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

of cross-sex interaction generally, going on a date represented a distinct time where the pair could get to know each other. While the dating script dictated that men and women spend “quality time” together, hooking up does not. Although the hookup script does not preclude two people from getting to know each other (aside from sexually), it does not require it, either. Liz, a freshman at Faith University, began hooking up with someone she met in the first weeks of school. Although hooking up continued for months and eventually led to sexual intercourse, it never became a romantic relationship.

When Liz’s partner began to show less interest in frequent hookup encounters and the sexual aspect of the relationship fizzled, she found that there was not much of a foundation for a relationship. Even build-ing a close friendship was a struggle.

KB: If you could paint an ideal scenario of how you would meet and get together with someone, how would it be?

Liz: Well, I guess . . . seeing them at a party or something and having a nice conversation, realizing that we have something in common or that we seem to hit it off. And then, um, like maybe he would get my number and then we’d talk or I would see him on campus or something. And then we would hang out the next weekend and see where it went from there. I don’t like jumping into things because that always ends up bad, I feel like.

KB: Why do you think it does?

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Liz: Because you don’t give it a chance to become friends with someone or you don’t really know someone [if you hook up with him right away]. I think that’s what happened to me in the beginning [of this year] because we just jumped into it so fast and . . . we’re just starting now to like become like real friends. . . . Of course we were friends before, but it was more on like a physical level and now that it’s backed off [and we don’t hook up as often anymore] it’s kind of like upsetting.

Like I feel bad for myself, you know, that I let that happen.

Like, I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to just like meet someone and jump right into something because it doesn’t give it enough like . . . like um . . .

KB: The time to develop the friendship aspect?

Liz: Yeah, yeah, things just like, yeah. I don’t know, and when things fizzled with that person it was like: “What are you left with?”

Men and women in the hookup scene seem to have to work harder to build a relationship of any kind. Thus, to the extent that relationship formation is a goal, dating offered a better script for doing this. This point was emphasized by many recent graduates. After college, the men and women I interviewed became increasingly focused on finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, and in order to do so, most virtually abandoned hooking up in favor of traditional dating.

Getting to know someone, via the dating script, was also a way for men and women to ascertain whether or not they had romantic feelings toward their dating partner. Presumably, if feelings got stronger as the couple continued dating, sexual intimacy would also increase. Thus, in the dating era, there was some expectation that the degree of sexual intimacy would match the degree of emotional intimacy. In other words, two people would become increasingly sexually intimate as they grew

“closer.”20 In fact, during the dating era there was a level of sexual intimacy deemed appropriate for each stage of the dating process.21 Ideally, young men and women would initially limit their sexual interaction to kissing.22 Within an ongoing dating relationship, necking and petting were hallmarks of the dating experience.23 Sexual intercourse was supposed to be reserved for marriage, but often took place with dating couples once marriage was imminent.24 These rules were not always followed, but there was a standard sense of appropriate behavior for each H O O K I N G U P A N D DAT I N G

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stage of the dating script, and love or a strong romantic attachment was a part of the equation.

Sexual intimacy in the hookup era is no longer as symbolic of relationship status as it was in the dating era. There is still a sequential pattern for relationships: hooking up, seeing each other, and going out, but it is not altogether clear what the corresponding sexual behavior is for each stage. Sexual intercourse is expected in many of the “going out” relationships; however, it is less clear what one should do sexually in the other contexts.25 The students I spoke with were vague in response to questions about when certain degrees of sexual intimacy were appropriate. Some suggested one should wait (at least for sexual intercourse) until “it feels right” or “until you can trust someone.” Interestingly, none of the men and women mentioned love as a prerequisite for sex.

It is safe to say that in the hookup era the degree of sexual intimacy is often unrelated to the level of commitment to the relationship. In fact, many of the college students, particularly women, indicated that they were more likely to “go farther” sexually with someone during a hookup if they did not like the person that much or believed there was no relationship potential. This is not to say that romantic feelings are absent among hookup partners, but that the hookup script does not dictate an emotional attachment.

THE GROUP

Perhaps the decreasing importance of emotional attachment between sexual partners in college derives from the increasing importance of friendship groups among students. In the shift from the dating era to the hooking up era, the focus went from the pair to group-oriented socializing.26 The dating script called for a couple to go out together and the man and woman would each play a strict