<p>The article really doesn't say much. I have heard a lot about how hooking up is all the rage. However, I am not so sure it's anything new. I doubt things are that much different today than they were when I went to school. I do agree that the more that it seems "everyone is doing it," the more some young people will feel pressured to do it or ro feel validated in doing it. But that didn't begin recently. It began with the whole free love & drug culture of the 60's (or at least picked up some speed then). In my own experience, I knew a lot more college freshmen hooking up 30 odd years ago than my D, a current college freshman, knows. I hear about campuses where hooking up is the norm, but I also know kids at campuses where it is not. Heck, my great aunt "trapped" a guy on purpose many, many years ago when she was about that age ... so I guess there was some hooking up going on back then, too. The researcher admits to not being able to draw a comparison to the past.</p>
<p>I am not saying that hooking up is okay. Hopefully, I taught my own kids enough self respect & respect for the opposite sex to avoid casual sexual encounters. I am just saying I don't know if it's really more widespread today ... or if it's just more talked-about today.</p>
<p>Good food for thought, though.</p>
<p>Right, Kelsom. The only difference that I can see is that it didn't used to be called a "hook-up."</p>
<p>^^^ It was called a typical Friday night!</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>10 characters</p>
<p>"Hooking up?" Not so new or different at all. For those with parents born in the 1910s, they had their turn.</p>
<p>Roaring</a> Twenties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>I think what's new, at least according my daughter, is that with graduate school looming and so much "hooking up" available a lot of guys (I'm sure it extends to women, too, but I have heard her side of it) have no interest in a relationship at all. And I'm not talking about a serious, on the way to marriage relationship, I'm just talking about we'll go to the movies and eat some meals together for a few months kind of relationship.</p>
<p>I think this is different. Yes, I was in serial relationships, but they were relationships. There was hooking up too, but I could find people interested in more than that. D says it's really difficult for her. She's a total knock-out btw.</p>
<p>Agree w/kelsmom -- not much new here, especially:</p>
<p>"What I found is that students tend to overestimate what their peers are doing. In other words, students often perceive that others hook up more often and go farther sexually during hookup encounters. These misperceptions, in turn, affect their own behavior because students make decisions about their own lives based on what they believe is “normal” for college students."</p>
<p>Feeling like you're the ONLY not (fill in vice/activity here) has been around forever.</p>
<p>I have heard that, too, mythmom. I just find it hard to imagine that human nature has changed all that much. I think you hit the nail on the head with the comment. "with graduate school looming." I wonder if it's simply a choice (even if subconscious) to delay the possibility of plans being derailed by romantic entanglement (a defense mechanism, perhaps). It makes it harder for the ones who are open to a relationship to find others who are ... </p>
<p>And then there's the whole issue of how a lot young people view marriage, with divorce so prevalent. Are they staying away from relationships that might wind up in divorce? That's not really something our generation experienced. Just a thought.</p>
<p>Son says that he thinks, at least at his school, that the kids are "too busy" for relationships, so many go the hook-up route, though maybe not as many as alleged.</p>
<p>What's new!</p>
<p>"Colonists continued to live together without marriage ceremonies and to
abandon partners, finding new ones without legal separation or divorce. In fact, Godbeer argues that sexual standards became more permissive as the
eighteenth century progressed. Adults expressed increasing anxiety about young peoples behavior, especially the freedom that young women claimed.
This freedom was evidenced by increased premarital pregnancy (couples who had a child lessthan seven months after marrying) and single
motherhood. <em>By the time of the American
Revolution, a majority of couples appear to have
been intimate before marriage</em>."</p>
<p>Massachusetts Bay: A Puritan Commonwealth:</p>
<p>"There was much premarital sexabout 10% of brides were pregnant at the time of marriage"</p>
<p>Puritan</a> New England</p>
<p>I work out at a very small trainer-only gym near a college campus. The co-eds (yes, I'm that old) and the recent female grads with jobs who also workout there with trainers seem to be determined to get their education and employment "ducks in a row." I haven't heard a great lament for a "steady guy." </p>
<p>I too wonder about the view of marriage as part of their lives. Several of the females my age at this gym are attorneys, bankruptcy judges, etc. and never married and years ago adopted kid(s) solo. </p>
<p>Mythmom and kelsmom, do your daughters want a date-based, quasi-committed relationship at this point in their lives? Have they sexually side-lined themselves to avoid the "hook-up" trap? </p>
<p>Mythmom, you have a S coming along, right? Do you encourage him towards the "dating" model? And, does anyone else find it difficult to imagine that a hormone pumped 18-22 year old college male is "too busy" to date? </p>
<p>S in HS had a somewhat more old-school dating/exclusive relationship with a particular girl. Some others in the HS group seemed to have loosely paired. It was weird, but several moms of the HS boys really liked the idea of their "little boy" NOT letting a girl become really important.</p>
<p>Like has been mentioned, the previous several generations haven't done so well in the marriage stats area (yes, I'm divorced but re-married now for over 16 years). But, I'd really like to have some grandkids someday.</p>
<p>I think the only thing that's new is the ratio of women to men on most campuses (especially at the former women's colleges), making it easier for men "play the field" and women more willing to put up with it.</p>
<p>I really think some women have adopted a bill of goods that men only dreamed of 20 years ago. Many groom and dress themselves as what might be described as pornstars from just a decade ago. And some seem to be assuming that sexual identity too. Of course the guys are loving it--it's their dreams come true.</p>
<p>Alcohol usage, particularly at fraternities, in many cases leads to these hook-ups.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Mythmom and kelsmom, do your daughters want a date-based, quasi-committed relationship at this point in their lives? Have they sexually side-lined themselves to avoid the "hook-up" trap?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My D certainly does and has. I do think things are different from 30 years ago in the sense that mythmom says. Yes, there was some one-night stand stuff going on then, but for the most part we had relationships in college that lasted anywhere from months to years. According to my D, such relationships, while they exist, are now rare.</p>
<p>Marriage and age of first time marriage has changed. </p>
<p>When I was in college, I did not see binge drinking. I am serious about that. The drinking age was 18, and people had a drink or two (usually included in a cover charge at a bar, nightclub, disco). Rarely did people I knew drink more than that. Those 2 drinks were consumed over about 3-4 hours.</p>
<p>Booklady, I agree that those relationships are now more rare, and I think it is sad.</p>
<p>Well, my daughter has sexually side lined herself at times. She had a long HS relationship (I'm assuming sexual, never asked, but he <em>was</em> three years older and in college, and dated a little at first in college, but definitely doesn't want to hook up. (In that she's <em>not</em> like me. My philosophy would be, throw the spaghetti against the wall and see where it lands. Some girls are getting these guys into relationships. Give it a shot.)</p>
<p>She definitely doesn't want marriage or commitment, but this is how she put it to me, "I'm an intimacy junkie." She wants emotional closeness.</p>
<p>She has two guys right now: 1) Goes back and forth between platonic and other -- he's a serial monogamist and she doesn't want to be a notch, so it's a dear friends with benefits kind of thing right now. 2) A normal, dating kind of thing except the guy broke up with her to go back to previous gf and now wants to get back with her. She is torturing him a bit I think.</p>
<p>The problem is they're both on different continents! She's in England; they're here, though neither in NYC, where she goes to school. I think she is trying to work it out with profs to come home early. I think to date bachelor #2, but can't be sure.</p>
<p>DS: 18, has met a girl visiting Williamstown. Is in NYC with her. 07DAD: You'd be so proud of me -- I let him spend dead week with her instead of at home, with no guilt tripping. Pretty sure this isn't a hook-up. They spent two days at Williamstown together and decided they'd spend a week together in NYC. And they did! He goes back to school tomorrow.</p>
<p>DD favors long distance relationships. She says it allows her to focus on schoolwork and friends and still have a relationship. She must have sold this solution to DS as well.</p>
<p>And knowing they are dispersing for grad school and it will be years before they are ready to really "settle down" is part of the reason IMO. At Barnard it is also because there is a ratio of 4 women to every straight guy, or something like that. Well, the guys are at Columbia.</p>
<p>D had one, but she said he wasn't sufficiently enthusiastic. They have to really want to date her in her book, not just say, whatever. There was shock and awe among roommates when she broke up with him for that reason.</p>
<p>Oh fer crying out loud!</p>
<p>I can take all the 2400s, 36s, 4.whatevers, nationally rankeds on CC, because my kids can at least get close enough to that to get a decent look. I can't take mythmom's daughter complaining about what seems to be a very satisfactory social life for her. I don't know whether my daughter would mind being a "notch" for a "serial monogamist" or not . . . I don't think the opportunity has arisen much.</p>
<p>Well, she's not complaining right now, haha.</p>
<p>I was speaking theoretically about "hook-up" culture which was a real factor. JHS: Agree with your indignation as post stands.</p>
<p>She also has said recently: "I don't know if I want something conventional or I just want to be like Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre." Hmm. Stress, not complaining any more.</p>
<p>And JHS: she also has slews of British guys buying her drinks. But she says they are friends. They just want to hook-up and wouldn't ruin their friendship in this way. But again, not complaining. But some girls don't know when they have it good.</p>
<p>I think she's just restless to FIND THE LOVE OF HER LIFE and have it all settled. Aren't we all?</p>
<p>Simone really had her fanny splattered all over the French newspapers because Nelson Algren wanted a picture of her in the bathroom. I don't think that's what she meant.</p>