Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus Kathleen Bogle (general ebook reader .txt) đ
- Author: Kathleen Bogle
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Hannah: Mainstream [means] the weekend starts on Thursday, you know, you go out drinking and partying, that kind of thing.
KB: Thatâs what you feel most students do?
Hannah: A lot do that and it kind of overshadows those of us who have a mellow weekend.
Hannah and her friends were interested in finding serious relationships. Although she found a relationship with someone who shared her religious beliefs, she said that many of her friends had difficulty finding
âmatureâ relationships on campus. It may be that some students, like Robert and Hannah, seek exclusive relationships to avoid the hookup scene on campus.
Although most of the participants in this study were white, I did interview a few minority students.22 These men and women recognized that hooking up was very common on campus; however, they did not engage in this practice. Lannette, an African American sophomore at Faith University, knew what hooking up meant, but did not do it herself.
KB: Is [hooking up] a term you use or is that a term you just more heard?
Lannette: Um, I donât really use the term âhooked upâ so itâs more what I hear. Like if someone said: âYeah I hooked up with T H E H O O K U P S C E N E
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him,â I understand what theyâre talking about. But, me personally, I wouldnât say [it].
KB: Are you involved in . . . the hookup scene at all?
Lannette: No, cause I mean . . . Iâm not really the type that just goes around and hooks up with random people. Thatâs just not my . . . you know, thatâs not who I am. . . . Even if Iâm interested in a boy, I wonât just hook up with [him] randomly. . . .
Like, I want to get to know him first and all that. Thatâs just not my thing; so Iâm not really in that whole category, just hookups.
Instead of hooking up, she indicated that she generally met men through friends or local âhangoutsâ at home. Once she met someone of interest, she would start âtalkingâ to him. During the process of getting to know each other, the two may go out on something resembling a traditional date or they may âjust chillâ together at someoneâs home. Lannette, and other minority students I spoke with, used the term âtalkingâ somewhat differently from their white counterparts.
KB: What about the . . . word, I think you mentioned itââtalking.â If someone says âweâre talkingâ what does that mean?
Lannette: It means like, I guess, um, when youâre interested in someone, I guess you want to, if you donât already know them you know you want to get to know them so you know youâre I guess âtalkingâ to get to know the person. Um, youâre not necessarily with them or . . . so you might think: âOkay itâs possible that we would become . . . a boyfriend or girlfriend, but you know maybe not.â So itâs like kind of like a beginning stage of a possible relationship. Um, talking to someone is pretty much just getting to know them. . . . If you already do know them, like if . . . youâre friends for a while and you start talkingâitâs more like: âOkay I realize that I might want to be with you.â So you spend more time with them and you kind of limit talking to other guys or girls.
For the minority students I spoke to, particularly African Americans,
âtalkingâ preceded being âwithâ someone as an exclusive couple.
Lannette also indicated that her minority friends on campus do not participate in the hookup scene on campus. Their decision to abstain 68
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was not necessarily a moral one, but perhaps more of a practical decision. The people I spoke with said many minority students are not interested in sexual encounters and relationships with white students (and vice versa). Therefore, on campuses that are overwhelmingly white, minority students often socialize among themselves on campus and keep close ties with friends from home.23
In addition to speaking to a handful of minority students, I also talked to a few gay and lesbian students.24 These students said they were not involved with the dominant hookup culture on campus. These students often struggled to reveal their sexual identity to fellow classmates and, therefore, had difficulty finding other gay and lesbian students for potential sexual and romantic relationships.
KB: So for meeting someone . . . of the same sex or socially interacting, how does all of that work for you? How does it work if youâre not . . . heterosexuall. . . [at Faith University]?
Timothy: Youâre like: âIs he [gay] or is that just wishful thinking?â
[Laughing] I wish I had glasses I could like put on and people would appear; itâs like my glasses would be blue if they see people who are blue that means theyâre gay. [Freshman, Faith University]
Unlike heterosexual students who had a system in place to find partners, homosexual students were more or less on their own in their quest to find potential partners. As Timothy added, âItâs harder to meet anyone, other than like to go to a bar that you know specifically everyoneâs gay or most people are because there are straight people, a few, that go to gay clubs and stuff. But um, you donât know on campus [who is gay].â Jonathan, a sophomore at Faith University, offered the following: âNo one at the gay bar is going to smack you on the head because youâre like: âHey you want to dance?â and theyâre like: âNo Iâm straight, Iâm sorry.â Nobodyâs going to freak out at you at the gay bar because you asked them to dance because youâre at a gay bar. But on campus . . . you couldnât just be like: âHey do you want [to get] a drink?â or somethingâ [emphasis by interviewee].
Gay students
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