'Hooking Up' on College Campuses

By Mary Beth Bonacci
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 4/26/07)

I actually thought I was fairly “hip.” Granted, I graduated from college over 20 years ago. (Could that be possible?) But I didn’t think things could possibly have changed that much. The atmosphere on campus (especially at the state university where I spent my freshman and sophomore years) was extremely permissive. The co-ed dorms had no curfews and no visitation restrictions. The student health center freely distributed birth control. And although I didn’t personally participate in any sexual hi-jinx, I certainly heard enough about one-night stands and random promiscuity to know that I wasn’t living in a particularly chaste environment.
So I figured that when I was talking to college students about the challenges they face, I could speak with a certain amount of authority. That is, until I read Unhooked.
The full title of the book is Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. Written by Laura Sessions Stepp, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post columnist, Unhooked is an alarmingly comprehensive examination of the “hook-up” culture prevalent on high school and college campuses today.
I haven’t been able to read more than a few pages at a time. It makes me sad and almost physically sick to see what young, innocent kids are being exposed to.
The term “hooking up” originated in porn magazines in the early ‘90’s, but then rapidly made its way into campus culture. A “hook-up” is generally understood to be a random sexual encounter with no subsequent obligation or involvement between the parties.
I know, that sounds a lot like what we used to consider a “one-night stand.” But there are significant differences.
First of all, the “hook up” is vague. The sexual behavior involved could be anywhere from light petting to intercourse. More often than not, “hooking up” involves some type of oral sex. But the vagueness of the hook-up gives it a certain cover, a certain credibility. After all, it’s a lot easier to say “I hooked up with him” than “I gave him oral sex” (or any crude variation thereof).
Second is the deliberate randomness and anonymity of the hook-up. “One night stands” were usually understood to happen when two people who genuinely liked and enjoyed each other found themselves “swept away” in the moment and impulsively did sexual things that often they later regretted. But in the hook-up culture, students literally plan to engage in some form of sexual activity by the end of the evening but without having a specific partner in mind. They just show up at a party, see who looks attractive and take things from there. They also frequently “hook up” with more than one person in the course of a week, a weekend or even a single evening.
Third is the sheer pervasiveness of the “hook up.” When I was in college, promiscuity was the exception, not the rule. Most of us didn’t engage in promiscuous behavior. In fact, most of my friends didn’t engage in sexual activity at all. But that’s not the case on today’s college campuses. Stepp cites three different surveys at three different universities, each finding roughly the same result: four out of every five students report engaging in “hook-up” behaviors.
Four out of five. Eighty percent.
The “hook-up” seems to be about power. It’s the ultimate feminist fantasy — to see women embrace the worst stereotype of male promiscuity. And indeed, many of the young women engaging in this type of behavior rationalized it to Stepp by saying “If guys can do it, why can’t we?” And the men were quoted as saying “the women do all the work.” There is no dating, no courting, no real relationship at all. Just sex.
The women interviewed also reported being terrified by feelings of attachment or affection toward the men with whom they had “hooked.” They confided in each other that they were afraid of being needy, or clingy — a “weak woman.”
These women — and the men they are emulating — are not finding themselves “empowered” as a result of their random hook-ups. They’re winding up lonely and confused. Their grades are suffering. Their emotional health is suffering. And, for those who actually move from “hook-up” behavior into legitimate relationships, they find that their past behaviors leads to a regret and a mistrust that is very difficult to overcome.
I read this, a few pages at a time, and I think “how can we possibly respond to this? What can we tell these kids that could empower then to stand up to such powerful pressures?”
And it all comes back to the same thing. Warning them over and over of the dangers of the “hook-up” culture isn’t the answer. Neither is scaring them with pregnancy or disease statistics.
We need to fight ugliness with beauty. We need, more than ever, to instill in them the incredible dignity that they carry within themselves. We need to give them an overwhelmingly positive, beautiful understanding of the meaning of human sexual expression. They need it deeply embedded in their minds and hearts that sex is good, powerful and intimately tied to the deepest center of the human person. They need to “get” that sex speaks the language of marriage, and that to take it out of that context is to damage and disfigure a great and beautiful gift.
If we’ve succeeded in doing that, then we don’t have to dwell on the ugliness of the “hook-up.” We don’t have to discuss it directly at all. If they really understand the beauty and dignity of human sexuality, they will look at the “hook-up” culture and have the same response that I had. It’ll make them sick. And they’ll want no part of it.

Bonacci is a frequent lecturer on chastity.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Arlington Catholic Herald