NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Sexual meat market will kill your soul

By Deborah Hill Cone
NZ Herald·
16 Aug, 2015 09:28 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Tinder has turned into a soul-destroying meat market. Photo / Getty Images

Tinder has turned into a soul-destroying meat market. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion by Deborah Hill ConeLearn more
Apps like Tinder are letting men dial in sex as if they were ordering in pizza.

"I had sex with a guy and he ignored me as I got dressed and I saw he was back on Tinder."

So, help me out here. Readers? What do we think of that? (Tinder: a mobile phone dating app. The guy: a prick.).

Me, I think it may be the saddest sentence I've ever read. I despair, ineffectually, hopelessly. I have no learning to impart here. It all seems unremittingly grim.

My daughter is still at primary school, but I'm not sure how she is expected to negotiate adolescence without becoming as screwed up as I was about love, intimacy and attractiveness, when the new normal seems even worse than the old normal.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

She is the granddaughter of a placard-waving feminist so surely her gran's hard-won progress means things should be better for her than they were for me? Surely, she should still not have to become THAT girl.

The girl finding her knickers, putting them back on, awkwardly leaving, making jokes, pretending she doesn't mind, pretending the whole experience didn't make her feel, really, just s***.

My heart breaks for that brave, sad girl. I know exactly how she will do the walk of shame, desperately trying to mentally reconstruct the wretched experience as amusing and later use it as material to make her friends laugh: "He said 'hop on'!"

"Haven't you ever had sex in the toilets at SPQR?"

"Is there anyone who hasn't slept with him? We should form a group."

It helps to get in first. "Who cares? Not me!" But honey, you can't fool me. My heart breaks for that girl, because I have been her. Although, back then hook-ups weren't even called hook-ups. And since then the free-market commercialisation of relationships via apps like Tinder - order in a shag like sushi - seems to have made it the social norm to be gratuitously venal about relationships, in a way that feels more exploitative of young women than ever.

Discover more

Business

Big companies get a taste of start-up life

09 Aug 11:52 PM
Business

How to modernise the crowdworker economy

16 Aug 12:00 AM
Opinion

Strategies for the new workplace

13 Aug 09:00 PM
Technology

Want to book a meeting? Ask Amy

13 Aug 06:57 PM

"It's body first, personality second," says Stephanie about the transactional nature of Tinder. "It's a contest to see who cares less, and guys win a lot at caring less," says Amanda.

This is the way we live now, apparently. At least according to Vanity Fair, where I got those quotes. I'm aware I may sound prudish and curmudgeonly. Or even more creepily, jealous and bitter of my lost youth and insouciance.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

If I do, tough. Because one thing I know for certain is it's a phoney sophisticated pose to pretend you don't really hunger for intimacy and connection. That goes for blokes too. Even the young men who are gloating about their sexual conquests in the Vanity Fair article seem trapped and tragic counting up their notches in the bedhead.

"Sex has become so easy," says 26-year-old marketing executive John. "I can go on my phone right now and no doubt I can find someone I can have sex with this evening, probably before midnight."

Yeah well, hope the earth moves for you bro.

What bothers me is that young women who are still discovering who they are - in a state known as "identity diffusion" - are feeling obliged to go along with this soul-destroying meat market as if they enjoy it. One young woman told Vanity Fair's Nancy Jo Sales: "But if you say any of this out loud, it's like you're weak, you're not independent, you somehow missed the whole memo about third-wave feminism."

Girls, listen to your Aunty Deborah. You don't have to do it. How can it be that you are comfortable with having a good job, but then when it comes to relationships you are prepared to put up with no respect from men.

Going along with being treated as a dial-in pizza is not just sad and demeaning, it will kill you in your soul.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Debate on this article is now closed.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

How to cope when you’re sharing a home with your soon-to-be ex-spouse

23 Jun 06:00 PM
Lifestyle

Recovering from surgery isn’t easy - exercising in the water can help

23 Jun 08:19 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

Go ahead, have a ‘fridge cigarette’

23 Jun 06:00 AM

Inside Leigh Hart’s bonkers quest to hand-deliver a SnackaChangi chip to every Kiwi

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
How to cope when you’re sharing a home with your soon-to-be ex-spouse

How to cope when you’re sharing a home with your soon-to-be ex-spouse

23 Jun 06:00 PM

Selling up or moving out straight away isn't always possible.

Recovering from surgery isn’t easy - exercising in the water can help

Recovering from surgery isn’t easy - exercising in the water can help

23 Jun 08:19 AM
Premium
Go ahead, have a ‘fridge cigarette’

Go ahead, have a ‘fridge cigarette’

23 Jun 06:00 AM
Neve Ardern Gayford shows off 'American twang' in 7th birthday video

Neve Ardern Gayford shows off 'American twang' in 7th birthday video

23 Jun 12:00 AM
Why wallpaper works wonders
sponsored

Why wallpaper works wonders

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP