By: Paige Gulliver

The movies I watched growing up painted college to be a seven-day party saturated with alcohol, drugs, and sex. The House Bunny, American Pie, Animal House, and Neighbors were all R-rated movies that formulated a crass yet exhilarating expectation for college. I excitedly expected my neighbors to be frat boy Zac Efrons and my sorority house moms to be former play-boy bunnies. This might have been a slight stretch, but what I did not realize was the culture and rhetoric around sex and hooking up that these movies portrayed was very much real.

Entering college with this toolkit of information and expectations made it all the more exciting, intimidating, and novel. Many aspects of my understanding of college life drastically changed during even just my first week. People weren't exactly drinking wine coolers on the quad or making out in the communal bathrooms, but nevertheless, many of the ideas from these movies rang true. The lack of parental guidance, plethora of condoms in my dorm lobby to promote safe sex, and jitters about meeting boys at bars for the first time gave me my first taste of hookup culture.

To define “hookup culture”; it is the conversation and ideas around sex and casual relationships in college. Moreover, it is the perpetuation and encouragement of casual sex in college. In one-way hookup culture facilitates the devaluation of sex as it happens more often and with more partners. It also places a form of pressure upon individuals who find themselves surrounded by these conversations and behaviors. Often - in my experience - there is shame in participating and shame in not participating. You’re a slut one way and stiff the other. This double-edged sword is one of the trickiest parts of hookup culture to navigate, especially for a first-year college student and further, especially for women.

“There is often intense shame associated with sex, especially for college women.”

In many ways, there is pressure to participate in hookup culture. The aforementioned movies, alongside the music we listen to, the content we see on social media, and conversations we have with our peers, generate an inescapable arena of sex. Before going out, my friends and I discuss what we are going to wear and where we are going, but we also discuss boys we want to hook up with. The morning after we divulge the events of a fun night, we laugh over a tumble on the way home or a spilled drink, but we also discuss the boys we hooked up with or tried to. It can be heard in many conversations and seen in many ways how prevalent hooking-up in college is.

If you participate, it comes with its own set of problems. Will that boy you went home with text you the day after? Maybe you don’t want him to text you the day after. Will other people hear about a sexual encounter you had the night before? The stress of your peers' perception of you is enough to induce anxiety about your own sexual endeavors. Hookup culture often leaves people in uncomfortable “situationships”. The implication of casual sex does not necessitate loss of emotional connection associated with sex, but maybe only for certain people involved. Taking part in hookup culture can lead to severe emotional distress via unreciprocated feelings towards a sexual partner or vice versa. Not only that, there is often intense shame associated with sex, especially for college women.

“Hookup culture is voluntary, but that isn't to say it is not compulsory.”

Slut-shaming is nothing new in our society. Women have been called out for explicit sexual behavior that is deemed inappropriate by society - mainly men - for years. Shaming women for their participation in hookup culture is an entire aspect of hookup culture in itself. The conventionality of associating these casual encounters with “sluttiness” comes from the same set of ideas that encourages meaningless sex. That is one of the many double-binds women find themselves in within hookup culture. I can speak from personal experience in saying that it isn't exactly a judgment-free zone when you walk in last night’s dress through campus the next morning.

It can be daunting for somebody entering college who doesn’t want to fall in line with the expected college sexual experience of sporadic random sex. It is daunting to walk into a new phase of your life that is sex-saturated, not to mention all the other novel experiences that come with college. Hookup culture is voluntary, but that isn't to say it is not compulsory. It can be hard to navigate as an uninterested bystander. The same shame doled out to women who engage is given to those who neglect to partake. In a different fashion, those who aren’t interested are deemed “prude”, “lame” or “stiff”. This form of pressure to join the troth of other students is somewhat unspoken. Still, the foundation of hookup culture is built upon the notion that individuals will willingly perpetuate the culture by participating.

*“There is an upside to walking home in last night’s heels.”*

As a female in the sexual sphere of college life, I have found that it can be complicated to figure out where to situate oneself within this culture. The rhetoric that surrounds hookups formulates these sexual encounters to be just that: an isolated encounter. With this can come emotional turmoil or anxiety surrounding the relationship with an individual post- hookup. There is indignity assigned to women whether they cooperate with the foundational ideas of hookup culture or not. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But, not really. There is hope. Everything I have said so far highlights the negative aspects of hookup culture. These aspects are fundamentally drawn from ideals of society that have long worked against women. But the nature of hookup culture provides a unique opportunity for sexual liberation and empowerment.

“Don’t feel as though the movie portrayals of college ring true, and don’t think you need to lose your virginity before college to fit in.”

As women, it is long overdue that we squash the shame and stand up to those who chasten college women. It is possible to go into college and not let the downsides of hookup culture hurt you. In the bigger picture, hookup culture is de-stigmatizing sex, normalizing sex purely for enjoyment on behalf of men and women, and raising awareness about STDs and safe sex. So there is an upside to walking home in last night’s heels.

To girls entering college: don’t listen to what other people say about you, say you should do, or say you shouldn’t do. The only person who should be concerned with your sexual encounters is you. Anybody who tries to pressure you into something surely isn't a true friend, and somebody who shames you for something is not one either. Don’t feel as though the movie portrayals of college ring true, and don’t think you need to lose your virginity before college to fit in. There are much more important aspects to your college experience to look forward to, and honestly, hooking up with boys you meet at the bar can be really fun. Make good friends, screw what other people say about you because they will talk either way, and use condoms.