Is Hooking up Harming Your Development as a Maturing Young Adult?

Across the U.S. college students on a variety of campuses have part taken in what is commonly known as the “hookup culture.” The hookup culture does not always have to include sexual intercourse although it most often does, but it is merely the idea of having physical pleasure with another person outside of an emotional relationship. College students, even at some of America’s most prestigious colleges realize hooking up has completely overthrown the idea of being in an actual relationship. Emily Foxhall a Yale student wrote an article for the Yale Daily News in 2010 stating that the hookup culture is so prevalent on Yale’s campus because students have enough stress to worry about, casual hookups are easy (Foxhall, 2010). The question becomes, is the college hookup culture vital and normal to the college experience or should it be condemned for being harmful to college age persons mentality.

Of students who reported hooking up, 41 percent used words such as “regretful,” “empty,” “miserable,” “disgusted,” “ashamed,” “duped” and even “abused” to describe the experience. An additional 23 percent expressed ambivalence, and the remaining 36 percent said they were more or less “fine” with hookups — “fine” being the most common description.

Studies show that the national average for an adolescent’s first sexual intercourse encounter is seventeen years old. Despite this number being very close to the average age in other industrialized countries, the United States holds a higher percentage of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) contraction than those countries (Harper et al, 2010, p. 125). It’s becoming evident that while a majority of the nation’s youth is sexually active, they are not doing so with the appropriate knowledge to keep themselves and others healthy.

Free-and-easy sex prides itself on being commitment free, no emotional ties attached. Today, this idea of leaving all emotions at the door is the supposedly, sophisticated choice on campus. It is now well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by “hooking up”- an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse - all complete without the emotional entanglement of a real relationship. As times have changed, students begin to view a relationship as “too time consuming” and something that no longer takes priority amongst their busy, high achieving schedules. However, hooking up threatens the sexual, physical, and psychological health of college-age youth. Today’s youth may want to think twice before engaging in the prevalent hook-up culture. Despite the popularity of positive feelings, hookups can include negative outcomes including emotional and psychological injury, and even more concerning consequences such as unintended rape. In order to protect our generation, and more specifically our women, society must acknowledge the detrimental effects of a hook up culture to create a greater understanding surrounding this risky sexual behavior and ensure a more powerful, positive presence for women in our society. The combination of a society seeped in rape culture and an alcohol infused hookup culture creates a compromising sexual environment where women have limited control, opening the

"Approximately four million teens get a sexually transmitted disease every year" (Scripps 1). Today’s numbers of sexually active teens differ greatly from that of just a few years ago. Which in return, projects that not only the risk of being infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) has risen, but the actual numbers of those infected rise each year as well. These changes have not gone unnoticed. In fact have produced adaptations as to how society educates its young adults about sex, using special programs, various advertising, and regulating sexual education courses in public schools. One major adaptation is the advancement and availability of

I hope you have packed all your things and told your family goodbye because you are leaving for college to experience a whole new world full of different people. Studying and doing your homework will consume most of your time and energy, leaving little effort to be invested in relationships. Nonetheless, there is no need to worry for college hookups have been a solution to this dilemma for decades. Despite being a solution, there are several controversies that surround hooking up with random people during the college experience, which that became a topic of discussion and research involving different styles of writing, including various rhetorical appeals. In relation to that style, the author of the article “Gender, Agency, and Sexual Decision Making in Collegiate Hookups” effectively establishes her credibility through her resources, logic through her personal research, and emotions through her words.

In fact there has been action taken to urge people to dismiss religious or moral beliefs and

In an article, “Hooking Up” by Jenifer Kunz; expresses the differences between hooking up and dating in college. She explores her research surrounding the causes and effects of hooking up especially in

Numerous sexual partners enables the chances of contracting an STI, such as Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, or Syphilis, to increase; that being said, statistics indicate that one in every five teens has had four or more sexual partners. Teens of the ages 15 through 19 are among the highest rates of the population infected with the previously mentioned sexually transmitted diseases. Teens engaging in sexual activity are often exposed to diseases without full understanding of the ease that these infections can be transmitted; students need to be exposed to the severe consequences in order to promote more cautious future decisions, like the amount of sexual encounters. Many young males and females never acquire information on the numerous sexually transmitted infections that they could catch and distribute nor how to prevent or treat such diseases. The statistics of high school students that document receiving counseling on STDs and STD testing at a routine checkup with their doctor meets low expectations, recording at 42.8 percent for females and only 26.4 percent for males. The high rates of infected teens could be directly related to the lack of knowledge they receive on the possible diseases that can be distributed through sex. Without proper knowledge on sexually transmitted diseases, the

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.

Karin Agness’s article answers both questions, “Are Hookups Killing College Romance”? originally published on the Townhall website on March 2, 2009, president of the Network of Enlightened Women argues that hookups are overwhelmingly disturbing college couples. Agness explains the discouragement that the hookup culture and all that the attention it has gained on college campuses, she goes on to describe how much it negatively affects college couples and their relationships on campus. About eighty percent of undergraduates have had a hookup states Agness (para. 2). Agness central point is that the hookup culture is becoming more popular among college students. Based

Allie Bukatman’s popular press article “The Hook-Up Culture Has Killed The Possibility Of Dating In College,” examines what precisely the hook-up culture is and why it’s not necessarily a good thing. Bukatman focuses on the expectations of the hook-up culture, explanations for this casual sex phenomenon, causes for why commitment is an intimidating thing, and power in relationships, all the while providing her perspective on this matter.

The media has a huge effect on the socialization of gender and can affect others attitudes and behaviors towards the opposite sex. Mass media also has a major role in the process of gender socialization because it bombards individuals with ideas and images of what men and women are supposed to be. For example, magazines that are targeted at women are different than those that seek a male audience. Television also plays a major role in defining gender roles by the way commercials and to shows. Advertisements for an array of products describe men as being strong and masculine while women are portrayed as dependent. What does hooking up mean to me? In the most basic sense, hooking up with someone most likely means that you’re sexually intimate with him or her, yet this intimacy can range from kissing all the way to intercourse. Hooking up is actually an overarching expression that can be used to describe the wide range of sexually intimate acts that you engage in with someone else, but it doesn’t imply monogamy or that you’re in relationship or are even dating this person. The hook up is a term that can take on so many meanings. It has grown from a single interaction between two people into a culture that now defines my generation. The hook up culture is a casual, relaxed alternative to dating that physically acts as intimacy without any of the intimacy part. It is filled with no expectations, no attachments, and no commitment. The

The practice of casual sex is more popular among American teenagers; however, the feelings of independence and empowerment obtained by it are not the only consequences. Having multiple random partners can result in sexually transmitted diseases (STD), HIV, unwanted pregnancies and other physical risks. Moreover, depression and intimacy problems can bear

Everyday in America, more people become addicted to sex. According to the National Association of Sexual Addiction Problems, “1 out of 17 people are addicted to sex.” Many people become addicted to it and do not even know it. “Sexual addiction is a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual