Table Of ContentHOOKING UP
KATHLEEN A. BOGLE
HOOKING UP
Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus
a
NewYork University Press • NewYork and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
©2008 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bogle, Kathleen A.
Hooking up : sex, dating, and relationships on campus / Kathleen A. Bogle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9968-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8147-9968-X (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-9969-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8147-9969-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. College students—Sexual behavior—United States. 2. Dating (Social customs)—
United States. 3. Universities and colleges—Social aspects—United States. I. Title.
HQ35.2.B65 2007
306.73084'20973—dc22 2007029765
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
2 From Dating to Hooking Up 11
3 The Hookup 24
4 The Hookup Scene 50
5 The Campus as a Sexual Arena 72
6 Men, Women, and the Sexual Double Standard 96
7 Life after College: AReturn to Dating 128
8 Hooking Up and Dating: AComparison 158
Methodological Appendix 187
Notes 191
Bibliography 211
Index 221
About the Author 225
v
Acknowledgments
There are many people who helped make Hooking Uppossible. I am so
grateful to all of them because I know this book would never have hap-
pened without them.
Iwant to begin by thanking my mentor and friend, Joel Best, for be-
lieving in me and this project and for his invaluable feedback during
every phase. The best thing that ever happened to me career-wise was
being assigned as Joel’s teaching assistant during my second year of
graduate school at University of Delaware. It was Joel who encouraged
me to do this study on hooking up. Before I interviewed a single person
or wrote a single page, Joel told me to “picture the book on the shelf.”
Here it is and it would not have happened without him.
I was fortunate to have many other influential teachers during
graduate school whom I would like to thank, especially Ronet Bach-
man, Anne Bowler, Cynthia Robbins, and Gerry Turkel. Thanks also to
Kathleen Tierney for teaching me how to conduct qualitative research.
Ialso want to acknowledge Margaret Andersen, Susan Miller, and Rob
Palkovitz, whose insights and comments helped to shape this study.
Iwould never have started on the path of becoming a sociologist if
it wasn’t for the mentors I had as an undergraduate at Saint Joseph’s
University. I especially want to thank Raquel Kennedy-Bergen for in-
spiring me to choose this profession and helping me during so many
stages along the way.Iamalso thankful to Dan Curran and ClaireRen-
zetti, who wereinstrumental in getting me started in graduate school. I
was fortunate to return to my alma mater and teach there on a visiting
basis for a few years while I expanded my original study and trans-
formed it into a book. During that time, I was lucky enough to work
with George Dowdall, the best colleague anyone could ever have. I am
grateful to George for his advice and guidance on this project and be-
yond.
Iam very thankful to NYU Press for believing in this book. I partic-
ularly want to thank Ilene Kalish for making this opportunity possible
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
and Salwa Jabado for helping to see it through to the end. This book
benefited immensely from the comments of all the reviewers for NYU.
Aspecial thanks to Laura Carpenter for her thoughtful feedback during
the revision process.
Thanks to all my friends for seeing me through the long journey of
writing this book, especially Kerri Barthel, Cecilia Burke, Kim Delaney,
Jacki Hallinan, Katie Jones, Bob Mascioli, and Victor Perez. I am partic-
ularly thankful to Kara Power, who was very helpful during the final
stages of writing and revising. I am also grateful for the encouragement
of my friends and colleagues Kenny Herbst, Eli Finkel, Piotr Habdas,
and Andrew McElrone.
Iam appreciative of the many students, friends, and strangers who
have spoken to me over the years about their experiences with dating
and hooking up; their words helped inform my work. I owe a special
debt to the people who agreed to be interviewed for this project; they
generously contributed their time and shared the personal stories that
made Hooking Uppossible.
Finally,this book would never have happened without the support
of my family. Thanks to Aunt Ru for all the prayers and well-wishes.
Thanks to my parents for cheering me on all these years. Thanks to my
brother-in-law, Bill Benedict, for all the dinners and for putting up with
all the clutter. Thanks to my niece, Gracie, for being the bright spot of
every day. And finally, I would like to thank my sister, Jeannie, who
knows the material in this book as well as I do. She has read through
chapters, helped me figure out how to organize things, and in general
helped me make this book much better.If this book is successful, it is be-
cause of her.
1
Introduction
The journalist Tom Wolfe, a keen observer of American culture, offered
this musing on junior high, high school, and college students:
Only yesterday boys and girls spoke of embracing and kissing (neck-
ing) as getting to first base. Second base was deep kissing, plus grop-
ing and fondling this and that. Third base was oral sex. Home plate
was going all the way. That was yesterday. Here in the year 2000 we
can forget about necking. Today’s boys and girls have never heard of
anything that dainty.Today’s first base is deep kissing, now known as
tonsil hockey,plus groping and fondling this and that. Second base is
oral sex. Third base is going all the way. Home plate is learning each
other’s names.1
Clearly, times have changed. Most images that we see today of college
students are in a sex-charged atmosphere like MTV’s Spring Break,
where bikini contests, bump and grind dance contests, and “beach
sports” with barely clothed contestants arecommon scenes. Comparing
today’s “co-eds gone wild” with our idea of college students of yester-
year,it is perhaps easy to jump to the conclusion that our young people
arein moral decline. But it is too simplistic to characterize the change in
moral terms. Wolfe’s “bases” point to something much more than an in-
crease in sexual activity among today’s youth. I would argue that today
there is something fundamentally different about howyoung men and
women become sexually intimate and form relationships with one an-
other.For American youth, particularly college students, “dating” and
mating has become a whole new ball game.
Dating, which permeated college campuses from the 1920s through
the mid-1960s, is no longer the means to beginningan intimate relation-
ship.2College students rarely date in the traditional sense of the term.
Do they have sexual encounters? Yes. Are they interested in finding
1
