7. See also Arnett (2004) for a discussion of women’s “deadline” for marrying.
8. A national study revealed that 63 percent of college women were interested in finding a potential future spouse during their college years (Glenn and Marquardt 2001).
9. Arnett 2001, 2000, 1998.
10. Arnett 2000, 1994.
11. A similar sentiment was echoed by female students at Duke University who were interviewed by a journalist from Rolling Stone magazine (Reitman 2006).
12. The majority of students on both campuses live on campus or in nearby apartments or houses; very few commute from their parents’ homes.
13. There are numerous other reasons why men and women have different goals for the types of relationships they seek. I will discuss these further in chapter 6.
14. Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolata 1995.
15. The experience may be somewhat different for commuter students who do not have 24-hour access to campus facilities. However, the overwhelming majority of students at both campuses I studied live on campus or in nearby student apartments or houses. Examining how commuters are affected by the hookup culture on campus is beyond the scope of this study.
16. The fact that fraternity men are among the most sexually active on campus can be explained by Martin and Hummer (1989). They found that the selection process for gaining entry into a fraternity ensures that the most macho, athletic, and “womanizing” men will be admitted to brotherhood, while those who do not live up to these standards are more likely to drop out during the pledge process or never attempt to pledge in the first place.
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17. See Martin and Hummer (1989) for more on how fraternity members use alcohol in sexual situations.
18. See Boswell and Spade (1996) for a discussion of how the characteristics of certain fraternities make them more conducive to the sexual exploitation of women.
19. See Williams (1998) for a discussion of how college women use alcohol to navigate sex and relationships.
20. Bergen 1998. Also see Sanday (2007).
21. See Glenn and Marqurardt (2001) and Williams (1998).
22. In terms of racial diversity, I conducted interviews with two African American students (one male, one female) and two Asian American students (one male, one female). Although the number of interviews with students from diverse backgrounds was too small to state anything conclusively, my findings do confirm what others have found. That is, how men and women meet, interact, and form sexual or romantic relationships varies by race. See Glenn and Marqurardt (2001) and Williams (1998).
23. Minority students are also significantly less likely to binge drink (Wechsler 1994). This fact may also decrease the likelihood that they are involved in hooking up.
24. I interviewed two gay men and one bisexual woman in a focus group at Faith University.
25. For more on the experience of gay men on campus, see Queer Man on Campus (Dilley 2002).
26. See also Glenn and Marquardt (2001) for a discussion of how college women believe they bear the burden of initiating “the talk.” This expression refers to a woman asking a hookup partner: “What are we?” or “Where is this going?” Furthermore, Glenn and Marquardt found that although women often initiate this conversation, it is generally men who decide if a series of hookups will evolve into a relationship.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 5
1. See Ericksen (1999) for a discussion of how the general public finds out what is “normal” in the realm of sexual behavior. Specifically, Ericksen found that surveys on sexual behavior do more than merely tell the public about patterns of human behavior; rather, they actually shape subsequent sexual behavior by telling the public what is “normal.” Thus, Ericksen suggests that perception of what is normal affects what becomes the norm. While Ericksen focuses on how perception is affected by cultural messages (in the form of academics, journalists, activists, and the like touting the results of sex surveys), she acknowledges that there are many places where one can receive messages about sexual norms.
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2. This finding is consistent with what Moffatt (1989) found in his ethnographic study of campus life at Rutgers University in the late 1970s and 1980s.
That is, gossiping about sexual activity among one’s peers is a central activity among college students. See also Holland and Eisenhart (1990) on how peer influence affected college women in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
3. This is consistent with Glenn and Marquardt’s (2001) finding that many women are looking for “Mr. Right” during their college years.
4. Coontz 2005.
5. The discrepancy between the number of sexual partners for men and women has been found in quantitative studies. For instance, Laumann et al.
(1994) found that the median number of sex partners since age 18 for adult men in the United States is six, while the corresponding number for women is two. This discrepancy may be partially due to reporting bias (see Schwartz and Rutter 1998).
6. See Martin and Hummer (1989) for a more detailed discussion of how fraternity men “use” women.
7. See Schwartz and DeKeseredy (1997) for a discussion of the role fraternities play on the college campus in fostering an environment conducive to both a sexual conquest mentality and sexual abuse of college women.
8. See Thorne (1993) for a discussion on how childhood socialization contributes to the sexual scripts that men and women play out as adults.
9. See Scholly et al. (2005) for a discussion of how college students’
misperceptions of their peers’ sexual behavior can encourage engaging in
“risky” sexual behavior to conform to what they mistakenly believe is the norm.
10. Recall from chapter 3 that college students believe that one must have sexual intercourse in order to “lose” their virginity. Oral sex is considered a less serious form of sexual interaction. Therefore, engaging in oral sex does not preclude one from being considered a virgin. See Carpenter (2005) for a detailed discussion of how men and women perceive virginity loss.
11. At State University, a few students mentioned the legend that the statue of their mascot would fly away if a virgin graduated from their school.
A colleague pointed out that there are similar legends at many institutions of higher education (see Bronner 1990).
12. The students that made positive comments about virginity seemed to fit what Carpenter (2005) refers to as the “gifters” (i.e., people that perceive virginity loss as giving a gift of oneself). See Sprecher and Regan (1996) for more on how college students perceive virginity.
13. This is consistent with Carpenter’s (2005) analysis of the meaning many men assign to virginity loss (i.e., that virginity is a stigma they wanted to “get rid of”).
14. Glenn and Marquardt 2001.
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15. See the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA) sexual health data from spring 2003 to fall 2005.
16. Carpenter 2005.
17. Paul, McManus, and Hayes 2000.
18. Although the college men I spoke with also believed that their classmates were more sexually active than they themselves were, women were more likely to quantify the difference between themselves and their female counterparts in terms of a different average number of partners.
19. See Scholly et al. (2005) for a full discussion of the comparison between misperceptions of alcohol use and misperceptions of sexual behavior on the college campus.
20. See Lambert et al. (2003) for a discussion of how the concept of “plu-ralistic ignorance” can shed light on how college students feel pressure to conform to their perceived norms of the hookup culture.
21. This finding is consistent with what Moffatt (1989) found among undergraduates at Rutgers University in the 1970s and 1980s. See Carpenter (2005) for a detailed discussion on how virgini
ty loss is viewed by some as a stigma.
22. The encounter Stephen discusses could be interpreted as rape given that the woman was too intoxicated to give “meaningful consent.” Unfortunately, most of such cases are not reported or prosecuted (Bergen 1998). See Sanday (2007) for a discussion of the connection between fraternities and rape on the college campus.
23. Moffatt also found in his ethnographic study that undergraduate students at Rutgers University were unclear on what other students were doing sexually. “They had their guesses, but they only knew for certain about themselves and perhaps about their closest friends” (1989, 186).
24. Similarly, Holland and Eisenhart found in their study of college women in the late 1970s and early 1980s that “women appeared not to agree on the amount and kind of sexual intimacy appropriate for different stages of a romantic relationship” (1990, 244).
25. Very few students in my sample suggested that one should have to wait for marriage or engagement to have sexual intercourse.
26. Glenn and Marquardt (2001) also found that many college women say that what others do sexually is none of their concern. In the quantitative portion of their study, 87 percent of their respondents agreed with the statement that “I should not judge anyone’s sexual conduct except my own.” 27. See Modell (1989) for the historical antecedents of the ethic of individual choice among youth in the United States. See Arnett (1998) for how inde-pendent decision making factors into the transition to adulthood among contemporary youth.
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6
1. Cultural expectations for sexual behavior began to change in the 1960s as other changes swept the nation. Among these changes were the second wave of feminism, the advent of the birth control pill, and the growth of the youth culture (D’Emilio and Freedman 1988). See Risman and Schwartz (2002) for a discussion of how the sexual revolution has affected teen sexual behavior and relationships.
2. A Web site even sold “Team Aniston” T-shirts so that American women could show their support for the jilted, good-girl wife.
3. The sexual double standard refers to the idea that society has different guidelines for men and women when it comes to what is permissible sexual behavior (D’Emilio and Freedman 1988; Reiss 1997; Rubin 1990). The rules for men’s sexual behavior have remained the same throughout the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. That is, men are free to have “sexual relations,” including sexual intercourse, prior to marriage. Moreover, single men are more or less entitled to engage in heterosexual activity whenever they have the opportunity to do so. For women, the rules are different. Historically, women were expected to remain “chaste” until they married. Only married women were supposed to engage in sexual intercourse. Single women who flouted this rule were considered promiscuous (Rubin 1990; Willis 1992). The societal standard for female sexual behavior meant that women were believed to be either “good” girls or “bad” girls. Thus, in theory men were permitted to have sexual intercourse prior to marriage with “bad” girls while “good” or
“respectable” girls waited until they were married to have sex (Rubin 1990).
See Hynie et al. (1997) for a summary of some of the contemporary debates among scholars regarding the sexual double standard.
4. The students I spoke with did not appear to go on traditional dates in high school; however, many of them did have an exclusive relationship for part of their high school years. See Schneider and Stevenson (1999) for a complete description of the lives of America’s teenagers.
5. Recall from chapter 3 that a “random” hookup refers to a sexual encounter between two partners who do not know each other well (or at all) prior to the evening of the hookup.
6. One male interviewee did indicate that he was interested in a relationship but was having difficulty finding one. However, this interviewee mentioned that he is very shy and does not feel comfortable meeting new people.
Thus, his struggles in finding a relationship seemed to have more to do with his personality traits than the overall situation of men on campus.
7. Komter 1989.
8. The interest some women had in finding a potential marriage partner during college is consistent with Glenn and Marquardt’s (2001) finding that 204
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while many women are “hooking up and hanging out,” they are simultaneously “hoping to find Mr. Right.” Specifically, Glenn and Marquardt found that 63 percent of college women would like to meet their future spouse in college.
9. Rubin 1990; Willis 1992.
10. Teachman 2003. See Earle and Perricone (1986) for a discussion of how men and women’s attitudes toward premarital sex can differ more than their actual behavior.
11. This finding is consistent with what others have found. For instance, only 23 percent of Americans approved of premarital sexual intercourse under certain conditions in 1963 compared to a 76 percent approval rate by 1996
(Reiss 1997). This raises the question: What conditions must be present for premarital intercourse to be accepted? Sherwin and Corbett addressed this question by examining “changes in sexual norms reported by students at the same university on three occasions over a 15-year time period: 1963, 1971, and 1978” (1985, 258). They found that there was a significant increase in approval for sexual intimacy; however, this increase was “most noticeable for those male-female relationships where affection and commitment was present and least noticeable for casual male-female relationships” (1985, 258). See Harding and Jencks (2003) for more on changing attitudes toward premarital sex from the 1960s through the end of the twentieth century.
12. See also Glenn and Marquardt (2001) regarding the labeling of college men as “players.”
13. It seems that the terms “whore” and “slut” are so strongly associated with women that the modifier “man” or “male” has to be put before these words to indicate an exception.
14. The reader should note that in the sections that follow on the unwritten rules for the hookup scene, the majority of quotes are from men. Female interviewees were aware that there is a sexual double standard as well as what behaviors might lead to labeling a woman a “slut.” However, male interviewees were more vocal on this subject and thereby provided the most useful data (or quotes) to illustrate each unwritten rule.
15. Glenn and Marquardt 2001; Laumann et al. 1994.
16. In Carpenter’s (2005) book on virginity loss she discusses a 1924 novel, The Plastic Age, on the changing customs of white college youth. In this novel, author Percy Marks refers to “dirty” men who “chase around with rats” (i.e., cheap women). Thus, terms such as “houserat,” which appear to apply to the contemporary college campus, may prove to have historical antecedents.
17. Lemert 1967.
18. Lemert (1967) referred to this type of behavior as “secondary deviation.” 19. College women’s attempt to avoid stigmatization is something that has been found in different eras as well. Holland and Eisenhart (1990) found N OT E S TO C H A P T E R 7
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that college women on the two campuses they examined, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, actively sought steady boyfriends in order to avoid the potential problems managing their reputation if they were single. See Holland and Eisenhart (1990) also for more examples of college women’s strategies to manage their reputation and other problematic aspects of “romantic relations” on campus.
20. See Cassell (1984) for a discussion of how many women feel they must be “swept away” by their romantic feelings in order to justify engaging in sexual intercourse.
21. See also Glenn and Marquardt (2001) on “the talk.” 22. The odds may be against women who hope to turn a hookup into a relationship. In a representative study of undergraduates at a large college in the northeastern United States, only 12 percent of hookup encounters segued into a relationship (Paul, McManus, and Hayes 2000).
23. According to a couple of interviewees, t
he term “friends with benefits” is something they originally heard on television. A cruder version of
“friends with benefits” was referred to by one interviewee as a “fuck buddy.” This term has been used on the HBO sitcom Sex & the City.
24. See Afifi and Faulkner (2000) for more discussion on sexual activity in cross-sex friendships.
25. In a few cases, students said women also initiate “booty calls.” 26. A few women I spoke with seemed to indulge in hooking up for its own sake (i.e., they were not looking for a relationship at the time) even after freshman year. For instance, one woman I interviewed wanted to be free for a while because she had had two consecutive serious relationships stemming from high school. Another woman had a “bad experience” with a hookup partner and wanted to stay single as a result. However, even these women admitted they wanted relationships in the past or hoped to have them in the near future. None of the women I spoke with wanted to
“just hook up” indefinitely.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 7
1. Although there are other places where they meet people to date, such as work, the gym, or church, bars and parties remained among the primary meeting places for the heterosexual singles in my sample.
2. In a sense, it is not surprising that women would be fearful or cautious around strange men. In general, survey research indicates that women are fearful of crime, particularly sexual victimization (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 1998). Therefore, strange men could be feared as potential perpetrators.
3. Thomas 1923.
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4. See Rose and Frieze (1989) for a discussion of how the advice literature has shaped young singles’ scripts for a first date. Importantly, the authors note that “cultural norms for the first date are explicit, formal, and have changed little over the past 30 years” (1989, 259).
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