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

take her on an expensive date.41 In many cases, a woman’s worth was determined less by intrinsic or individual qualities than by her popularity or reputation as a sought-after date.42 Indeed, the discourse surrounding dating indicated that women, in particular, were treated as commodities.43 This point is clearly demonstrated by the comparison often made between women and cars during the dating era. According to social historian Beth Bailey: “The equation of women and cars was common in mid-century American culture. Both were property, both expensive; cars and women came in different styles or models, and both could be judged on performance. The woman he es-corted, just as the car he drove, publicly defined both a man’s taste and his means.”44

Since hooking up does not involve a pair going out together, there is no reason to directly spend money. Although financial costs are still associated with collegiate social activities, they no longer consist of men spending money on their dates the way they did during the dating era.

According to the college students I interviewed, both men and women generally “pay their own way” for admission into an event, such as a party that has a cover charge to gain entrance. Thus, women are no H O O K I N G U P A N D DAT I N G

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longer subject to being evaluated in terms of how much they are

“worth” as they were during the dating era, and men are less often judged by the size of their wallet (or their family’s bank account). The fact that finances have been taken out of the equation for the hookup script in college creates an atmosphere that is less money focused. Jake, a 28-year-old alumnus of State University, discussed the difference in money and status during college and after.

KB: You mentioned that sorority girls only seemed to want to be involved with fraternity guys. Why do you think it worked like that?

Jake: Because that’s the way it always is. Girls want the football guys. They want the jocks or whatever. That’s the way it has always been, probably always will be.

KB: So they just want people with high status and certain people have high status?

Jake: Exactly. If you are not in, you’re out. Just like in the real world there are certain things that girls want, if you don’t have it, you are out.

KB: Okay. Do you have it?

Jake: [Laughs] Do I have it? Now I do. Back then [in college] I didn’t.

KB: So you weren’t an athlete or fraternity member [during college]? What do you have now?

Jake: See what happens is, and this is from everybody I hear, and this definitely includes myself, when you’re out in the working world for a few years and you start making a few bucks, you start learning how to dress, you get better friends, you get a nice car, you start to put things together. You figure out who you are, in college you don’t have a clue. . . . But that’s pretty much what happens, you get a job, you get some experience.

KB: So now you have the car, the clothes, the job, is that what

[women] are looking for? What makes you in better shape now than other guys?

Jake: The smart guys [in college who got] straight A’s or whatever, finance [majors], the payoff isn’t until after they graduate and until they start making some money. That’s the payout.

In college, money doesn’t matter. Everybody is equal. Everybody is living off of Mommy and Daddy anyway, so money 172

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is no big deal. Of course if somebody is richer than somebody else it helps, but not until you get out in the real world do girls start to wake up . . . once their [biological] clock starts to tick, once they hit twenty-five. Then the roles reverse; the guy is more mature and the girls are starting to panic. A flip-flop.

POSTPONING ADULTHOOD

In Jake’s observation on the difference between students and alumni, he mentions college students’ dependence on parents. Since most college students are of legal age upon entering college (a traditional marker of the beginning of adulthood), it raises the question: Do contemporary college students see themselves as adults? In the dating era, most considered marriage as the most important factor in the transition to adulthood. With the average age at first marriage in the 1950s dating era 20

for women and 22 for men, students were likely to be considered by society, and to think of themselves, as adults during their college years.45

In recent decades, men and women have been postponing marriage and many other role transitions (such as parenthood and home ownership) and college students have become less likely to think of themselves as adults.46

In the hookup era, students tend to view their college years as a last chance to “live it up” before settling down into their postcollege career.

The men and women I spoke with defined college as a time to have fun and referred to graduation as a time when “real life” and adult responsibilities began. This mentality greatly affects their attitude and behavior in the realm of sex and relationships during their college years, allowing contemporary college students more freedom to experiment and “play the field.”

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Although there are many differences between the dating and hooking-up scripts, there are also important similarities. One thing that has not changed with the shift to hooking up is that men continue to hold most of the power, as they did in the dating era. When the calling system was H O O K I N G U P A N D DAT I N G

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abandoned in favor of dating, there was a shift in power from women to men.47 In the calling era, young women and their mothers had the power to invite men to call (i.e., come to their home for a visit). If a man was interested in a woman, he had to