Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus by Kathleen Bogle (e book reader android txt) 📗

KB: If girls are treated negatively if they hook up with or sleep with a lot of people, why do you think they do that?

Robert:I think it goes back to the need factor. They want to be needed or loved and it’s a quick fix or immediate gratification for them, the desire to be wanted or needed or [to] feel pretty. [Sophomore, Faith University]

Despite men insisting that women should not hook up “too often” or with “too many partners,” they were unable to offer a convincing opera-tional definition of these terms. In other words, men had a sense that it was not acceptable for women to “get around,” but they did not seem to know what “getting around” would really entail. When I pressed them to explain what “too often” or “too many partners” meant, they always resorted to giving a somewhat preposterous definition. Larry, a senior at Faith University, seems to have trouble identifying what qualifies as “a lot of guys.”

KB: You [said] “If a girl sleeps with a lot of guys she’s a slut.” How many would be a lot, in your opinion?

Larry: Umm. In a short amount of time, it would be like twelve guys. If she was just randomly doing that and had like no . . .

but just did it and was like: “Okay next.” You know, something like that.

KB: Okay.

Larry: And would do it like that, sleep with five guys in a week.

One every night, that would be like a slut.

The problem with Larry’s explanation is that the behavior he defines as that of a “slut” does not generally happen. Rarely do college women M E N , WO M E N , A N D T H E S E X UA ll D O U B ll E S TA N DA R D

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sleep with “five guys in a week” or “twelve guys” in a short period of time. Even among the most sexually active college women, such behavior would be considered exceptional. None of the quantitative data on the sexual behavior of American women indicates that young women engage in this level of sexual activity with multiple partners.15

Yet, many of the men I interviewed gave answers similar to Larry’s about what women do in order to get labeled “sluts.” This raises the question: Why do men consistently give such extreme examples when asked to explain what a woman might do that would lead to her being labeled a slut? The answer ties to an issue discussed in chapter 5. That is, although there are many norms governing the hookup script, there is simultaneously a sense of confusion, which is, in part, generated by the ambiguous nature of the term “hooking up.” The rules for sexual behavior within the hookup script do not seem altogether clear and, to complicate matters, college students often have distorted perceptions of what others are doing sexually. Therefore, it is not surprising that students had difficulty articulating what constituted a rule violation when they were not entirely clear on what the rules were in the first place. An alternate explanation is that male interviewees felt awkward telling a female interviewer their thoughts on what behavior they consider “slutty.” Perhaps men were afraid to cite less extreme behavior as promiscuous, given that they do not know anything about my beliefs (or behavior). However, I believe that the distorted perceptions of what others were doing is most likely behind the extreme examples cited by several men.

Another potential pitfall for women is hooking up with two different guys who know each other well. This is particularly problematic if the two different men are friends or fraternity brothers. The time span between the hookups is also a critical consideration. The men indicated that if a woman hooked up with two different men who knew each other without a reasonable amount of time between the hookup encounters, she would be labeled a “slut.” Again, it was difficult to pinpoint what men considered a “reasonable amount of time.” However, men seemed to object particularly to encounters that happened in the same month or even in the same semester (which generally equates to a three and a half month span of time).

Kevin: If she has a reputation then we know who she is. And she would know who we were if we were a group of guys that 108

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were all friends. If she blew three or four guys, of course she would get a reputation.

KB: What if it was just [a] hookup [which did not involve oral sex]?

Kevin: Still, that’s her writing her own fate.

KB: So it’s a no-no to hook up with several people in the same clique?

Kevin: You are only making yourself trouble. . . . If one girl would hook up with me and then my friend and so on, of course she’d get a reputation.

KB: Even if it was just kissing?

Kevin: Bad idea. How do you expect these people not to talk [when]

they’re friends? “Did you hook up with Susan?” “Yeah, I hooked up with [her].” “Yeah, me too.” She would have to realize that these guys are close buddies and of course they are going to know. I’d almost say that would be her fault. I would not put myself in the situation. [Senior, Faith University]

At State University, where fraternities were a more prominent feature of campus life, men indicated that the cardinal sin for women was hooking up with two or more men within the same fraternity. The same issues regarding hooking up with men who are friends applied here.

However, the fraternity dimension seemed to add insult to injury.

Kyle: If they have multiple partners in the same fraternity, I know other girls in other houses, even girls at our [fraternity]

house who have hooked up with six or