Prior to her current position as non-resident research associate at the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, Donna Freitas was a professor. While teaching a dating and spirituality class, she became intrigued with the hook-up culture on college campuses.
Her students often talked about how great hooking up was and that everybody was doing it. Following spring break, students discussed what happened over the vacation. One woman who hooked up all the time said, "I hook up a lot. Not sure why I do it. I don't like it." One by one, other students said they felt the same way.
These comments sent Freitas on a quest to discover if her students were different from students on other college campuses. For nine years, she has traveled to college campuses to talk with students about sex and hooking up. She has interviewed students at private secular, public and Catholic colleges and universities. Her findings shed light on what drives the hook-up culture.
Forty-five percent of students interviewed said young adults believe they are expected to be casual about sex in college, yet 36 percent thought their peers were too casual about sex. When asked about the definition of a hook-up, students preferred a very broad definition because of the pressure to hook up, so they defined it as anything from kissing to sex.
Freitas also discovered an official social contract surrounding hooking up.
* Hook-ups must be brief, which could mean five minutes in the corner kissing or a quickie in the restroom.
* Those involved are to feel zero emotion to avoid attachment. Communication is considered bad. Communicating could lead to feeling, which is completely against the rules.
* Alcohol is often involved. Many students said that, without alcohol, nobody would ever get together.
When asked about their attitudes concerning hook-ups, 41 percent said they were profoundly unhappy, while 23 percent were ambivalent about their feelings toward the experience, and 36 percent said they were more or less fine with it.
Many students said hook-ups were efficient because, as students, they are really busy, over-scheduled and always on the go. They really didn't have time for relationships in college so hook-ups were an efficient way to get sex.
Yet when Freitas asked students about dating, both men and women said that nobody dates on campus, but they wished they would. Many respondents said if someone asked them out on a date they would go. There was much interest in dating, but students felt like they weren't allowed to date.
Consequently, Freitas said, there was a lot of yearning for romance and a connection of knowing and being known.
So what is the response to the hook-up culture? Freitas made these three recommendations:
* Teach young adults to slow down. Many students go and do without thinking which perpetuates the hook-up culture.
* Press the pause button. Encourage students to take a break, if only for the weekend, from the party culture.
* Start talking about love, romance, dating, intimacy and relationship skills. Most young people lack relationship skills, unwittingly advancing the hook-up culture.
Julie Baumgardner is president and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at julieb@firstthings.org.