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, the 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).
5. Since the inception of dating in the early part of the twentieth century, it has been the man’s responsibility to initiate the date, pick the woman up in his car, and pay for any costs incurred during the course of the date (Bailey 1988).
6. There may be other times at which men and women choose to engage in hookup encounters when the opportunity (i.e., “campus circumstance”) presents itself. For instance, many young alumni go to reunion events where alcohol is served and many familiar faces are present. This atmosphere might also be conducive to hooking up, although none of the men and women I spoke with mentioned it.
7. I am thankful to Rob Palkovitz, a member
