Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (30 page)

The major drawback of the Glenn and Marquardt (2001) Institute for American Values study is that they only examined the sexual attitudes and behaviors of college women.

19. Glenn and Marquardt 2001, 4. Despite the contribution of these first scholarly studies on hooking up, they have many limitations. Because both studies were primarily based on quantitative methods, they could not, by design, analyze the hooking-up phenomenon in depth. In fact, many studies on sexual behavior rely on quantitative research. For example, see Laumann et al.

1994. Findings from this type of research identify rates and trends of sexual behavior (i.e., what people are doing.) However, statistics cannot reveal the meanings men and women give to a sex act and the context in which sexual activity takes place (i.e., why people are doing it). Thus, survey findings alone cannot fully reveal the complexity and variations in how the hookup system operates on campuses.

20. Vaughan 1986. Inspired by Diane Vaughan’s classic 1986 work,
Uncoupling,
I designed my research as a qualitative study.

21. By contrast, in both prior studies on hooking up, the researchers sup-plied the definition of hooking up used in their survey instruments. Although both studies used focus groups or interviews to inform their definition of hooking up, they were not fully able to capture the variations in how hooking up works from the definitions they employed. See Bogle 2005 for a full discussion on this.

22. The Institute for American Values study focused only on college women in the United States.

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23. The first wave of data collection consisted of 58 interviews for my doctoral dissertation (November 2001–March 2003). A second wave of data collection began after my degree was conferred in January 2004 (N = 18).

These interviews were added to ensure that theoretical saturation was reached (Glaser and Strauss 1967).

24. Glenn and Marquardt 2001; Williams 1998.

25. Examining how homosexual college students and recent alumni sexually interact and form potential relationships is an entire study in itself and beyond the scope of the present study.

26. Eble 1996; Murray 1991.

27. Goffman 1959.

28. Gagnon and Simon 1973. See also Simon and Gagnon 1984, 1986, 1987.

29. According to scripting theorists, cultural influences do not merely socialize individuals to learn how to constrain their “natural” sexual urges; rather, “sexual scripts specify with whom people have sex, when and where they should have sex, what they should do sexually, and why they should do sexual things” (Laumann et al. 1994, 6). Thus, sexual behavior is scripted in the sense that a given culture defines what is sexual and how sexual behavior should commence (Gagnon and Simon 1973).

30. Gagnon and Simon 1973; Laumann et al. 1994.

31. Gagnon and Simon 1973.

32. Ibid.

33. Kass and Kass 2000. See Carpenter (1998) for a discussion of how scripts for sexuality and romance are presented to teenage girls in
Seventeen
magazine.

34. See Laws and Schwartz (1977) for a discussion of how scripting theory can be used to understand the “social construction of female sexuality.” 35. Bailey 1988.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

1. Lipson 2002.

2. Prior to the twentieth century, although a particular script generally dominated a society, there was also quite a bit of variation in the local practices for intimate partnering. The local variations likely persisted because of the lack of mass communication throughout this time period (Shorter 1975).

Scholars have had to look to other sources, such as diaries, letters, and medical and other expert texts. Although these sources of data are important, they are largely written by and for members of the middle and upper class who had the ability to read and the means to write. Thus, these sources tend to enlighten us more on the script for intimate behavior for the middle and upper class or “elite” than for society as a whole. Despite this difficulty, many 194

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sociologists and social historians have undertaken this task (Bailey 1988; Coontz 1988; Gordon 1973; Lystra 1989; Murstein 1974; Rothman 1984; Shorter 1975; Whyte 1990). Importantly, some quantitative sources of data, such as census data and local records of births, marriages, and the like can help fill in some of the gaps left from the qualitative sources.

3. Bailey 1988; Murstein 1974; Shorter 1975.

4. Rothman 1984.

5. Shorter 1975; see Adair (1996) for an alternate view of the role of parental and community involvement in intimate partnering.

6. Bailey 1988.

7. Rothman 1984.

8. Shorter 1975. See also Coontz (2005) for a thorough discussion of the historical circumstances that led to love and romance playing a greater role in mate selection.

9. Sexual attraction remains paramount in the contemporary hookup script..

10. Bailey 1988.

11. Bailey 1988; Rothman 1984.

12. Specifically, the first usage of the term “dating” in this context was in 1896 (Bailey 1988).

13. Bailey 1988.

14. Bailey 1988.

15. Rothman 1984.

16. Rothman 1984.

17. Bailey 1988, 19.

18. Waller 1937.

19. Although courting may not always have culminated in marriage, the idea was that it would lead to marriage, or at least that it might. With dating, there is no explicit or implicit intention to marry one’s date (Murstein 1974). Although dating is viewed by some as a process of whit-tling down potential mates until one’s life partner is found (Whyte 1990), many scholars agree that dating has much more of a recreational tone (Waller 1937; Schwartz and Lever 1976). See Baruch (1980) for an interesting discussion of the “politics of courtship.” 20. See Gordon (1981) for a critical examination of Waller’s rating and dating complex.

21. See Horowitz (1987) for further evidence that dating is the key to women gaining status on campus during the 1920s and beyond.

22. See McComb (1998) for more on how young women were commodi-fied during the “rating and dating” era.

23. Unfortunately, Waller does not describe exactly what would constitute an “indiscretion.”

24. Waller 1938.

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25. Waller 1938.

26. Bailey 1988.

27. Bailey 1988, 28.

28. Bailey 1988.

29. Bailey 1988.

30. Bailey 1988.

31. Bailey 1988.

32. Cate and Lloyd 1992.

33. Bailey 1988, 51.

34. Bailey 1988.

35. Bailey 1988; Rothman 1984.

36. Bailey 1988.

37. Bailey 1988.

38. Bailey 1988. See also Bromley and Britten (1938) and Fass (1977) for more on college students’ sexual behavior during the “rating and dating” era.

39. Bailey 1988.

40. Bailey 1988, 80.

41. LeMasters, quoted in Bailey 1988, 80.

42. LeMasters, quoted in Bailey 1988, 80.

43. Bailey 1988; Rothman 1984.

44. Rothman 1984.

45. Bailey 1988.

46. Whyte 1990.

47. For example, Whyte (1990) found continuity in the age that dating began (i.e., 16 years of age). Whyte also found that parents of all generations “hover at the sidelines” of their children’s dating relationships, doing their best to exert their influence without outright controlling their children’s choice of dates (Whyte 1990, 39). See also Bruce (1976) and Leslie et al. (1986) for a discussion of parental involvement in the “courtship activities” of children.

48. Whyte 1990, 26.

49. Gagnon and Simon 1973.

50. Whyte 1990.

51. Bailey 1988; Horowitz 1987; Murstein 1980.

52. Horowitz 1987; Moffatt 1989; Strouse 1987.

53. Moffatt 1989, 49.

54. D’Emilio and Freedman 1988.

55. Laumann et al. 1994.

56. Gagnon and Simon 1987.

57. Laumann et al. 1994.

58. Cate and Lloyd 1992; Gagnon and Simon 1973.

59. Rubin 1990.

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60. Gagnon and Simon 1973.

61. Modell, quoted in Arnett 1998, 301.

62. Bailey 1988.

63. Poulson and Higgins 2003.

64. See Lance (1976) for a discussion of the effect of sex-integrated dormitories on college student sexual permissiveness.

65. Surra 1990.

66. Bianchi and Casper 2000.

67. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics 2001.

68. Cate and Lloyd 1992.

69. Glick 1975.

70. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2002.

71. Horowitz, 1987; Moffatt 1989; Murstein 1980; Strouse 1987.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

1. Most dictionaries do not include an entry on hookup or hooking up where the definition refers to a form of sexual interaction. This omission includes many dictionaries focused on slang terms or sexual terminology. An exception is Eble’s (1996) book on slang among college students. In a study on the use of slang terminology among students at the University of North Carolina from the 1970s to 1990s, Eble found the term “hooking up,” defined as

“to find a partner for romance or sex” or “to kiss passionately,” to be commonly used since the mid-1980s.

2. From this point forward, I will often refer to “college students”; however, I am referring only to the white, heterosexual, traditional-aged college students at the two East Coast universities I studied. As I indicated in chapter 1, the interviewees were not chosen via probability sampling; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to all college students.

3. See Manning (2005) for a discussion on middle and high school students’ participation in “nonromantic sexual activity.” 4. Stepp 2003.

5. See Bogart et al. (2000) for a discussion on college students’ interpretations of what scenarios count as “sex.” See also Sanders and Reinisch (1999) on the debate about what counts as “sex.” See Rosenblatt (1998) for a journal-istic account of this debate.

6. Notably, oral sex has become an increasingly common part of the sexual script for young heterosexuals over the last several decades. For a complete discussion of this change in sexual practice and its implications, see Gagnon and Simon (1987) and Laumann et al. (1994).

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7. This point is confirmed by Carpenter’s (2005) work on the meaning assigned to virginity loss. Specifically, she found that men often perceive virginity as a “stigma” that they strive to hide from friends and have to get rid of as soon as possible.

8. I will return to this issue in chapter 6 with a discussion of why women feel the need to protect their reputation because of the sexual double standard.

9. College students traveling in groups to parties and other social events has been taking place since at least the 1970s (Horowitz 1987; Moffatt 1989; Murstein 1980; Strouse 1987).

10. See Holland and Eisenhart (1990) for a discussion of college women’s preoccupation with beautifying their appearance in order to appeal to men during cross-sex interaction at parties, bars, sporting events, and so on. See also Grazian (in press) for a discussion of college women’s (and men’s) preparations for a night out.

11. See Greer and Buss (1994) for a discussion of what tactics college students use to promote sexual encounters and how these tactics vary by gender.

See Moore (1995) for how adolescent girls utilize facial expressions and gestures to signal interest in boys.

12. See Armstrong (2005) on how “in-network strangers” affect socializing on a college campus.

13. What determines who is attracted to whom is a complicated matter.

However, Laumann et al. (1994) shed light on this issue with their discussion of human capital and the sexual marketplace. They argue that people possess a collection of qualities that place them on a continuum of desirability in the sexual marketplace. Interested parties are, in a sense, shopping for a potential sexual partner. However, not everyone will meet a shopper’s criteria for a potential match. Importantly, which qualities are valued in potential sexual partners depends not only on individual preferences, but also on what a given culture defines as desirable in a partner. See also Townsend and Levy (1990) on what characteristics college students look for when selecting partners.

14. Bailey 1988.

15. Martin and Hummer 1989.

16. See Gagnon and Simon (1973) for a discussion of how nonverbal cues play a role in sexual scripts in general.

17. Consistent with Gagnon and Simon (1973), the hookup script begins with nonverbal cues, which are derived from culturally agreed upon symbols of sexual interest. Some in the field of communication (see Koeppel et al. 1993) have found that there are significant gender differences in interpreting nonverbal cues. For instance, men tend to perceive women as making a sexual advance when they initiate interaction, while women perceive a male-initiated conversation as “just being friendly.” My research has not uncovered gender differences in this regard; however, direct questions on this subject might have yielded different results.

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18. Given that many religious denominations attempt to regulate the sexual behavior of their members, one might expect religion to have an effect on sexual behavior. Yet most of the college students I interviewed who were practicing members of their particular religious denominations still took part in the hookup script—an issue I will return to in chapter 4.

19. Paul, McManus, and Hayes 2000.

20. This finding is consistent with Glenn and Marquardt’s (2001) finding, in the survey portion of their study: 57 percent of college women indicated that they felt “awkward” after hooking up with someone.

21. This finding is similar to Willard Waller’s (1937) revelation that male/

female interaction on campus is governed by the “principle of least interest,” where the party with the least interest in a relationship holds all the power.

22. Importantly, college students’ use of the term “dating” did not reflect the traditional meaning of the term. In other words, students were not referring to the traditional dating script, which would include going out to dinner or the movies or any other public place to spend time together. Instead, “dating” referred to repeatedly hooking up with one person and having some form of contact between the hookup encounters.