Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (31 page)

23. Similarly, Glenn and Marquardt (2001) found that college women generally initiate “the talk” to see whether hooking up will evolve into a relationship; however, it is generally the men who decide whether the relationship will progress.

24. Bailey 1988; Waller 1937.

25. This finding is consistent with Glenn and Marquardt’s (2001) national study on college women.

26. Bailey 1988; Waller 1937.

27. Bailey 1988.

28. Bailey 1988.

29. Bailey 1988.

30. The crucial role that alcohol plays in facilitating hooking up has been documented by other researchers as well. According to Glenn and Marquardt, “A notable feature of hook ups is that they almost always occur when both participants are drinking or drunk” (2001, 15). Similarly, Paul et al. found “the overwhelming majority of hook up experiences included alcohol use by both partners” (2000, 85).

31. Moffatt 1989; Strouse 1987.

32. Bailey 1988.

33. Bailey 1988; Whyte 1990.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4

1. In chapter 7, I will discuss what circumstances must be in place for young alumni to hook up. For a discussion on middle and high school students’ participation in “nonromantic sexual activity,” see Manning et al. (2005).

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2. The fact that one’s environment greatly affects sexual behavior has been highlighted by other scholars (e.g., see Laumann et al. 2004).

3. This process of defining what behavior is appropriate under certain circumstances has been described by sociologist W. I. Thomas (1923) as determining the “definition of the situation.” 4. The effects of drinking on the student body, even those who do not drink, have been documented by the Harvard School of Public Health’s College Alcohol Study research team. See Wechsler et al. (1994) for more on “secondhand binge effects.”

5. See also Glenn and Marquardt (2001) regarding college women’s marital aspirations.

6. Students’ plan to marry later is consistent with national data on the age at first marriage, which has increased to a median age of 25 for women and 27 for men. This represents a significant increase since the mid-twentieth century, when the age at first marriage was 20 for women and 23 for men (Bianchi and Casper 2000).

7. See also Arnett (2004) for a discussion of women’s “deadline” for marrying.

8. A national study revealed that 63 percent of college women were interested in finding a potential future spouse during their college years (Glenn and Marquardt 2001).

9. Arnett 2001, 2000, 1998.

10. Arnett 2000, 1994.

11. A similar sentiment was echoed by female students at Duke University who were interviewed by a journalist from
Rolling Stone
magazine (Reitman 2006).

12. The majority of students on both campuses live on campus or in nearby apartments or houses; very few commute from their parents’ homes.

13. There are numerous other reasons why men and women have different goals for the types of relationships they seek. I will discuss these further in chapter 6.

14. Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolata 1995.

15. The experience may be somewhat different for commuter students who do not have 24-hour access to campus facilities. However, the overwhelming majority of students at both campuses I studied live on campus or in nearby student apartments or houses. Examining how commuters are affected by the hookup culture on campus is beyond the scope of this study.

16. The fact that fraternity men are among the most sexually active on campus can be explained by Martin and Hummer (1989). They found that the selection process for gaining entry into a fraternity ensures that the most macho, athletic, and “womanizing” men will be admitted to brotherhood, while those who do not live up to these standards are more likely to drop out during the pledge process or never attempt to pledge in the first place.

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17. See Martin and Hummer (1989) for more on how fraternity members use alcohol in sexual situations.

18. See Boswell and Spade (1996) for a discussion of how the characteristics of certain fraternities make them more conducive to the sexual exploitation of women.

19. See Williams (1998) for a discussion of how college women use alcohol to navigate sex and relationships.

20. Bergen 1998. Also see Sanday (2007).

21. See Glenn and Marqurardt (2001) and Williams (1998).

22. In terms of racial diversity, I conducted interviews with two African American students (one male, one female) and two Asian American students (one male, one female). Although the number of interviews with students from diverse backgrounds was too small to state anything conclusively, my findings do confirm what others have found. That is, how men and women meet, interact, and form sexual or romantic relationships varies by race. See Glenn and Marqurardt (2001) and Williams (1998).

23. Minority students are also significantly less likely to binge drink (Wechsler 1994). This fact may also decrease the likelihood that they are involved in hooking up.

24. I interviewed two gay men and one bisexual woman in a focus group at Faith University.

25. For more on the experience of gay men on campus, see
Queer Man on
Campus
(Dilley 2002).

26. See also Glenn and Marquardt (2001) for a discussion of how college women believe they bear the burden of initiating “the talk.” This expression refers to a woman asking a hookup partner: “What are we?” or “Where is this going?” Furthermore, Glenn and Marquardt found that although women often initiate this conversation, it is generally men who decide if a series of hookups will evolve into a relationship.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

1. See Ericksen (1999) for a discussion of how the general public finds out what is “normal” in the realm of sexual behavior. Specifically, Ericksen found that surveys on sexual behavior do more than merely tell the public about patterns of human behavior; rather, they actually
shape
subsequent sexual behavior by telling the public what is “normal.” Thus, Ericksen suggests that perception of what is normal affects what becomes the norm. While Ericksen focuses on how perception is affected by cultural messages (in the form of academics, journalists, activists, and the like touting the results of sex surveys), she acknowledges that there are many places where one can receive messages about sexual norms.

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2. This finding is consistent with what Moffatt (1989) found in his ethnographic study of campus life at Rutgers University in the late 1970s and 1980s.

That is, gossiping about sexual activity among one’s peers is a central activity among college students. See also Holland and Eisenhart (1990) on how peer influence affected college women in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

3. This is consistent with Glenn and Marquardt’s (2001) finding that many women are looking for “Mr. Right” during their college years.

4. Coontz 2005.

5. The discrepancy between the number of sexual partners for men and women has been found in quantitative studies. For instance, Laumann et al.

(1994) found that the median number of sex partners since age 18 for adult men in the United States is six, while the corresponding number for women is two. This discrepancy may be partially due to reporting bias (see Schwartz and Rutter 1998).

6. See Martin and Hummer (1989) for a more detailed discussion of how fraternity men “use” women.

7. See Schwartz and DeKeseredy (1997) for a discussion of the role fraternities play on the college campus in fostering an environment conducive to both a sexual conquest mentality and sexual abuse of college women.

8. See Thorne (1993) for a discussion on how childhood socialization contributes to the sexual scripts that men and women play out as adults.

9. See Scholly et al. (2005) for a discussion of how college students’

misperceptions of their peers’ sexual behavior can encourage engaging in

“risky” sexual behavior to conform to what they mistakenly believe is the norm.

10. Recall from chapter 3 that college students believe that one must have sexual intercourse in order to “lose” their virginity. Oral sex is considered a less serious form of sexual interaction. Therefore, engaging in oral sex does not preclude one from being considered a virgin. See Carpenter (2005) for a detailed discussion of how men and women perceive virginity loss.

11. At State University, a few students mentioned the legend that the statue of their mascot would fly away if a virgin graduated from their school.

A colleague pointed out that there are similar legends at many institutions of higher education (see Bronner 1990).

12. The students that made positive comments about virginity seemed to fit what Carpenter (2005) refers to as the “gifters” (i.e., people that perceive virginity loss as giving a gift of oneself). See Sprecher and Regan (1996) for more on how college students perceive virginity.

13. This is consistent with Carpenter’s (2005) analysis of the meaning many men assign to virginity loss (i.e., that virginity is a stigma they wanted to “get rid of”).

14. Glenn and Marquardt 2001.

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15. See the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA) sexual health data from spring 2003 to fall 2005.

16. Carpenter 2005.

17. Paul, McManus, and Hayes 2000.

18. Although the college men I spoke with also believed that their classmates were more sexually active than they themselves were, women were more likely to quantify the difference between themselves and their female counterparts in terms of a different average number of partners.

19. See Scholly et al. (2005) for a full discussion of the comparison between misperceptions of alcohol use and misperceptions of sexual behavior on the college campus.

20. See Lambert et al. (2003) for a discussion of how the concept of “plu-ralistic ignorance” can shed light on how college students feel pressure to conform to their perceived norms of the hookup culture.

21. This finding is consistent with what Moffatt (1989) found among undergraduates at Rutgers University in the 1970s and 1980s. See Carpenter (2005) for a detailed discussion on how virginity loss is viewed by some as a stigma.

22. The encounter Stephen discusses could be interpreted as rape given that the woman was too intoxicated to give “meaningful consent.” Unfortunately, most of such cases are not reported or prosecuted (Bergen 1998). See Sanday (2007) for a discussion of the connection between fraternities and rape on the college campus.

23. Moffatt also found in his ethnographic study that undergraduate students at Rutgers University were unclear on what other students were doing sexually. “They had their guesses, but they only knew for certain about themselves and perhaps about their closest friends” (1989, 186).

24. Similarly, Holland and Eisenhart found in their study of college women in the late 1970s and early 1980s that “women appeared not to agree on the amount and kind of sexual intimacy appropriate for different stages of a romantic relationship” (1990, 244).

25. Very few students in my sample suggested that one should have to wait for marriage or engagement to have sexual intercourse.

26. Glenn and Marquardt (2001) also found that many college women say that what others do sexually is none of their concern. In the quantitative portion of their study, 87 percent of their respondents agreed with the statement that “I should not judge anyone’s sexual conduct except my own.” 27. See Modell (1989) for the historical antecedents of the ethic of individual choice among youth in the United States. See Arnett (1998) for how inde-pendent decision making factors into the transition to adulthood among contemporary youth.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

1. Cultural expectations for sexual behavior began to change in the 1960s as other changes swept the nation. Among these changes were the second wave of feminism, the advent of the birth control pill, and the growth of the youth culture (D’Emilio and Freedman 1988). See Risman and Schwartz (2002) for a discussion of how the sexual revolution has affected teen sexual behavior and relationships.

2. A Web site even sold “Team Aniston” T-shirts so that American women could show their support for the jilted, good-girl wife.

3. The sexual double standard refers to the idea that society has different guidelines for men and women when it comes to what is permissible sexual behavior (D’Emilio and Freedman 1988; Reiss 1997; Rubin 1990). The rules for men’s sexual behavior have remained the same throughout the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. That is, men are free to have “sexual relations,” including sexual intercourse, prior to marriage. Moreover, single men are more or less entitled to engage in heterosexual activity whenever they have the opportunity to do so. For women, the rules are different. Historically, women were expected to remain “chaste” until they married. Only married women were supposed to engage in sexual intercourse. Single women who flouted this rule were considered promiscuous (Rubin 1990; Willis 1992). The societal standard for female sexual behavior meant that women were believed to be either “good” girls or “bad” girls. Thus, in theory men were permitted to have sexual intercourse prior to marriage with “bad” girls while “good” or

“respectable” girls waited until they were married to have sex (Rubin 1990).

See Hynie et al. (1997) for a summary of some of the contemporary debates among scholars regarding the sexual double standard.

4. The students I spoke with did not appear to go on traditional dates in high school; however, many of them did have an exclusive relationship for part of their high school years. See Schneider and Stevenson (1999) for a complete description of the lives of America’s teenagers.

5. Recall from chapter 3 that a “random” hookup refers to a sexual encounter between two partners who do not know each other well (or at all) prior to the evening of the hookup.

6. One male interviewee did indicate that he was interested in a relationship but was having difficulty finding one. However, this interviewee mentioned that he is very shy and does not feel comfortable meeting new people.