What would you do if you were physically attracted to someone? Would you:

A. Ask them out.
B. Wait and consider whether they are “worth” your time.
C. Hook up with them.

If your answer was C, it may be best to reconsider. For example, how would you answer the following question?
Would you purposefully treat someone as sub-human to satisfy your own desires?

Yes? No?

If you are scratching your head wondering how “hooking-up” and “sub-human” go hand-in-hand, let me explain.

Our hook-up culture is a threat to dignity. Every hook-up cheapens the value and intrinsic worth of each unique person by demeaning them to body parts. Both guys and gals.

“Come on, we are sexual beings,” you say? True.

“We just need to have ‘safe-sex’ and nobody will get hurt.” False.

All sex is sex. There is no foolproof protection other than abstinence.

In response to the ubiquitous “no harm done” tagline, look around to see the falsity of that statement.

For documented and published evidence, we can look to a psychiatrist at UCLA’s student counseling center who realized that the “safe-sex” agenda was making students sick. She published her book, “Unprotected,” as Anonymous, M.D., in fear of losing her job. Late in 2006, she revealed her identity — Miriam Grossman, M.D.

Grossman, branded a “politically incorrect” psychiatrist, asks a needed question: “Why are students inundated with information about contraception, a healthy diet, sleep hygiene, coping with stress and pressure — but not a word about the havoc that casual sex plays on young women’s emotions?”

Never at ASU have I seen any warning about the damage, depression and self-esteem issues resulting from numerous hook-ups. Where are the pamphlets about such research?

For example, what average college student knows about oxytocin and its role in hook-ups? A brief explanation would reveal that it is a hormone released in a woman’s body during sex that creates a bond and trust with the man.

Ironic, since the whole purpose of hooking-up is to un-hook and then hook-up with someone different the next night, the next week, or the next month. No matter how much “fun” it is, both get hurt in the end, whether through the contraction of STDs, the fracturing of self-identity or the loss of dreams.

To avoid this harm, why not start considering the human dignity of the person to whom you are attracted? If you like someone even a little, you would not purposefully hurt him or her. Would you purposefully rain down broken heartedness and sexual diseases on him or her? I hope not.

So next time the potential is there, hold back the hook-up urge and change that answer to A. “Ask them out.” You will be glad in the end.

Reach Catherine at catherine.e.smith@asu.edu.