Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus PDF
Preview Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus
HOOKING UP KATHLEEN A. BOGLE HOOKING UP Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus a NewYork University Press • NewYork and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org ©2008 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bogle, Kathleen A. Hooking up : sex, dating, and relationships on campus / Kathleen A. Bogle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9968-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-9968-X (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9969-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8147-9969-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. College students—Sexual behavior—United States. 2. Dating (Social customs)— United States. 3. Universities and colleges—Social aspects—United States. I. Title. HQ35.2.B65 2007 306.73084'20973—dc22 2007029765 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii 1 Introduction 1 2 From Dating to Hooking Up 11 3 The Hookup 24 4 The Hookup Scene 50 5 The Campus as a Sexual Arena 72 6 Men, Women, and the Sexual Double Standard 96 7 Life after College: AReturn to Dating 128 8 Hooking Up and Dating: AComparison 158 Methodological Appendix 187 Notes 191 Bibliography 211 Index 221 About the Author 225 v Acknowledgments There are many people who helped make Hooking Uppossible. I am so grateful to all of them because I know this book would never have hap- pened without them. Iwant to begin by thanking my mentor and friend, Joel Best, for be- lieving in me and this project and for his invaluable feedback during every phase. The best thing that ever happened to me career-wise was being assigned as Joel’s teaching assistant during my second year of graduate school at University of Delaware. It was Joel who encouraged me to do this study on hooking up. Before I interviewed a single person or wrote a single page, Joel told me to “picture the book on the shelf.” Here it is and it would not have happened without him. I was fortunate to have many other influential teachers during graduate school whom I would like to thank, especially Ronet Bach- man, Anne Bowler, Cynthia Robbins, and Gerry Turkel. Thanks also to Kathleen Tierney for teaching me how to conduct qualitative research. Ialso want to acknowledge Margaret Andersen, Susan Miller, and Rob Palkovitz, whose insights and comments helped to shape this study. Iwould never have started on the path of becoming a sociologist if it wasn’t for the mentors I had as an undergraduate at Saint Joseph’s University. I especially want to thank Raquel Kennedy-Bergen for in- spiring me to choose this profession and helping me during so many stages along the way.Iamalso thankful to Dan Curran and ClaireRen- zetti, who wereinstrumental in getting me started in graduate school. I was fortunate to return to my alma mater and teach there on a visiting basis for a few years while I expanded my original study and trans- formed it into a book. During that time, I was lucky enough to work with George Dowdall, the best colleague anyone could ever have. I am grateful to George for his advice and guidance on this project and be- yond. Iam very thankful to NYU Press for believing in this book. I partic- ularly want to thank Ilene Kalish for making this opportunity possible vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and Salwa Jabado for helping to see it through to the end. This book benefited immensely from the comments of all the reviewers for NYU. Aspecial thanks to Laura Carpenter for her thoughtful feedback during the revision process. Thanks to all my friends for seeing me through the long journey of writing this book, especially Kerri Barthel, Cecilia Burke, Kim Delaney, Jacki Hallinan, Katie Jones, Bob Mascioli, and Victor Perez. I am partic- ularly thankful to Kara Power, who was very helpful during the final stages of writing and revising. I am also grateful for the encouragement of my friends and colleagues Kenny Herbst, Eli Finkel, Piotr Habdas, and Andrew McElrone. Iam appreciative of the many students, friends, and strangers who have spoken to me over the years about their experiences with dating and hooking up; their words helped inform my work. I owe a special debt to the people who agreed to be interviewed for this project; they generously contributed their time and shared the personal stories that made Hooking Uppossible. Finally,this book would never have happened without the support of my family. Thanks to Aunt Ru for all the prayers and well-wishes. Thanks to my parents for cheering me on all these years. Thanks to my brother-in-law, Bill Benedict, for all the dinners and for putting up with all the clutter. Thanks to my niece, Gracie, for being the bright spot of every day. And finally, I would like to thank my sister, Jeannie, who knows the material in this book as well as I do. She has read through chapters, helped me figure out how to organize things, and in general helped me make this book much better.If this book is successful, it is be- cause of her. 1 Introduction The journalist Tom Wolfe, a keen observer of American culture, offered this musing on junior high, high school, and college students: Only yesterday boys and girls spoke of embracing and kissing (neck- ing) as getting to first base. Second base was deep kissing, plus grop- ing and fondling this and that. Third base was oral sex. Home plate was going all the way. That was yesterday. Here in the year 2000 we can forget about necking. Today’s boys and girls have never heard of anything that dainty.Today’s first base is deep kissing, now known as tonsil hockey,plus groping and fondling this and that. Second base is oral sex. Third base is going all the way. Home plate is learning each other’s names.1 Clearly, times have changed. Most images that we see today of college students are in a sex-charged atmosphere like MTV’s Spring Break, where bikini contests, bump and grind dance contests, and “beach sports” with barely clothed contestants arecommon scenes. Comparing today’s “co-eds gone wild” with our idea of college students of yester- year,it is perhaps easy to jump to the conclusion that our young people arein moral decline. But it is too simplistic to characterize the change in moral terms. Wolfe’s “bases” point to something much more than an in- crease in sexual activity among today’s youth. I would argue that today there is something fundamentally different about howyoung men and women become sexually intimate and form relationships with one an- other.For American youth, particularly college students, “dating” and mating has become a whole new ball game. Dating, which permeated college campuses from the 1920s through the mid-1960s, is no longer the means to beginningan intimate relation- ship.2College students rarely date in the traditional sense of the term. Do they have sexual encounters? Yes. Are they interested in finding 1
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