It is a Saturday night, a few months shy of graduation, and I am sitting at a table in the crowded campus hang-out, nursing a beer, and reminiscing, as seniors did on those Saturday nights, about how quickly it had all gone by. A band is playing. All around us, men and women, stranger and friend, are caught up in the pre-hook-up dance. A couple is kissing sloppily. Suddenly, they stop kissing. The very-drunk guy takes the girl and pushes her back up against our table. He mounts her, simulates sex. She laughs nervously, tipsily. Then just as abruptly, he regains his composure, pulls her to her feet, and walks away. She is left standing alone, embarrassed, not quite sure of what just happened. Not one of my empowered, progressive, well-educated peers so much as bats an eyelash. She slinks back to her friends. He can later be seen chatting up some other female in the far corner of the bar.

These two were about to graduate from Georgetown, most likely on their way to prestigious corporate or government jobs, but they might as well have stepped off the set of some twisted Flintstones-era drama, where the girl gets clubbed over the head then dragged back to a cave so that the man can have his way with her.

“A girl must eat,” Dorothy Parker once wrote in justification for entertaining the attentions of undesirable suitors. It was the 1930s and “the date” as we know it today had only recently cemented its place in American social life. In those days prior to the equality push of the sixties, men were expected to initiate the date, pick up the tab, and have us home by eleven. Women, whose real earning power, educational levels, and professional opportunities hardly compared to those of men couldn’t be faulted for occasionally using the set-up to their advantage.

Progress is yours, sayeth the goddess Athena. So today’s single gal needn’t endure unwanted dates to avoid starvation—with the exception of those of you who opt for the non-profit, do-something-good-for-your-world route. We have economic and political equality. We have our own stocks, mutual funds and 401K plans. We run for senate seats, hold corporate chairs, and while in college have internships to die for, as well as the GPAs to sigh for. Now more than ever, we do what we want on our own terms, but we’ve regressed to the Stone Age when it comes to our dealings with the opposite sex.

Case in point. When was the last time you went on a date? I mean, when he called you. When there was a flutter of excitement as you did your hair? When your date arrived, a bit bashful, uncertain as to how you would find him? When there was an attempt at conversation, a dash of old-fashioned flirtation, and a bittersweet parting with the happy expectation of further rendezvous? Now ask yourself a different set of questions. When was the last time you freaked some stranger on the dance floor, found yourself sucking face in a dark back room, or stumbled home in the wee hours to avoid waking up next to him?

Ah, but you say, these are mere rites of passage for any modern girl. True, true. We’ve all been there. During my freshman week, our dormitory morphed into a true-to-life animal house. Girls and boys running from room to room, drinking, wandering off to hook-up, floating in and out of each other’s lives, here today, gone tomorrow. Boys didn’t bother to date us because they didn’t have to. They’d just knock on the door when they wanted a little action. Or they’d hang out at the local watering hole or house party, spring for a couple of drinks, then go for the kitty. Of course, we weren’t much better. Thinking our tube tops and high hemlines could induce some deeper connection. Throwing ourselves at these guys on the first encounter, then wondering why they never called. Running to the women’s center to whine when things got out of hand after bumping and grinding all night at a sleazy club.

I wish I could say that it was only a stage. That we blew off a little steam in those first capricious days of freshmen semester, before settling down during our more mature, upper class years. That we learned to act like ladies, learned to act like gentlemen. Pursued something bigger, greater, more genuinely powerful than the usually alcohol-induced couplings to which we surrendered. I wish I could say that when we left college our lives didn’t so closely resemble those of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw and her cadre of Manola Blahnik-wearing solipsists. That some of those early feminist lessons about respect and empowerment and equality took root. That we demanded men who saw the real us first—mind, character, soul—and were strong enough to send the rest of them packing. That by the time our four years were up, our emotional and moral bearing surpassed our intellectual and professional breadth.

Random hook-ups are sad but common in a world where men’s sexual needs set the standards, where supposedly “empowered” women are unwitting accomplices in their own subjugation, their ultimate substitutability. When sex and not the person becomes the end, individuality is forfeited. Sex can be had with anyone. Men know this and are quick to capitalize on the fact. Hook-ups and one-night stands breed disrespect, ambiguity, a false sense of intimacy—sometimes with disastrous results (think STDs, rape, an unwanted pregnancy) for the women involved. For each and every action, there is a rational reaction. Dating is not a cure-all. But it does come with a set of standards and protocol for interactions between the sexes. It does give us a fighting chance at being taken seriously—to be admired by men for our individual heads and hearts and not just for our generic sex appeal.

It’s time for every girl to take one small step forward and do womankind a giant favor.

We’ll never own the night, unless we first take back the date.