By: Daniel McGinn, Newsweek
Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Associate Professor Monique Ward and Developmental Area Graduate Student Allison Caruthers in Newsweek (October 4, 2004)

From the article:

Social scientists have recently begun to study sex on campus, insearch of the truth about 'hooking up'

...At the University of Michigan, more than 60 percent of students reported hooking up; they said that a typical hookup more often included "genital touching" than "a meaningful conversation."

Skeptics ask whether hooking up is really any different than the one-night-stands college students have had for decades. Most researchers believe it is, but it's hard to prove. The difficulty stems from the fact that older research focused on "casual sex," usually defined as an encounter that includes intercourse. Since many modern hookups stop short of all-the-way sex, it's hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons. But the academics say they're convinced the phenomenon has changed. "It's generalized ... now it's the campus norm," Paul says. "If you're a normal college student, you do it." While it's impossible to say exactly why students would rather hook up than seek traditional boyfriends or girlfriends, students say that greater competitive pressures—to build a resume, position themselves for grad school and chart a career trajectory—leaves them little time for romance. Says Michigan professor Monique Ward: "[They say] 'College is just a layover—I don't want to be tied down and committed'."

Those sentiments weren't apparent in Paul's focus group last week, probably because the students had just arrived at college. The group's more vocal participants happily discussed their motivations and the emotional fallout of their high-school hookups. Some said hookups often left them feeling lousy—especially if they'd suffered beer goggles (in which drunkenness led them to a substandard partner) or if one hookee caught feelings (meaning they became emotionally involved). When Paul asked how they defined a "good hookup," one young woman quickly answered: "When no one finds out about it or talks about it later."

Now that early studies have quantified the frequency of and sex practices that take place during hookups, researchers are becoming more interested in the emotional aftereffects. Some researchers are doing longitudinal studies that follow the same students from freshman year onward, to see how their attitudes change. For her current research Paul is asking more questions like "Do you think your hookup experiences are going to help you be a good relationship partner someday?" The students don't really have an answer. Some researchers worry that hooking up gives students sexual experience but no real relationship experience, which could affect their ability to segue into more adult, committed relationships. But Allison Caruthers, a Michigan Ph.D. student who's doing her dissertation on hooking up, cites research showing that people who've experimented with alcohol or marijuana are often psychologically healthier than people who abstained entirely. She believes there's a similarity in hookups. "People are looking at hooking up as this horrible, wretched thing, but some experimentation may actually be positive in terms of the way you think about sex and relationships," she says. For the freshmen gathered in the lounge last week, the next four years offer plenty of chances to learn those lessons.

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