The Culture Of Hooking Up And Casual Encounters

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.

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

Being a college student myself, it is very easy to relate to and understand Bogle’s arguments about how hooking up can lead to alcohol abuse and sexual assaults. Even if this is true, an outsider 's perspective can vary on whether they believe the argument Bogle presents or not. One example is a potential incoming student who is likely to be ignorant to anything about the hookup culture in college and might not believe Bogle’s argument without any solid facts or statistics. A different example could be a parent of a student may be swayed by the nervousness of the child being away to believe the extreme without any evidence. This is a vast downfall for this article due to the fact there is little proof or real life examples throughout it.

The reading that interested me most was “The Decline of the Date and the Rise of the College Hook Up” by Paula England and Rueben J. Thomas. The initial motive for this research was that an undergraduate student of England’s “wanted to do a research paper on why students on campus didn’t date much anymore” (pg 69). The two researchers, England and Thomas, then began questioning students on Stanford University’s campus about what they thought about the increasing occurrence of hook ups as compared to going out on dates.

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

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.

England focuses on what students define as relationships and what is most come on the college campus. Most students are involved in hookups and are not really looking for relationships. In this article she begins by explaining what the “traditional date” used to mean. Through surveying and interviewing college students at Stanford University she realizes that most students are interested in hookups rather than going on a date or getting into a relationship. The students feel

Most feminists neglect these notions because they show superiority of the man as well as undermining the women. This significantly decreased the willingness of Americans to put in the effort to date someone, because it is seen as such a burden. As was said before, the part of the American Dream that included marriage seemed very important during and before World War II, but after, why even marry? Hook up culture is defined as “spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings.” This definition tears down the new forms of dating that have come to be in American society. It is difficult to settle down or live an ‘ideal’ life because there is no promise that everyone is looking for a long-term committed relationship. As technology starts to match the population of desperate singles up with random people, the need and want to prove oneself worthy of another’s attention and affection ceased to exist. Romance no longer finds itself within American society, it is just an idea that seems appealing to the masses. Tech entrepreneur Cheryl Yeoh from San Francisco refuses to go on a date unless it is a week away, because she knows there will be nothing special or romantic about it if there is no time to prepare. Actions like these attempt to save the dying romance culture. But modern technology is an uncontrollable force that is manipulating the minds of future

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

Everyone knows that hook-ups are in and what to expect for sex, right? I get the impression that everyone puts up this front that makes him or her seem smart about sex and hook-ups, but realistically they are faking it till they make it. As I read through this article, “Sex, Lies, and Hook-up Cultures” by Donna Freitas, I realized there are so many rumors about sex and hook-ups that the younger generation doesn’t honestly know the truth about sex. Donna Freitas, a professor, took the time surveying college students about religion and sex at their college. She discovered how most students lie about sex and many of them are trailing into the ways of casual sex. Freitas realized how many students are pressured into hooking-up with others and what the culture of hooking-up means to other students. Shockingly, she found how more students were willing to have sex with someone then to ask him or her out on a date. Catholics, especially were shown to have no knowledge about what having sex means in their religion along avoiding it in their faith. Freitas also talked about how more students are accepting of having sex with their partner than to actually have a full conversation about sex with them.

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.

College and universities have made great strides over the years. The campuses have grown, and the resources have improved tremendously. However, it is questionable if that social scene on these campuses has changed for the better over the years. “Work hard, party hard” has become the motto of college students to live by. Students spend the week focused on their academics, striving to grow as intellects. However, the weekend becomes the time when students look to go out and socialize at the various parties. And this is exactly what the weekend is for. With growing causal party scenes, college students have been more inclined to have a casual relationship with the opposite sex. Traditional dating on college campuses is rarely seen anymore

While it’s hard to pin down an exact variable, it seems that not as many students are sleeping around as expected. Approximately 60% of college students said that they had never had an oral or sexual intercourse hookup. In fact, while most students thought that 64% of their peers were having casual sex on a regular basis, in fact only 16% of college students were “hooking up” often (Hoffman 2014). So it seems that casual sex is not as popular as it seems.

Homnack (2015) suggests that “online dating has changed the ways in which interpersonal relationships are developed and maintained” (p. 2); Online daters are granted access to use various platforms through which they can easily meet other singles alike to them. Holloway and Valentine (2003) highlight that “for marginalized people, the internet allows them to meet other people alike to themselves who may not be immediately available in their local social circles” (Pascoe, 2011, p. 9). According to Pascoe (2009a) “young adults especially are at the forefront of developing, using, reworking, and incorporating new media into their dating practices in ways that might be unknown, unfamiliar and sometimes scary to adults” (p. 117). Today, the main