Hooking Up In Today's Culture

Since the dawn of man, sex has played a crucial role in society. Before they learned to read or write humans were engaging in sex and without it none of us would be here. In today’s society, sex has grown to become much more complicated. If I were to ask a group of people on the street what they believed sex was? I bet they would have a hard time answering. The question puzzling society today is how do we define sex? Can we define sex? These are questions raised in Tracy Steele’s article “Doing it: The Social Construction of S-E-X”. This article is about the current questions and issues that have been raised about sex within today’s society. In this paper I will summarize the key points of the article, while sharing my own thoughts and

From this, Kelly concludes that these elements “offer only the perception of freedom” (72). Hookup culture places a burden upon students. The sexist nature of this culture puts women at a disadvantage; and this can be extremely harmful in developmental years.

Ira L. Reiss, a well-known sociologist, has contributed greatly to the field of human sexuality and in the 1960’s brilliantly predicted the revolutionary changes in sexual attitudes. In his novel, An End to Shame: Shaping Our Next Sexual Revolution, Reiss develops the notion that our previous sexual revolution did not adequately eliminate the inequalities related to sexuality. In reality he argues that America is in need of a newly formed sexual revolution, one that will address the negative consequences that our sex negative culture is experiencing. A significant portion of our population argues that these consequences are due to the fact that we talk too much and too soon about sex. This is an inaccurate view of the reasoning behind the sexual problems we are experiencing in America, as in reality the negative sexual outcomes we observe are due to the opposite of this view. This misconception is a common explanation for our sexual problems and many believe it is the key to solving our sexual crisis, but in reality is part of the problem. Reiss argues that “America is long overdue for a rendezvous with sexual reality” (18) and that the future of our nation depends on accepting these realities.

In the book American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, By Lisa Wade, she addresses the issues and concerns that she sees within the “hookup culture”. Lisa Wade’s book is a mixture of important statistics and personal accounts of what happens in the hookup culture on various college campuses. To define the hookup culture that Wade is addressing, we can look to the book as Lisa defines the hookup culture as essentially casual sex with no strings attached, another sociologist Kathleen Bogle described this as a “new norm” for campuses and that this an be very harmful for women especially (Wade, 2017, p.16). Michael Kimmel a well-known sociologist of masculinity was quoted saying that hooking up is “guys-sex” and that guys run the

Allison and Risman pose the question of whether or not females face harsh standards of sexual activity. Allison and Risman created blind studies as well as randomly sampled surveys to create three distinct hypotheses on societal sexual attitudes. The individual research hypothesis states members of a religious community or heterosexual students frown upon hooking up frequently, by both males and females. The interaction level hypothesis states that affiliations, such as Greek life and athletics, create a double standard for women who hook up frequently. I plan on using Allison and Risman’s research to validate the belief that hookup culture has become normal and there is a double standard for women who hookup frequently.

Hooking up has become an increasingly studied culture by many sociologists around the country. These studies have been done to understand the shift from the old culture of dating to the new culture of hooking up that we experience now. Many people find it interesting that the kids of our generation have become so sexualized and carefree compared to the college days of our parents. Many people wonder how we got to this point and how the dynamics of hookups work, and why we continue to go on with them even sometimes at cost of our mental and physical help. One of these people was Kathleen A. Bogle, who wrote an entire book on the subject called, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus, which is the focal point of this essay.

Is hooking up harming your development as a maturing young adult? Hooking up is having intimate relations with another person with no intentions of any commitment. Emerging adulthood is the considered the period of life between the ages eighteen and twenty-five. During this stage of life, people experience many things and mature from being a teenager in high school, to a fully functioning adult. There are four domains of development: social, emotional, cognitive, and physical. Stress is a large factor in development, and a relationship is something that can call upon much unneeded stress. Although relationships cause a lot of stress, they also provide a strong basis of support, which can positively affect development. Hooking up is seen as a way to get the stress relieving benefits of a relationship without all the emotional attachment that causes stress in a relationship. Hookups are a great benefit to college student development.

In the article, Is hooking up bad for young women, can be summed up by saying that young girls having sex is nothing new. The term hooking up has a both negative and positive aspects for girls. With the negative side, young girls are labeled more as a whore and a slut by their peers if their casual encounters are made public. While reading this article the thing that caught my attention the most was women who have had more sexual encounters with men have less desire for sex, then women who have been in a long term relationship. Many people who have been in a long relationship, feel like because they've been with that guy for so long, they must have sex, as opposed to the girls who aren't in a relationship don't know who to have sex with. The

The article “Hookups starve the soul” by Laura Vanderkam opens with a scene where she talked with a friend that hooked up with a guy after a party. In the article, Vanderkam talked about how unintentional sexual relations are increasing on college campuses. Vanderkam emphasized how parents put limitations on their children lives that could one day force them into promiscuous activities. She clearly states that “hooking up” is happening but does not always mean having sex. Hookups are defined by alcohol, physical attraction, and a lack of expectations the next morning. Many people blame co-ed dorms, sexual revolution, or alcohol, Vanderkam blames none of these aspects but blames it all on the way an individual is raised. She uses her own

I was also taken aback that these were the blank spaces in the research, like how alcohol affects hooking up behavior. I would have thought this would have been studied first, especially when concerning college students. I also didn’t realize that more women were hooking up than men, I wonder if this is true, or if women are more likely to take a survey than men? The culture surrounding hooking up, suggest that men do it more. I could have guessed that women would have more of a negative reaction, especially compared to men, once again, because of the culture around hooking

Hookups are a type of brief sexual relationship that typically occur on only one occasion between two people who are usually strangers or have briefly become acquainted (Paul, McManus & Hayes, 2000). Hooking up may be considered to be the contemporary term for the older phrase “one-night stand” which also implies a no strings attached interlude. In this sort of association, sexual gratification can be the primary goal, with companionship being a distant consideration. This variety of alliance can certainly involve both heterosexual and homosexual couples and can be facilitated through friends or like-minded individuals. According to one study, this casual and non-committal sexual encounter based form of interaction now finds itself as the predominating heterosexual relationship on college campuses (Stinson, 2010). It may be easy to see why this is the case as the lifestyles of students are busy ones and often little time is available to devote to what is necessary to maintain a more serious involvement.

The theory in the qualitative study to identify the difference types of sexual behavior engages in "hook up" between males and females The theory examines how both males and females has two different outlook of "hook up" regarding how it leads into having a relationship.

Casual sex can be seen as the new trend among teens. Twenge goes on to say “’hooking up’ has replaced dating among many young people” (159). “Another new term is ‘friends with benefits’”, she says (160). These casual relationships often have a no strings attached policy. Many can argue that casual sex being seen on television is what can lead to it in teens.

The morality of sex is an arguable topic among many individuals. How we ought to view sex and the purpose of sex (if any) can be differently apprehended from person to person. Is our human nature modified for long or short-term relationships? And if so, what kind? Monogamous, polygamous, or none at all? Turns out, people are adapted to all kinds of relationships, but our choice is dependent on factors such as gender, age, religion, and our environment surrounding us. Sex is natural and okay—it is not anything to be ashamed, guilty or embarrassed of, so long that it is done in a moral way. So let’s go ahead and define what is moral in terms of sexual relationships, first for ethicist Alan H. Goldman.

The study of sociology is the “development, structure, and functioning of human society” (Oxford English Dictionary def. 1). Throughout American history norms established the structure of sexuality that decides what we consider a sexual conformity and deviation in society. Many of these norms are derived from social factors, such as religion, race, and gender to list a few. These social factors affect the functioning of human sexuality. For example, according to Seidman, “Social factors determine which desires are sexual and which serve as identities, which desires and identities are acceptable, and what forms of sexual intimacy are considered appropriate” (2015:5). The sociological perspectives that are used are the feminist perspective, the essentialist perspective, and the constructionist perspective. First, feminist perspectives “…approach sex as fundamentally social and political where they claim that the very essence of what is called sexuality reveals the male wish for control and dominance” (Seidman 2015:22). This perspective is mostly used in the article “Is Hooking Up Bad for Young Women?”. Second, the essentialist perspective believes “that sexuality is a basic and essential part of being human” (Seidman 2015:22). This perspective is applied in the Armstrong’s et. al., “Is Hooking Up Bad for Young Women?”, in Ford, Hall, Kaufman, Thrasher and Whetten’s “Black Sexuality, Social Construction, and Research Targeting”, and in Fetner’s “U.S. Attitudes Toward Lesbian