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

dating first revealed many of the norms of dating on the college campus. Waller examined the dating customs of college students at Penn State University in the 1920s and 1930s.18 To begin, Waller defined dating by distinguishing it from courtship. Courtship involves people of the opposite sex getting to know each other en route to marriage. Dating, on the other hand, is not true courtship because the intent is not to marry.19 Thus, Waller characterized dating as a sort of “dal-liance relationship.” These relationships were particularly prevalent in college because students (especially men) wanted to delay marriage until they graduated and were settled into their postcollege careers.

Given that those who dated did not intend to marry, Waller argued that dating was dominated by “thrill seeking.” Men were often seeking some form of sexual gratification. Women, on the other hand, were often looking to have money spent on them, including expensive gifts.

It is important to note the environment in which all of this took place. Waller’s study was conducted at Penn State, a large school, where most students lived on campus; half of the male students lived in fraternities, and most came from a middle- or upper-middle-class background. Although women started attending college in greater numbers during this period, there was still a six-to-one male-to-female ratio on campus at the time. Dating consisted of going to college dances, the movies, or to fraternity houses for Victrola dances and “necking.” A whole host of norms accompanied the phenomenon of dating. For instance, dating was almost exclusively carried on by fraternity men.

Freshman men were not allowed (by tradition) to date coeds, and F RO M DAT I N G TO H O O K I N G U P

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women from outside the university were “imported” for some of the bigger occasions on campus.

Waller argued that dating on this campus took place under what he referred to as “the rating and dating complex.”20 Both men and women did not want to date someone who did not “rank.” Competition for dates was fierce, and the “Class A” men on the rating scale wanted to be sure only to be seen with “Class A” women, and vice versa. Students went to great lengths to rate high on the dating scale. For men, rating high depended on belonging to a top fraternity, and having good clothes, dancing skill, a good pick-up “line,” access to a car, and money to spend on dates. For women, rating high depended on getting a reputation for being a sought-after date.21 To ensure that they appeared to be a hot commodity, women avoided being seen too often with the same boy (so they did not scare off other potential dates).22 To remain in high standing, women consistently had to date Class A men only. Women also avoided drinking in groups or frequenting the beer parlors.

Women’s prestige on campus would decline once they were no longer a fresh face on campus, due to indiscretions, or if they were too readily available for dates.23

Peers were heavily involved in monitoring who was dating whom.

In fact, some women did not date at all because the dates they could

“get” were ridiculed by their peers. Waller noted that the involvement of peers combined with the system for dating on campus created antagonisms between the sexes. He attributed part of the reason for these antagonisms to the unbalanced sex ratio, which left many men shut out from the dating pool altogether. Additionally, Waller noted that this system was particularly difficult for those who rated low on the dating desirability scale. In other words, those who did not “rate” were often left behind.

Waller acknowledged that, in some cases, dating led to true courtship and ultimately to marriage. However, the system of dating made this outcome unlikely. Instead, Waller argued that dating often became exploitative.24 Men exploited women for sexual favors, and women exploited men by “gold digging.” Waller believed that exploitation occurs only when one party is masking his or her true intentions. Thus, if both parties realized the relationship was not “going anywhere,” then the relationship was not exploitative. However, in most cases, one party was more interested in the continuation of the relationship than the other. This created a scenario where one person could 16

F RO M DAT I N G TO H O O K I N G U P

get what he or she wanted from the other by promising to keep the relationship going. Waller concluded that with heterosexual dating relationships, we may surmise that the party with the least interest in continuing the relationship has the most control.

Dating in the 1920s and 1930s was largely a competitive enterprise.

In fact, dating was secondary to “rating” or popularity. One dated in order to rate among one’s peers.25 To achieve the goal of “rating,” one would date as many members of the opposite sex as possible as long as those individuals were believed to enhance one’s popularity rather than detract from it. At this point in history, it was seen as scarcely better to date one person than to date none at all.26 In other words, most young people looked down on exclusive dating relationships before one was ready to get engaged and marry.

One’s popularity as a date was not determined mostly by intrinsic qualities of the individual. Instead, popularity, which was largely defined by the peer culture, determined who “made the cut” in terms of being a worthwhile date. At some schools, rating was not merely determined informally by word of mouth. Rather, in some cases, lists would be floated around college campuses to help determine one’s dating value. For instance, some women at the University of Michigan rated the “BMOCs” (i.e., Big Men on Campus) according to their campus dating stock. “Those qualifying were rated either A—smooth; B—OK; C—pass in a crowd; D

—semi-goon; or E—spook.”27 This list was used as a guide for women on campus to determine whether they should accept a date or not. Whether or not such lists were taken seriously by college