KB: If “she does do all of that,” [meaning] sex, or even less than that?
Max: Well, even less than that. [Emphasis by interviewee]
As Max suggests, it is acceptable to do “whatever” with someone sexually who is “just a hookup.” Although Max says he would not perceive a girl as “dirty” in that situation, the point seems to be that he does not care. If it is just a one-night stand, it does not seem to matter.
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T H E H O O K U P
Some college women seem to have realized that men think less of them if they are too sexual during an initial hookup or in the early stages of a series of hookup encounters with the same person. Thus, women will sometimes alter how much they are willing to do sexually to fit the situation. If she likes a man and wants him to like her back, she is less likely to be very sexual with him. The concept of being less sexual with someone if you actually like him (or wanted him to like you) was echoed by several of the women. Marie, a senior at State University said:
Marie: [If] I know I kind of like this person, [then] maybe [I won’t do] anything [sexually] because I want this person to respect me and maybe not just look at it as a hook up. Because I feel like when you sleep with somebody, then they tend to look at you as just a hookup.
KB: If you like someone, you would be less sexual with [him]?
Marie: Hmm-hmm, yeah.
Jen, a junior at State University, echoed Marie’s opinion.
The more that I like somebody the more I don’t want to have sex with them. . . . And I can kind of tell when someone tries to have sex with
[me] right off the bat or that night I just feel like it’s not really showing respect. I feel like when you really like somebody they’re not going to try [to have sex immediately] because they have respect for you. [Emphasis added]
Violet, a junior at State University, said she would recommend not hooking up with someone at all if you have genuine feelings for him.
Violet: I think you learn that if you hook up with somebody it is probably just a hookup and nothing is going to come of it.
And if you have any invested feelings in someone, I wouldn’t hook up with him at a party drunk. But if you are a freshman you go into it thinking: “I am going to have a good time, drink and talk to the person I want and when I am drunk I can really say what I want to say.” . . . And I think that when you get further in schooll. . . you learn that things aren’t always the way that you would think that they’d be.
T H E H O O K U P
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KB: So would you say that freshmen girls would think that a hook up might turn into something [relationship-wise] and girls that are sophomores, juniors and older would realize that that is not the case?
Violet: Yes.
Importantly, Marie, Jen, and Violet were juniors or seniors at the time of their interviews. Thus, they had had many opportunities to learn how the hookup script works in college. It seems likely, as Violet suggests, that many young women are less aware of these norms, particularly during freshman year. Thus, less experienced college women may be sexual with someone with the hope that such behavior will lead to a relationship; they may not suspect that their sexual availability decreases their chances of having the man pursue a relationship. One quantitative study confirmed what the upper-class women I spoke with believed; that is, 49 percent of college students who engaged in sexual intercourse during a hookup encounter said they never saw the person again.19 Indeed, members of the campus culture had to learn over time the rules of the hookup script.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
There are many potential outcomes of a hookup encounter. The college women I spoke with, particularly after freshman year, came to realize that you “have no idea what will come out of a hookup.” In a sense, hooking up is a roll of the dice. According to both men and women, the most likely outcome is “nothing”—the hookup partners part ways either the evening of the hookup or the next morning. No romantic relationship is directly pursued by either party, and their relationship returns to whatever they were to each other prior to the hookup. As Emily, a sophomore at Faith University, put it: KB: Generally speaking, of the students you know, if someone hooks up with someone is it likely that they’re going to hook up with them again or is it more often that it happens once and doesn’t happen again?
Emily: More often it happens once and doesn’t happen again.
KB: And why do you think it works that way?
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T H E H O O K U P
Emily: I think that’s the accepted way that it is and I think that people drink and then they hook up and maybe there’s attraction there and then it’s not there anymore or maybe it’s awkward or maybe you hook up with someone you don’t really know and then you don’t really take the time to get their number. Like sometimes when I hook up with people like I might not have any interest in them, but
