Hook-up Culture

According to Jennifer Roback Morse (Ph.D), of ifeminists.com, “Popular culture has instructed us that sex has no moral significance.” Hook-ups are part of a social norm, they constitute as simple everyday day doings, a topic that is no longer taboo. Hook-ups are to be frequent and meaningless. People are expected to hook-up, especially the youth of society. I have heard countless hook-up tales from friends, detailing often drunken nights of debauchery, leading to the act of “hooking up.” Society today allows this type of behavior and embraces it. Makes it easy.

But how exactly can the term “hooking up” be defined? Sexual intercourse? Making out? Inbetweensies? As this is a slang term, I’ve decided to use the king of slang, Urbandictionary.com, to clarify, and this is what I discovered to be the meaning:

Define: Hookup

Hopefully this will clarify the term for those who were a bit confused as to what their friend meant last night when they “hooked up” with guy from the bar. No? I tried.

With advertisements today sopping in sexual context, it is no wonder why we as a society have become immune to over-sexualization, and have just accepted “sex” as a norm for selling goods and services. Being over exposed to sex in ads and other media has no doubt desensitized our views on casual hook-ups. Shows like Californication allow the viewer to sympathize with the character’s insatiable appetite for sex, and hook-ups, in often unsafe and unrealistic situations. This is entertainment in the 21st century. Sex and the City. Friends. 90210. Gossip Girl= SEXXX.

The following are interesting statistics found from Cheryl Fields’ article, Sexual Responsibility on Campus; however they are not interesting in the way that they’re ground-breaking, but simply because we have come to expect nothing less: 

• “4 out of 5 college students report they have had sexual intercourse during their lifetime.” Not shocked.
• “1 in 4 college students have had six or more sexual partners in their lifetime.” Still not shocked.
• “The Rates of unintended pregnancy among persons age 15-24 are higher than for any other age.”  Boring.                 

We as a society have come to expect this of our college attending young-ins, but what about these findings, also from Fields’ article:

• “One in four college women have either been raped or survived attempted rape.”
• “One in 12 college men have either been raped or survived attempted rape.”
• “There have been some 26,518 cases of AIDS reported among people age 20-24 in the United States. Most college students are in this age bracket.”  Scary Stuff.

 The hook-up culture indeed has a seedy underbelly. A dark side the media hides.