Casual Sex Cultures In Comparison

Why some are worse than others

American Hookup’s Hookup Culture

The hookup culture described in the ethnography American Hookup is really really bad.

The standard hookup procedure begins with getting drunk. Everyone being drunk creates an alternate social reality which sociologists call “drunkworld”—a collective alternate reality where some kinds of deviant behavior are normalized. During a hookup, men have drunk an average of six drinks; women, four. The next step is grinding, in which a woman presses her back and ass against a man’s dick and grinds rhythmically. If a woman moves her hips to the music, a man will latch on to her without even asking first and just sort of shove her ass into his dick. Sometimes the identity of whom the woman is grinding on is a mystery, and she has to peer at her friends to get their approval.

Approval is actually a key thing for hookup culture. For status reasons, people only want to hook up with people generally considered hot—regardless of their own attraction. If a person hooks up with someone who isn’t generally considered hot, they open themselves up to gossip and mockery.

To initiate a hookup, a woman turns around so that she’s facing the man instead of having her back to him. The man can initiate a hookup by tugging on her arm or pulling on one hip gently, to imply that she should turn around, or by positioning his head so that she can kiss him. Turning around implies consent to a dance floor makeout. Finally, the night concludes with the couple going back to someone’s room and having the hookup proper. The definition of “hookup” is ambiguous so that men can preserve their reputation as Guys Who Get Laid and women as Not Sluts. 40% of hookups involve PIV; 13% oral sex but no PIV, almost all performed by women on men; 12% nudity and touching of genitals, but no oral sex or PIV; 35%, just kissing and groping.

The fifth step is to establish meaninglessness. In American Hookup’s hookup culture, you’re supposed to establish that you don’t care about the hookup and it doesn’t matter. There are three primary strategies to establish this. First, being drunk offers an excuse to have hooked up: in drunkworld, casual sex is okay. Second, you should avoid hooking up with the same person more than once. Third, you should create emotional distance. For a while after a hookup, good friends should act like acquaintances; acquaintances, like strangers; and strangers shouldn't acknowledge each other's existence at all. Any effort to contact or reach out is viewed as a sign of romantic interest.

So this is, like, a terrible way to have casual sex. As you might expect, sexual assault is rampant, women rarely orgasm, and no one seems to be having a very good time. While most participants don’t regret their participation in hookup culture, their reasons for not regretting it are often something like “I learned that I’m not going to shatter if I have bad sex with someone I don’t like—life goes on.” The only thing that can really be said for American Hookup’s hookup culture is that most participants in it have moved on and done something less stupid with their lives by the time they’re twenty-two.