Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (15 page)

KB
: You don’t know?

Jen
: Right. But probably [they are having sex].

KB
: When would you say that you think sex is appropriate?

Jen
: Personally, I think it’s appropriate when you have a certain trust established. I would not really give it a time frame. Just knowing it’s someone you can trust. I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone and have them not call me or ignore me or something like that . . . if they are going to be a jerk about it.

[Junior, State University]

Students’ confusion over what peers were doing sexually resulted in confusion over what they themselves
should
be doing.23 For example, students often did not have strong convictions regarding when sexual intercourse is appropriate.24 Some said sexual intercourse was appropriate only in the context of a committed, exclusive, (potentially) long-term relationship; others voiced vague standards such as “when you know you can trust the person” or “when you can tell him (or her) anything.” Regardless, students hesitated to give a more concrete answer, such as a specific time frame.25 Thus, unlike the dating era when sex was deemed appropriate only after marriage or at least engagement, college students utilizing the hookup script cannot pinpoint precisely when, or in what context, sex should occur.

The fact that the hookup script allows for such a wide range of behavior leaves students grappling with the norms of the hookup script.

The lack of clarity on what others are doing when they say “I hooked up” led to a sense of normlessness. Rather than there being a standard 94

T H E C A M P U S A S A S E X UA ll A R E N A to which individuals should aspire, students seemed to believe they were responsible for inventing their own personal standards for what is appropriate. Lee, a freshman at Faith University, discussed her views on when sexual interaction is appropriate.

KB
: In your view, when is sexual interaction appropriate? Are there certain circumstances or is it up to an individual to decide?

Lee
: It’s hard to say. Months ago I would have said if you just had sex with someone where you were with them for a couple months it was bad. But I had sex with my boyfriend like a week and half after I met him . . . I only slept with two other people and that was very rare for me [to have sex with someone so soon]. I guess it does depend. I don’t know.

Consistent with students suggesting that decision making in the hookup culture must be an individual or personal decision, some indicated that what others do sexually should be private.26 This is ironic given how preoccupied college students were with discussing the intimate details of their classmates’ lives. Thus, there is a disjunction between what college students do (gossip about one another) and what some students say they should do (mind their own business). For instance, I asked the students what advice they would give incoming freshman (of the same gender) regarding how to act with the opposite sex. Emily, a sophomore at Faith University, suggested that it is inappropriate for her to impose her personal beliefs on others.

KB
: Is there anything else you would say [to an incoming freshman female] regarding do’s or don’ts of how to act with guys?

Emily
: Umm, I don’t know . . . I think everyone has their individual values and I don’t think they should be pushed on anyone else. I mean, I would say: “Don’t go around sleeping with the whole campus,” but you do what you want to do, you do what you think is right. And I don’t think I should say to someone like, even though I think it’s wrong, I can’t imagine pushing my beliefs on someone else.

This excerpt from Emily underscores the ethic of individual choice to which many students seemed to subscribe to in theory.27 In practice, T H E C A M P U S A S A S E X UA ll A R E N A 95

however, the college students admitted that they were constantly engaged in gossiping about, as well as judging, one another for their behavior in the hookup culture. It is naive for students to believe that the choices individuals make in order to adapt to the hookup script are simply a matter of consulting one’s own moral compass. Men and women do not interact in a vacuum. In the campus sexual arena, students create their personal standards by drawing upon what they believe other students are doing (i.e., what is “normal”). Students’ perceptions, or misperceptions, of the norms for the hookup script ultimately affect the script itself. In other words, if college students perceive a certain behavior to be normative, and they conform to that behavior, then they actually shape what becomes the norm.

6

Men,Women,

and the Sexual Double Standard

Certain Hollywood actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Sandra Dee and Doris Day, epitomized the proverbial idea of a “good girl.” These women had a squeaky clean, virginlike image that was promulgated both on and off screen. All actresses of this time period did not fit this mold, but there was something about maintaining this image that helped propel these women to stardom. An erotic image, on the other hand, also helped skyrocket the careers of actresses like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. Interestingly, both Taylor and Monroe became the infamous “other women” in the marriages of “respectable” wives like Debbie Reynolds and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Thus, iconic women could be characterized either as a virginal “good girl” (i.e., the marrying kind), or a sexy “bad girl” whom a man should not bring home to Mother.

The women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s aimed to free women of this kind of labeling by encouraging all women to embrace their sexuality. This era has been called the sexual revolution because it became increasingly socially acceptable for women to have sex prior to marriage.1 Although cultural expectations for women’s sexual behavior changed after the sexual revolution, the good-girl image has remained relevant. In the 1980s, girl-next-door Molly Ringwald was the leader of Hollywood’s “brat pack” and starred in a number of hit films portraying youth culture. In the 1990s superstar Meg Ryan reigned as America’s sweetheart, a title some are now passing on to actress Mandy Moore. In 2005, the public rallied behind jilted wife Jennifer Aniston when bad girl Angelina Jolie stole the heart of Brad Pitt.2 The lasting popularity of women with an innocent persona begs the question: How much have attitudes on women’s sexuality actually changed? The hookup culture on modern college campuses affords young people 96

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more freedom than ever before, yet there continues to be a double standard for the sexual lives of men and women.3

When men and women first enter college they seem to be on the same page. Freshman year is a time when all students can test limits.

Most students at both Faith and State were on their own for the first time; dorm life provided the first extended opportunity to live away from parental supervision. Both men and women enter college with ideas about what college life is supposed to be like, and they are eager to be a part of the social scene. Most students indicated that, as freshmen, they did not want to be “tied down” to a relationship because this would interfere with experiencing all that college life has to offer. Many students had had exclusive relationships in high school and they reported looking forward to having a little freedom to see “who else is out there.”4 During this time of sexual experimentation, many students, both male and female, spoke of enjoying partying and hooking up.

Since they were still getting to know their fellow classmates on campus, many indicated that “random” hookups were common.5

After freshman year, things change. Men’s and women’s goals in the hookup culture diverge; men enjoy the status quo, while women begin to want something more. For many men, the hookup script worked, so they did not communicate that they wanted a different way of doing things. Men preferred a “no strings attached” approach to a hookup encounter, so they could hook up with different women whenever they had the opportunity. For men who had good social skills, the opportunities were many. Men who wanted more than “just a hookup” pursued relationships and they did not seem to have much difficulty finding them.6 However, many men indicated that they did not want relationships during college. Other men said they might be interested in a relationship if the “right girl” came along, but they were not planning to “go out of their way” to find her. Women, on the other hand, became increasingly relationship-oriented after freshman year. While many women were still willing to hook up, they wanted hookup encounters to turn into some semblance of a relationship.

GOALS AT ODDS

Since men and women want different things from the hookup culture, the intimate side of college life becomes somewhat of a battle of the 98

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sexes. Given that many women want relationships and many men do not, boyfriends are hard to come by. Lisa, a sophomore at State University, discussed what college women want.

KB
: What about girls? What are they looking for, are they looking for sex, are they looking for relationships, what are they looking for?

Lisa
: I think, like I said, when I first came in as a freshman, I wasn’t looking for a real relationship at all, I just wanted to go out and have fun and do whatever I wanted to do. And I think a lot of my girlfriends were like that last year too. As time goes on, it gets kind of old [the whole hookup scene]

and you’re like: “All right, I’m sick of just kissing random people; it’s not really that fun; it doesn’t mean anything.” And I think people,
at least girls,
as they progress through college they start to really want, I know a lot of them really want to find someone that they really like and have a real relationship.

KB
: Do you think that is something they will be able to find or is that something that’s hard for them to find?

Lisa
: I don’t know, I mean it is kind of hard to find in college. Like, the guy that I’m seeing now is someone from home. [Emphasis added]

Many of the women were not as fortunate as Lisa in terms of finding a boyfriend. It seemed it was easier for her to maintain a long-distance relationship than to find a boyfriend on campus among thousands of single men.

The college men were aware that some women wanted hookup encounters to evolve into relationships. So, they developed strategies for communicating their lack of interest in pursuing anything further.

Specifically, men spoke about avoiding girls after a hookup, “not calling girls back,” or “thinking of good excuses” to get out of spending time with them. Kevin, a senior at Faith University, explained how he would get his point across without actually having to say so.

Kevin
: If the next day [after a hookup] she’s like: “I want to come over and hang out” and you didn’t want to hook up with her again you’d be like: “Oh, I got practice tonight.” Or I was the M E N , WO M E N , A N D T H E S E X UA ll D O U B ll E S TA N DA R D

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head of intramurals too . . . I’d be like: “I’ve got intramurals, I’ve got to run tonight over at the gym,” that would be an easy way to get out of it. The other way [to get out of hanging out with girls] is to just not talk to them.

KB
: And why would you not want to talk to them again?

Kevin
: If all I wanted was a hookup.

KB
: But you didn’t like the person?

Kevin
: It’s not that I didn’t like them; I did not want to lead them on.

I didn’t want them to think that there might be something more [when] there’s not.

For some men, hinting that they did not want a relationship did not work, so they had to verbalize it. This was the case with Brian, a sophomore at Faith University.

KB
: Of all the girls you’ve met at [Faith University], whom have you liked the most?

Brian
: I don’t know, I really don’t know. I thought I liked . . .a chick last semester and then she just went crazy on me. Like she wanted the relationship, she wanted everything and I was just kind of like: “Oh I can’t handle this right now.” So I kind of backed out. . . . But, I mean, hooking up . . . can sometimes make things awkward.

KB
: The girl last semester that you said went a little bit crazy, what happened? What did she do?

Brian
: She started asking me out and I was like: “Uhhh, I’m not, I’m not [interested].”

KB
: To be your boyfriend or asking you out on dates?

Brian
: Yeah, to be her boyfriend. She’s like: “Are you my boyfriend?” and I was like: “No.” And she was like: “All right, well we’re not hooking up unless you are my boyfriend.” I was like: “All right.” And that was the end of that. [Laughs]

Through experience, women learned that they could not expect a hookup encounter to turn into a relationship. Many of the women found that men’s desire to avoid relationships often forced hookup partners to remain just that. Two women explained their disappoint-ment in this way:

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KB
: And, it seems like [casual hookups] were a problem for you

. . . because you seem like you wouldn’t be interested in that in the future?

Susan
: Yeah, it was a problem. [The guy I was hooking up with] . . .

he would sleep in my bed and everything and we wouldn’t do anything [sexual], like he wouldn’t even kiss me. . . . But then, um, we hung out more and we started kissing and everything and then he never talked about . . . having it be a relationship. But I wanted . . . in my mind [I was thinking]

like: “I want to be his girlfriend. I want to be his girlfriend.”

. . . I was like looking for a boyfriend, looking for that connection, looking for that dependency that I had [in a previous high school relationship]. And I found it [with] him, but he wasn’t [interested in a relationship] . . . I didn’t want to bring it up and just [say] like: “So where do we stand?” because I know guys don’t like that question. So, it eventually led to sex and we only had sex once and then he continued to still want to talk and hang out with me but he never really brought up the “where do we stand” thing. That kind of pushed me away because I just didn’t want to just be casually having sex with him and it not meaning something to him. So that stopped there. [Freshman, Faith University]