College Hookups Are Not On The Rise

I can remember packing up for college, getting ready to be out on my own, and I was super excited because I firmly (pun intended) believed that I would constantly be hooking up with my fellow college students once I arrived. Sadly, I was mistaken. But it would seem that my experience of limited hook-ups and relationships is actually the norm. It would seem the “College Hookup” culture is kind of a myth.  

According to two recent studies, one by American Sociological Association and the other a student survey by the conducted by The Harvard Crimson found that students don’t spend all their time making out at parties. In fact, at Harvard about a quarter of their students don’t engage in sexual intercourse at all while in college.

Fifty-eight percent of senior respondents said they entered Harvard as virgins. Once they arrived in Cambridge, reported sexual activity varied considerably. While 19 percent of male respondents reported having sexual intercourse with 10 or more partners while at Harvard, only 7 percent of women said the same. Twenty-four percent of the class, on the other hand, said they did not have sexual intercourse while at Harvard. Of those seniors having sex, 43 percent said they always use a condom, while 31 percent said they sometimes, rarely, or never use a condom.  

For those who do have relations it would appear they aren’t hooking up a larger numbers than when their parents went to school. Sorry, if I just made you think of your parents having sex.  

The research did show a slight decline in the number of college kids saying they had a “spouse or regular sex partner,” but that doesn’t mean that college romance is dead. Indeed, 77% of students said that they’d had a regular partner or spouse in the 2000s, compared with 85% in the earlier generation. In other words, today as in the past, most students having sex are still doing so in the context of some type of ongoing relationship.

Though the American Sociological Association found a slight decline in those who said they were in a relationship or had a steady partner, but it was only 7% lower than previous generations. But it is true that the current generation is having slightly more causal sex.  

About 44% of students in the 2000s reported having had sex with a “casual date or pickup,” compared with 35% in the 1980s and ’90s — and 68% reported having had sex with a “friend” in the previous year, compared with 56% in the earlier group.

One of the more interesting facts revealed in this student that many students feel like their friends are hooking more than they are. I think we can all relate to that feeling.  

One study found that on average, students report a total of five to seven hookups in their entire college career. But when Bogle surveyed students about how often they thought their fellow students were hooking up, they typically said seven times a semester. “That would be 56 people” in four years, she says.

The study didn’t look into where the hookup myth comes from, but it’s probably from a bunch of people who look at college kids now and think “These damn kids and their constant hooking up! Wasn’t like that in my day!” Of course, I’m not speaking of myself. Nope, I’ve never said that. Never, not even once. I swear. Now leave me alone.