Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus Kathleen Bogle (general ebook reader .txt) 📖

KB: Try to explain that a little more. Why do you think that is the case?

Will: To be blunt about it, I think the guy is a jerk.

KB: The guy is a jerk if he tries for anything [sexual] too early?

Will: Maybe I am just different. I think if you really care about this person, and it’s not about like holding back, it’s not like I was saying: “Hey I really like this girl and I am not going to do something to screw it up.” I didn’t want to do it. I really cared about her and thought I was going to be with her for a long time. I wanted that to be special, I wanted to wait a while and make sure that us two were really connected, on the same page and that it was going to be a long relationship.

KB: Not to be graphic, but there is kissing and sleeping together and a lot of in between. Are you saying you should wait for even the in-between [sexual interaction] for quite a while?

Will: Yeah. Absolutely . . . I think my longer relationships have been when it’s been a friend first, so we might meet and then hang out for a while as friends. Then we realize this is great and maybe take it to another level as far as going out by ourselves [on dates] to dinner, movies, whatever, out to the bar scene maybe meet up with people. Then obviously you have feelings for each other, so there is kissing going on, a goodnight kiss [and eventually that] might lead to something else.

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KB: And do you think that this is a unique standard that you have. Or do you think that this is what [your friends] think too?

Will: I would say my closer friends feel that way. [Emphasis by interviewee]

REVISITING THE SEXUAL DOUBLE STANDARD

The change, with the dating script, to more conservative sexual norms is ironic. Sexual behavior is no longer taking place under the micro-scope that it once was. During college, students were able to heavily monitor one another’s actions, gossip about others, and label peers for violating norms. Women’s behavior, in particular, was under scrutiny if they were too promiscuous. Thus, the college hookup scene contained many pitfalls for women. After college, nobody is watching anymore.

The postcollege environment is no longer conducive to keeping abreast of the “private” lives of hundreds of people. Therefore, with their reputations no longer at stake, it would be logical for women to feel free to

“let loose” sexually after college. Yet the opposite is true.

Generally, alumni indicated that life after college is much more isolated; they spend most of their time either at work or with a few close friends. They became less preoccupied with one another’s business. As a result, sexual behavior became more private after graduation. The men and women I spoke to said that they did not know the intimate details of their coworkers’ or, in some cases, even their close friends’ lives anymore. Twenty-five-year-old Shana, an alumnus of Faith University, had this to say on the subject:

KB: In terms of either you or your group of friends, do you have a standard of what you think is appropriate [sexually] and when? When things can get more physical or when things, if ever, should advance to sleeping with someone?

Shana: I don’t think we have a standard . . . I don’t think we really talk about it so much anymore.

KB: Why do you think that is?

Shana: I just think everybody is getting older and we don’t want to say it.

KB: It’s more private?

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Shana: Yeah. It’s more private [than it was in college]. It doesn’t have to be everybody’s business.

The influence of a new, more isolated environment is also a factor, according to Lucille, a 23-year-old alumnus of Faith University. “Because we don’t live in such close proximity to each other anymore [as we did in college] . . . and because we don’t wake up and go to brunch or whatever, so you don’t know as much [about each other’s personal lives].” Matthew, a 28-year-old alumnus of State University, believed that there is a greater degree of anonymity in the postcollege environment, and that this anonymity protects one’s reputation.

KB: When you said people would get reputations for [having sexual intercourse on a first encounter] in college, would they now [in the postcollege environment]?

Matthew: No, because that is the whole logistics thing . . . it’s so vast.

I could literally go out and have sex with two different women on two different nights and they would never know each other. If they went home and talked to anyone they probably wouldn’t know who I was. So there is anonymity to it.

If women’s reputations are not on the line, why does sexual behavior become more conservative after college?

During college, women had to learn the rules as they progressed through their four years on campus. By senior year, many women had figured out that the more they really liked someone and the more they wanted a relationship with that person, the less they should do sexually. Specifically, these women learned that if they were “too sexual” during an initial hookup, the man of interest would be less likely to consider them for a potential relationship. I believe that many women take this knowledge with them after graduation and it affects how they adapt to dating. Women have more at stake than ever relationship-wise as they become increasingly focused on finding the person they will eventually marry. Even if women no longer have to worry about being labeled by their classmates, they do have to worry about what their date thinks of them and whether he will call again. This may, in part, account for the more conservative sexual behavior exhibited in the