wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Hooking Up?
It sounds alot like life at college when I was there (the mid-70's). There was plenty of pot, alchohol (the drinking age was 18 although I recall few people "binge" drinking) and a strong yen for experimentation and sexual gratification. Some "hook ups" lead to serial monagomous relationships but most didn't. As for dating, in the 70's there, was almost a sense that a date would probably lead to sex (remember what Alvy said to Annie before their "first kiss" on their first date in the 1977 movie Annie Hall). As it turned out, I had a very hard time getting girls to go out on dates. Perhaps they naturally factored sex into the equation (although I didn't) and made the preliminary decision that it wasn't worth it. It was so much easier to just "hook up" when everyone was more intoxicated and less inhibited. By junior year this actually led to a 14 month exclusive relationship that I still recall fondly.

I think the author missed the most effective target group and should have focused more towards Noah Wimmer's observations of high school and younger kids. That's where the dilemma is, at least when young kids are getting pregnant and getting STDs.

I don't know.......seems like trash to me!

I'm curious if the author has studied the transition of these types of students into the post-college dating world and how these people establish meaningful relationships. I would imagine that young people who have easily enjoyed casual encounters may later be incapable of developing meaningful relationships. Or may develop re-occurring sexual encounters (friends with benefits, f***-buddies) that lack the substance of "regular relationships," but that function in serving their need for sex and intimacy.

This topic is not trash considering the "phenomenon" of hooking up could change the landscape of romantic relationships.

Right on Ron Bashford

I hate to quote the Institute for American Values, but they seem to have scooped your guest in a report from 2001: http://www.americanvalues.org/html/a-pr_hooking_up.html

The upshot is that in addition to hooking up, there's the opposite phenomenon of "being joined at the hip," i.e., forming close relationships quickly.

Hooking up in college works because you don't have to really put yourself out there.

You can meet people without really saying I have feelings for you. You can wait and get their response the next day or blame the 'hook up' on the alcohol.

But what do you do when you graduate. You can't meet people the same way in the 'real world'...

I realize that the guest limited her study to majority-white campuses. But it's irresponsible not to emphasize that this is not a universal story (if you accept her observations as accurate); there are millions of people of color on college campuses whose stories are not touched by this segment.

It's only a problem because our society demonizes sex yet embraces violence. Weird, which is really more socially harmful?

A trend that benefits men. What a surprise.

Poor girls gone wild.

I'm a teacher and there's a seventh grader in my school that just had a baby. Nothing unusual - her parents gave her a shower.

(head on desk)....

is there any evidence that hooking up leads to an increase in STDs or pregnancies? Do college students who hook up generally use protection?

I teach at a small college in NC. I went to college myself in the 80s. I don't think that "hooking up" is substantively different from "getting laid" or "scoring", terms from the past.

And the rate of what was also once called "casual sex" is about the same as it ever was.

What does seem different is that I think students today are able to be more frank about their sex lives and their emotional struggles than in the past, so if anything, "hooking up" may be more significant because it suggest a more frank description of what's been going on for decades.

It's the wanton woes of the Wii generation that just can't wait, and has reinvented promiscuity. Another npr snorey time news segment.

I work in a middle school in the Bronx as a counselor and we see this exact behavior happen among our 12 - 15 year olds. (Not in school though, in their personal lives)

Moral decline is great.

More of it!!!

Hooking up is great!

Apparently this woman needs a hook up! :)

I understand teenagers in high school have a very active sex life also. so it's not going to surprise me to hear about college adults.

this is one battle of the culture wars the right is never going to win