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Hooking Up, Part 1

Getting Together

If you were a college-age person on a university campus and you wanted to begin a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, how exactly would you do that? Oh, wait ... if you're reading this article, you probably are a college-age person on a university campus. And you probably have more questions than answers about relationships with the opposite sex.

Kathleen Bogle did too. But she wasn't looking for relationship advice. As a graduate student in sociology, specializing in gender, she wanted to know what really goes on between girls and guys on campus. How do relationships begin? What expectations do girls usually have? What about guys' expectations? What unspoken rules govern our romantic escapades? And honestly, is anybody really getting what they want out of relationships these days?

To find answers, Bogle spent six years conducting detailed interviews with students and alumni from two different schools — one state and one Catholic university. Her book's two-word title summarizes what she discovered on campus: a lot of Hooking Up¹. That, she says, is the primary "script"² college students follow when relating to members of the opposite sex. And whether you're immersed in or repulsed by the hookup culture, reading Bogle's book will force you to take a critical look at it.

Big Ideas

Hooking Up begins with a history lesson, tracing male-female interaction in this country from the "calling" ritual that dominated the cultural landscape in the early 1900s, to traditional dating, to today's "booty calls" and "friends with benefits." Because her book is a sociological study rather than a relationship guide, Bogle doesn't favor one script over another. She just presents the data: This is how it used to work … and this is how it works now.

Bogle first observes the ambiguity that surrounds relationships today. Though the overwhelming majority of college students indicate that hooking up is the main way college students interact romantically (at least in the initial phase of the relationship), the term means something different depending on who uses it. To some, it's kissing or making out. To others, it's oral sex or intercourse.

A few common denominators do exist amidst the confusion. To pretty much everyone, hooking up means physical intimacy shared by two people who are casual acquaintances, or — at most — friends in the same social circle. In theory, a hookup comes with no strings attached: Neither participant is supposed to hold expectations for a continuing relationship after the hookup. The complication is that often one partner does desire more — otherwise, why would hooking up be viewed by students as the primary way romantic relationships begin?³

Hookups in the House

Bogle further observes that college campuses are perfect incubators for the hookup culture. For starters, the university environment creates a fairly homogenous pool of potential partners to choose from. The prevalence of group partying means that even if you hook up with a stranger, some trusted friend or classmate is there to vouch for that potential partner. In other words, the closed community (at least ostensibly) reduces the risk of becoming intimate with an unknown entity. And the free flow of alcohol on campus lowers inhibitions sufficiently to facilitate the encounter. As if to reinforce Bogle's point about the ripeness of the university environment for hooking up, the alumni she interviews report that when they graduated and moved away from campus, they reverted to a more traditional dating script.

Finally, Bogle points out the inequity of the hookup scene. The double standard, she reports, is still in force. Women's sexual behavior is scrutinized much more closely than that of men, even though in theory, everyone has the same sexual freedom. Hooking up is also emotionally inequitable. Bogle's data indicates that women are most often the partners who hope that a long-term relationship will develop as a result of a hookup. So naturally, they're the ones who are disappointed when nothing further transpires. The constant dashing of these hopes makes Bogle wonder aloud why women even deign to participate in the system.

Things that Make Ya Go Hmmmm….

Though Bogle raises numerous moral issues in her study, she hardly moralizes. In my estimation, her objectivity provides the perfect opportunity for readers to answer some important moral questions for themselves, rather than letting an "expert" answer for them. Questions such as…

• What happens when we divorce romance from marriage? Most of the women Bogle interviewed didn't see themselves marrying until their mid- to late-20s. The men imagined getting married in their late-20s to mid-30s. That means almost no one participating in campus hookups was even considering their hookup partner as a potential marriage partner. And that has significant practical and moral implications.
• What does relativism do to sexual ethics? The hookup script is pretty dominating on college campuses. Almost everyone follows it, but few can articulate its standards. What kind of cause and effect relationship does our environment have with our personal moral standards?
• Are gender roles really just a construct of traditional Christianity? Bogle found that, in general, men call the shots in the hookup script. I think it's rather peculiar, since hooking up was born of a feminist ideology that despises the idea of male leadership. What are we to make of this bit of irony?
• What kind of expectations should I have for relationships? Within the hookup culture, you're not supposed to have any expectations. But when girls begin to express their desire for a longer-lasting connection, they're called crazy. Guys, on the other hand, seem to get exactly what they want out of the hookup — sex with no commitment. But admit it: Even reading that last sentence makes you uncomfortable. (Either because you have to admit that it's true, or you want to protest that it can't be.) What exactly do we have a right to expect from our relationships? And what's stopping us from hopefully pursuing that?

Wrapping Up

All told, Hooking Up is a well-conceived study that both paints a picture of the college landscape and challenges students and their elders to think critically about it.

From a technical perspective, I should mention that it is sometimes annoying to read Bogle's verbatim transcriptions of interviews conducted in college-speak. (Do they, like, really need to say "like" so often?) Occasionally, multiple interviews on the same topic feel redundant. Usually, though, they just serve to make a thorough point, and the point is this: Like it or not, the current college population was born and raised after the advent of the hookup. The script is so ingrained in our culture that we hardly bother to question it.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Is this hook-up culture prevalent on your campus?

Join the discussion!

But we should — especially we who follow Christ. As I read, I thought of several ways in which the hookup mentality creeps into even Christian thought about relationships. So, I'm going to use Hooking Up as a starting point for addressing some of the questions I raised above. If you want to get a jump on the series, grab a copy of Bogle's book and see what big questions it raises for you.