Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout Our Lives

6. Hooking Up and Opting Out: Negotiating Sex in the First Year of College

128 | 6 Hooking Up and Opting Out Negotiating Sex in the First Year of College Lisa Wade and Caroline Heldman I wanted to explore, experiment, have fun, be a 19-year-old freshman in college. —Ramona Ramona’s optimistic remark, already in the past tense, captures the hopes and disappointments of many first-year college students. Ramona had a worse year than most. After surviving two attempted sexual assaults and one successful one, she decided to transfer to another college. “I don’t know where I will feel safe,” she explained, “but it’s not at this school.” Traditional students in their first year at many residential colleges find themselves in a highly sexualized environment with great freedoms and few protections. This is a critical age-related transitional period during which many students reconsider their sexual values and initiate or change their sexual behaviors. They do so in negotiation with other students undergoing the same transition, as well as with older students who already have some college experience behind them. In this chapter, we summarize the observations of 44 first-year students who were enrolled in a sexuality-related course and who were undergoing this life course change. With the transition to campus, students encountered an institution that enabled casual sex and peers who offered social support for “hooking up,” the term commonly used to describe casual sexual activity among college students. Almost two-thirds of students reported at least one hookup, acquiring up to 13 new sexual partners in their first year. These hookups involved nonrelational sex with strangers, acquaintances, or friends, usually under the influence of alcohol. More than simply casual, students reported a compulsory carelessness: norms of sexual engagement required students to have sex Hooking Up and Opting Out | 129 without caring for their sexual partner. Our analysis also confirms previous findings about the presence and normalization of men’s sexual coercion of women on contemporary U.S. campuses. In addition to corroborating previous findings, we offer two new insights. First, we add to the understanding of the nature of cross-sex friendships within hookup culture. Students found that friendships were difficult to establish and maintain because many cross-sex friends were also past or potential sexual partners. Second, we clarify the role of alcohol in preserving the meaninglessness of sexual activity. More than simply disinhibiting students, alcohol functioned to establish the illusion of carelessness required by the hookup script. Most respondents, both those who did and did not participate in hookup culture, were highly dissatisfied with sex on campus. Students expressed the desire for sex to offer them one of three things: meaningfulness, empowerment , or pleasure. However, most students, especially women, had difficulty achieving any of these things. In response, some clarified their sexual values and changed their behaviors. The first year of college, then, can help students to become more autonomous sexual adults. Hooking Up on College Campuses A life course perspective on sexuality brings the changes that occur as one ages into dialogue with one’s biography, demographic characteristics, and the cultural and historical context in which one lives (Carpenter & DeLamater, this volume). The first year of college is a life stage transition and, for many college students in the United States today, this transition requires the negotiation of a new script for sexual expression dictated by hookup culture. Research indicates that two-thirds to three-quarters of students hook up at least once during college (Armstrong, England, & Fogarty, 2009; England, Shafer, & Fogarty, 2008; Paul, McManus, & Hayes, 2000). A “hookup” is a nonromantic encounter with a friend or acquaintance that involves an unspecified degree of sexual interaction. While hooking up at college is not new, a culture of hooking up likely began to emerge in the 1980s or 1990s (Heldman & Wade, 2010). What differentiates contemporary hookup culture from the occurrence of casual sex is the virtual disappearance of the “going steady” dating culture (or script) that was dominant from the postwar period forward (Armstrong et al., 2009; Bogle, 2008). With dating no longer a socially sanctioned option, casual sex has become the dominant type of sexual activity and the primary “pathway into relationship” (England et al., 2008, p. 540). 130 | Sexualities from Young Adulthood through Midlife Compared to previous generations, then, students today are participating in more sexual activities with more partners and having less emotional intimacy. Rates of penile-vaginal intercourse have declined slightly (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006), with about one-third of...