Faith with benefits : hookup culture on Catholic campuses

241 Pages·2017·1.336 MB·English

by  King, Jason Edward

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Faith with Benefits
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Faith with Benefits
Hookup Culture on
Catholic Campuses
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JASON KING
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: King, Jason E. (Jason Edward), 1971– author.
Title: Faith with benefits : hookup culture on Catholic campuses / Jason King.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University
Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016028624 (print) | LCCN 2016039487 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190244804 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190244811 (updf) |
ISBN 9780190244828 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. |
Dating (Social customs)—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. |
Catholic universities and colleges—Social aspects.
Classification: LCC BX1795.S48 K54 2017 (print) | LCC BX1795.S48 (ebook) |
DDC 241/.6765—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016028624
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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For my students
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Contents
Foreword by Donna Freitas  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction  1
1. There Is No Campus Hookup Culture; There Are Four  5
2. There Is No Catholic Campus Culture; There Are Three  18
PART I: Very Catholic Campuses
3. Made to Love, Not to Hook Up  31
4. The Evangelical Catholicism of Very Catholic Campuses  44
5. Can Very Catholic Campuses Change Hookup Culture?  62
PART II: Mostly Catholic Campuses
6. Mostly Catholic Campuses Hooking Up the Most  77
7. “Nice” Catholics, “Safe” Hookups  88
8. Follow the Students’ Lead  102
PART III: Somewhat Catholic Campuses
9. Hooking Up for a Few, Relationships for a Few, and Nothing
for the Rest  115
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10. Catholicism: There if You Want It but Not in Your Face  128
11. Supporting Students  144
Conclusion: Four Benefits of Faith  156
Methodology Appendix  163
Notes  177
Bibliography  197
Index  207
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Foreword
In many ways, at the heart of this book and at the heart of all col-
lege students’ struggles to navigate hookup culture is a question about
vulnerability.
Jason King recounts a conversation he had during his interviews with
a young woman named Riley, who worried that asking someone on a date
to dinner was far too serious, but randomly hooking up with someone was
far too unappealing. After reading about a concept called “parallel eating,”
Riley lightheartedly invited a friend in whom she had romantic interest to
“parallel eat” with her in the cafeteria.
“Her approach navigated between ‘not a date’ and ‘not saying anything’
in order to communicate ‘I’d like to get to know you better,’” King writes.
It’s what he explains next that gets to this question at the heart of students
living within hookup culture. “It was a ‘hanging out’ or ‘getting to know
someone’ script,” King goes on, “and allowed just the right amount of vul-
nerability [my emphasis].”
Throughout Faith with Benefits, King draws on his findings from doz-
ens of interviews and hundreds of surveys to discover the “frames” and the
“scripts” Catholic college students use to navigate, participate in, dissent
from, and flat-out reject hookup culture. That term is actually mislead-
ing, though, since as King demonstrates there are four distinct kinds of
hookup culture on Catholic campuses, including a middle-way “relation-
ship hookup culture” often found at what he calls Mostly Catholic schools.
And even if hookup culture is only practiced by a tiny minority of stu-
dents—as is the case at Very Catholic schools, according to King,—the
pressure of hookup culture and having to find adequate “scripts” to thwart
it is ever-present.
At the center of these “scripts,” lies the question of what, exactly, is just
the right amount of vulnerability? Riley’s concern about walking this fine line
in a culture that tugs her away from even the most basic of connections is