Hooking up is most widely practiced, endorsed, and controlled by students with intersectional privilege. But everyone on residential colleges campuses are living with hookup culture. What's it like to be in it, but not of it? This talk centers religious students, romantics, students of color, and queer and gender queer students, exploring what we do and don't know about their experiences.
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On the Margins of Hookup Culture: Student Diversity and Sex on Campus
1. On the Margins of Hookup Culture:
Student Diversity and Sex on Campus
Lisa Wade, PhD
2.
3. Recruitment: 101 1st-year students at two
historically white liberal arts colleges.
Data: 12 weeks of open-ended journal
entries.
Analysis: thematic, iterative, qualitative
coding to capture as much detail as possible.
4. • 22 working class or poor students
• 45 students of color
• 14 Latinx students
• 13 Asian students
• 10 Black students
• 7 mixed race students
• 0 American Indian students
• 19 identified as non-heterosexual
• 3 gay men
• 1 lesbian woman
• 1 bisexual man
• 5 bisexual women
• 1 queer woman
• 1 pansexual woman
• 2 women who preferred not to label
• 5 questioning women
• all cisgender-identified
• 75 female
• 26 male
5. The culture
A hookup is a presumed one-time sexual encounter with no
acknowledged romantic intent.
Hookup culture is an environment in which hooking up is
institutionalized, routinized, and ideologically hegemonic.
6. The culture
Wren (white, pansexual):
“I know that I should want to have sex all the time and should take
advantage of it when I get the chance. [When] I didn’t, I felt like a loser,
or uncool. … “You’re at college and you’re not having sex. What’s wrong
with you?”
7. The culture
masculine ↔ feminine
sex ↔ love
hookups ↔ relationships
↓ ↓
competitive ↔ cooperative
zero sum ↔ win-win
status-oriented ↔ status-neutral
achievement ↔ connection
disregard ↔ care
8. The culture
Traci (white, heterosexual):
“The whole point of hookups is get some and then be able to point the
person out to your friends and be like, ‘Yeah, that guy. That’s right. The
hot one over there. I got that.’”
9. The culture
Alan (white, heterosexual):
“In our room, sex is a commodity, which, like gold, increases a man’s
social status, especially if he ‘scores’ or ‘pounds’ an especially blonde
girl.”
10. The history
• How did college become fun?
• How did sex become part of that fun?
• And how did sex-for-fun become so widely endorsed?
11. I would incomparably rather
resign my place than allow young
men the right to meet in secret
when they choose without
knowledge of the Faculty.
12. I did get one of
the nicest pieces
of ass some day
or two ago.
14. Some of us are becoming the
men we wanted to marry.
15. The history
Eloise (white, heterosexual):
“I railed against the idea that women were needy, dependent, easily
heartsick, easily made hysterical by men, attention-obsessed, and
primarily fixated on finding romance. I did this by proving how very like a
boy I could behave.”
16. The history
All students: 4.06
By Greek affiliation:
• Greek students 6.77
• Non-Greek students 3.69
17. The religious and the romantic
Omar (black, heterosexual):
“I accepted everything that my pastor told me, like ‘abstaining from
sexual sin’ and ‘watching out for the devil’s sex tricks.’”
“I hope to meet more women and explore them sexually, [I want to]
enjoy the art of foreplay, without the actual play just yet.”
18. The religious and the romantic
Women
• Attend religious services often 2.57
• Attend religious services sometimes 3.96
• Never attend religious services 4.03
Men
• Attend religious services often 3.75
• Attend religious services sometimes 5.58
• Never attend religious services 5.13
19. The religious and the romantic
Angélica (black, heterosexual):
“just simply too weird and nasty”
“I swear, if they were to bend over, you will see some cheeks, and they
are not the good ones.”
20. The religious and the romantic
Arman (Asian, heterosexual):
“I felt more free and unbounded, but at the same time, guilt beyond
imagination.”
21. The religious and the romantic
Emory (white, heterosexual):
“I’m more interested in the timeless and seemingly archaic ideals of
romantic love and relationships than in the more fast paced, modern,
‘fuck and run’—to quote Liz Phair—thoroughly unromantic, sexual
lifestyle.”
22. Poor and working class students
Rosyln (Latina/white, heterosexual):
“I feel like students on less or no financial aid have grown up in lives
where everything is purchasable and there are not as many
consequences: tickets and citations get paid for, your education is paid
for, and your drugs and alcohol are paid for, too. I’m not a goody two
shoes or anything, and neither is my cousin, but we are very serious and
grateful for the opportunities we’ve been given and don’t want to lose
them.”
23. Poor and working class students
Kim-Li (Asian, heterosexual):
“Dreadful, because that is the time when all of the exciting things begin
to happen on campus.”
24. Sexual minorities
Wren (white, pansexual):
“They reverted back into gendered codes and masculine bullshit.
Everything was super hetero.”
25. Sexual minorities
Lanie (white, lesbian):
“Quickly, I was flirting with multiple girls, and even hooking up (no
strings attached) with one of them.”
26. Sexual minorities
All students: 4.06
Women:
• Non-heterosexual women 3.59
• Heterosexual women 3.59
Men:
• Non-heterosexual men 6.80
• Heterosexual men 4.88
27. Gender non-conforming students
Michelle (white, heterosexual):
“I have been told that I need a new wardrobe, to let my hair grow out
and dye it, and to shape my eyebrows. Oh, and I need a manicure... I
have been called ‘butch’ more times than I can count. I have also been
told that I dress like a homeless person and that I need a proper
haircut.”
28. Gender non-conforming students
Laura-Ann (white, heterosexual):
“When I walk into class I usually brace myself for a searing evaluation of
my clothing, which often flies at me like a rotten tomato. I have been
told that I look like ‘Jane Goodall on her day off,’ asked ‘Just back from
the nunnery?’ and told that no matter what my outfit I always manage
‘to bring it back to kindergarten.’”
30. Gender non-conforming students
Hiro (Asian, bisexual):
Malia: "Well then I have to tell you something. And it's a secret. A pretty big
secret, like if I tell you, you can't tell anyone at [the college]."
Me: "Okay…"
Malia: "I'm trans."
Me: "Oh. What does that mean, I mean, what does that entail?"
Malia: "Well I was born male, and well, I've obviously been taking hormones for
years now, … And I had chest surgery, but there aren't really any scars. Anyway I
don't know how experienced you are with sex, but --"
31. Gender non-conforming students
Hiro (Asian, bisexual):
Me: "I'm not very experienced."
Malia: "Well the sex wouldn't be like normal sex."
Me: Silence.
Malia: "I totally understand if this makes you not want to hook up. But we don't
even have to have sex. I like giving blow jobs, we could be make out and blow job
buddies."
Me: "Uh."
Malia: "I think you should think about it."
Me: "Yeah I'll think about it.”
32. Gender non-conforming students
Hiro (Asian, bisexual):
“I was out of the room within ten minutes. While I’m a very accepting and open
person and not at all prejudiced against transgendered individuals, this was too
much for me to handle, and so I sadly didn’t let anything happen further.”
33. Racial and ethnic minority students
Jaslene (black, lesbian):
“Hooking up is not for black people.”
34. Racial and ethnic minority students
Farah (Asian, heterosexual): “I’m not attracted to Asian men in the
slightest.”
Jewel (white, bisexual): “I’m mostly attracted to white people.”
Sherman (white, heterosexual): “I’m just really into white chicks.”
Elliott (white, gay): “I mean this in an un-racist way – but I usually only
find myself attracted to caucasian men.”
35. Racial and ethnic minority students
• All students 4.06
• Black men 6.03
• White men 5.51
• Latino men 5.09
• White women 4.33
• Latina women 2.90
• Asian men 2.77
• Black women 2.50
• Asian women 2.16
36. Racial and ethnic minority students
Jaslene (black, lesbian):
“Because I am a black female, I am automatically discounted from being
an object of desire because black females do not fit the social
constructed lens of beauty.”
37. Racial and ethnic minority students
Asao (Asian/Latino, heterosexual):
“[At a rave] you can be anybody. Black, white, Mexican, Filipino, you can
be an alien, it don’t matter.”
38. Racial and ethnic minority students
Roslyn (Latina/white, heterosexual):
“‘time to move on bro’ with a side of ‘she’s not hot, dude.’”
“I almost felt like waving my arms around screaming ‘HEEEYYY, I’m right
here!! Did you even think to look in this direction????’ I wasn’t even
interested in hooking up with this guy really, but the fact that he didn’t
even seem interested in being with me in the slightest was actually
hurtful.”
39. In conclusion
• Students on the margin are at highest risk of invisibility, rejection,
disrespect, violence, & criminal consequences.
• These students are more likely to report negative experiences and opt
out entirely.
• The alternative cultures they build in response may be healthier and
safer than the one that marginalizes them.
• We need more research on these students… and the kinds of colleges
they attend.
• Not only because they matter, but because understanding them will
help us theorize sexual cultures.
