piece about young women and the death of courtship. You can throw "hook-up culture" into Google, and about fifteen different retreads of the same "College Kids Have Sex" article come up. Same with the death of English majors. The decline of American colleges gets "revealed" about three times a year.

Currently, Taylor's piece is the #1 "most emailed" article on the NYT website, and Siegel's is the #1 "most popular" on the WSJ site. They'll keep writing them if we keep reading them.

Photo by Arek Malang via Shutterstock

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.