Publisher's Synopsis
Hookup culture is about much more than the quest for pleasure. It also teaches us to treat each other as objects for personal satisfaction. Even those who reject the hookup culture can still be negatively affected by it. In Off the Hook, Timothy P. O'Malley, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, shows how God's plan for love serves to heal the wounds of hookup culture and is a medicine for what ails our understanding of sex, romance, love, and marriage. Here are a few things O'Malley found out from students in his popular undergraduate course-Nuptial Mystery: Divine Love and Human Salvation-at Notre Dame: Hookup culture is present in all students' lives, whether they're hooking up or not. Some students approach love as a transitory and fleeting transaction-they love the idea of romance; they love the sexual chase; and they crave the hookup, but not the commitment. Other students have come to idolize the mystery of marriage and so their conception of what sex, love, and marriage will be like is overly romanticized and largely naive. O'Malley explains how the ethics of hooking up shape relationships and examines the considerable harm that results. By exploring the sacrament of marriage in its biblical, theological, and liturgical dimensions, he offers Catholic young adults and those charged with their formation and pastoral care a wealth of insight into God's plan for love.
