'Communicating with words is...perceived as a more intimate activity than "body language." Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett notes the irony in which "two people could be unembarrassed enough to have sex with each other yet too embarrassed to talk about contraception." To imagine staying up late into the night feasting on a wide-ranging conversation now strikes many as something one does after commencing a sexual relationship, not before. Thus one hallmark of a classic hookup scenario is silence. Talking is perceived as potentially ruinous to the moment. When did talking get to be so sacred? When did honest, verbal communication outpace the meeting of penis and vagina in its degree of intimacy?'
Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think about Marrying, p.75.
