Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus by Kathleen Bogle (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

at State University, offered, “When I drink I get like in the mood to hook up and I just want to go and meet as many different people as I can. And I think that is the way that I react when I drink and I am more likely to hook up . . . when I am drinking.” 64

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Many other students I spoke with echoed similar sentiments. They suggested that alcohol not only makes them want to hook up, but also leads to (a) hooking with people they otherwise would reject (due to their “beer goggles”), and / or (b) going farther sexually during a hookup.19 Lynn, a sophomore at State University, discussed a hookup encounter under the influence of alcohol with someone in whom she was not really interested.

KB: How does something get to the point of hooking up . . . how does that interaction happen?

Lynn: Umm, [pauses], well, I’m just trying to think of my experience. Well, one of the nights we had a toga party, it’s like an initiation party and everyone gets really drunk and . . .

everyone hooked up with everyone else [laughs] and it was just like all crazy and . . . I don’t even remember what happened because I was pretty drunk, but I ended up kissing one of the other swimmer guys, that was all that happened.

But, later I was like: “Ewww, why did I do that?” But, I don’t really remember exactly how it got to that point.

In this particular case, the hook up consisted of “just kissing” and Lynn did not seem particularly upset by it. However, in many cases, heavy alcohol use and subsequent sexual activity can be a dangerous combination. In many states, intoxication is deemed inconsistent with the ability to give meaningful consent to sexual activity.20 Moreover, in many states, sexual activity while the victim is intoxicated meets the legal definition of rape.21

Since students believed that alcohol is a common component to hooking up, students who did not drink alcohol, or at least did not feel comfortable drinking in a party atmosphere, had more difficulty following the hookup script than the more party-focused cliques.

WHO IS NOT HOOKING UP?

With few exceptions, the hookup culture seemed to permeate most groups on campus. However, I did interview several people who did not partake in the hookup scene. Some of these students were already in exclusive relationships. Usually, their relationship began with a T H E H O O K U P S C E N E

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hookup or it had carried over from their high school days. Since they were not looking for new partners, they had no need to engage in hooking up. For other students, finding a relationship at college was important because they were not interested in socializing the way that mainstream college students do. One student I interviewed, Robert, considered himself very different from most of the students at Faith University in terms of his interests, outlook on life, and day-to-day activities. He was very involved in student government on campus and an active member of the Boy Scouts. Robert met a woman he was romantically interested in during the first week of his freshman year. He pursued the woman by giving her his Boy Scouts “business card.” Although she rejected him at first, he was later able to befriend her and their friendship evolved into an exclusive relationship, which involved going out on dates regularly.

KB: Did you want a girlfriend because you weren’t comfortable with [the hooking-up] system? Or did it just so happen that you found a girlfriend?

Robert:Actually I abhor the whole idea of [hooking up]. I don’t think you actually allow yourself to get to know the other person [that way]. . . . So I didn’t really think of it as a manly thing to see how many girls [I] could get. I was never outrightly denied by a girl until [my current girlfriend] came along. [She] totally denied me the first time I ever met her. . . .

But I really didn’t like the idea of trying to get as many girls as [I] could [via hooking up]. Since I was traveling so much

[with the Boy Scouts], I almost told her: “I will be traveling a lot and if this will be hard tell me now because I don’t want to string you along.” So I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend [per se], but I wasn’t looking to hook up with people [either].

Although Robert acknowledged that the hookup system was typical for men and women on Faith’s campus, he was not interested in doing that himself and felt that his lack of interest in hooking up, in favor of a more traditional style of dating, made him “abnormal.” Another student I spoke to, Hannah, a junior at State University, abstained from hooking up due to her religious beliefs. Hannah believed her Christian faith was a central part of who she is and what she does; religion was not just another demographic category, something in the 66

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back of her mind. Rather, she possessed a very active faith; it was a central part of her identity and her daily activities. Hannah rejected the dominant hookup culture on campus because she believed hooking up was immoral. “The people I hang out with aren’t really those kind of people who just have a one-night thing. I think of hooking up as a one-night kind of thing and myself and people I know don’t do that.” Hannah was not a part of the alcohol-centered, party lifestyle; instead, she socialized within a close-knit group of friends who were also very religious.

Hannah: I don’t really feel comfortable spending time with people who don’t think in a similar fashion to me.

KB: Do you consider yourself part of the mainstream of State University in terms of what students do socially?

Hannah: No.

KB: What