Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus by Kathleen A. Bogle Read Free Book Online Page B

beyond the sexual aspects, which were largely understood by college students in my study across the board. College students recognize hooking up as the pathway to a potential romantic relationship, yet a hookup does not guarantee any commitment beyond when the encounter takes place.
    After hooking up, someone can opt to ask for the other’s phone number or can try to make plans to meet somewhere in the future, but most students indicated that this is not the most common outcome. Instead, students said that the most likely outcome of any particular hookup encounter is “nothing,” which means not hearing from the person again unless you coincidentally see him or her at another social event and decide to hook up again. Although most hookup encounters do not lead to an ongoing romantic relationship, the possibility is there. Many students, particularly women, often hoped that a hookup would evolve into some version of a relationship. Therefore, all hookup encounters cannot be characterized as “casual sex” or “one-night stands” when often one of the parties is hoping that it will lead to “something more,” and, at least some of the time, it does.
    HOW IT HAPPENS
    Hooking up is an outgrowth of how college students socialize today. Instead of socializing in dating pairs as they did earlier in the twentieth century, college students tend to “hang out” socially in groups at dorms, parties, or bars.9 Although the groups at the beginning of the evening may be single-sex, it does not stay that way for long. For example, a group of young women may prepare for an evening out (i.e., get dressed, put on makeup, etc.), and then go to a campus party together.10
    However, once they arrive, they find college men there and mixed-gender interactions begin. At the end of the night many individuals at the 30
    T H E H O O K U P
    social event pair off with someone of the opposite sex to hook up.
    Kevin, a senior at Faith University said: KB : We were talking about the hookup scene and I’m trying to get a couple details about it. So would you hook up every weekend?
    Kevin : Not every weekend . . . it wasn’t like the weekend was over if you didn’t go out and hook up. I would go out to have fun and if I hooked up—bonus.
    KB : Bonus? [Laughing]
    Kevin : It was a nice way to close the night.
    One of the most difficult things to get college students to explain is how hooking up happens.11 For many, hooking up was such a normal and taken-for-granted part of their social lives that it was difficult to get them to step back and explain how such an event develops. When I asked students to explain how someone would end up hooking up with someone with whom they had no prior sexual interaction, they would often answer by saying “alcohol” or “I don’t know, it just happens.” For example, Jack, a sophomore at Faith University said: KB : Just take me through a typical scenario of how it [hooking up] works if you were trying to explain it to someone . . . who doesn’t know how it works yet.
    Jack : I really can’t explain it because to this day I don’t understand it.
    Despite their initial vague answers, when probed with follow-up questions students eventually explained how hooking up happens. The first step is identifying a hookup partner. The person one hooks up with may or may not be someone known prior to the night of the first hookup. In some cases, the two parties were friends first. In others, they were acquaintances and had “seen each other around” or taken a class together. Under these circumstances the man and woman may have spent some time flirting or showing sexual interest prior to the night of the hookup. In still other cases, the hookup was what many students referred to as “random” (i.e., there was no connection to the other person before the night of the first hookup). However, in cases where the two parties were total strangers, there was often a friend or acquaintance T H E H O O K U P
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    who was able