Part two:
Keene State College students agree that there are benefits to the hookup culture as well as negative aspects.
Counseling Center Counselor Brenda McEachern said there’s no way to say what’s good or what’s bad because it all depends on the people involved.
McEachern has seen students who see, “Positives for someone seeking pleasure. As long as everyone is on the same page and being honest with themselves and each other, then they’re getting needs met, but I see more challenges than benefits,” McEachern said.
Jordan Damon said as a first-year student he sees both the positives and negatives of the hookup culture, but can’t decide if it’s more positive than negative or vise versa.
Damon said, “You can be who you are and feel free to do whatever you want to do.”
Senior Sofia Hart thinks it’s a way a lot of people meet each other and get the satisfaction that they might need.
Professor Karen Honeycutt said that people get to explore their sexuality, which is positive.
Honeycutt continued, “Research suggests some students like to hook up without the ‘baggage’ of a full-fledged relationship.”
Junior Meghan Jenks said, “For longest time, women were seen as on a pedestal, supposed to be role models and tame the wild desires of men and I think that’s ridiculous—we’re all human beings, we all have sexual desires and feminism is about equaling the playing field and saying women have sexual desires and you shouldn’t be making us feel terrible for pursuing them.”
KSC Senior Michaek Sarafin said the hookup culture can help people see qualities they like about some people and don’t about others, which helps them shape preferences to see who they would be happy and comfortable with.
McEachern said girls have told her that if they hook up with someone, it must mean they think they’re attractive, which is a self-confidence builder.
St Pierre said she has noticed that hooking up with someone more often than not, makes a girl feel bad about herself—feel disgusted, upset and left questioning why a guy hadn’t tried to talk to them again. St Pierre said, “Girls don’t want others to see them as a ‘slut’ because that leads to low self-confidence.”
Although guys pretend like they don’t care, St Pierre said they sometimes also feel the same way.
McEachern said, “I [have talked] with students, female students that have tried the hookup culture, and there’s a denial that it meant more than they want to admit to themselves or anyone else. It wasn’t [a] positive experience if they were being completely honest with themselves. Even some men saying that they wanted more emotional relationships but [were] having a hard time finding it.”
Hart said because people are getting so used to having options available, this can make it harder for people to know how to settle down and find that one right person.
Honeycutt said, “It’s much more likely that it ‘just happens’; in situations where alcohol or drugs are involved, it’s even more likely that sexual behavior will happen without much [if any] conversation at all.”
Another KSC student, Ian Lemley said drinking adds liquid-confidence, “Drinking makes it easier to talk to people; it has positives like breaking down barriers, but drinking also has negatives, and not like it happens all the time, but a girl could drink too much and get taken advantage of. That could happen with guys too but I’ve never heard a case like that.”
Although there’s more to it Lemley continued, “Technology has caused a shift to a more-intense hookup culture. There’s entire apps like Tinder just so people can hook up with each other.” Tinder is a smartphone application that combines social media with an online dating service, according to an article on Independent.ie. If a person’s profile, which includes pictures and a short bio, looks interesting, users “swipe” right and if they don’t they “swipe” left.
Oliveri said she doesn’t have any phone dating apps but her friends, who used it mostly as a joke or when they were drunk, have gone on dates from people they’ve met on Tinder. “I think it’s what our culture has turned into and it’s weird. If your parents were to hear about this, what would they think?,” Oliveri shared.
Hart said she has never had Tinder, but has had friends who have had sex with people they meet from Tinder, although she doesn’t condone that.
“I think it’s a weird, creepy and aggressive way of going about meeting people,” Hart stated. St Pierre said most of the people with dating apps get them because it’s funny. Lulu, another dating app St Pierre had but deleted, is an app for girls to post and rate the guys they’ve hooked up with.
St Pierre said, “You could see how people rate them as kissers and in bed. Some people had a lot of reviews.” McEachern said she doesn’t think apps like Tinder are a good idea because it’s never good to judge someone from appearance alone.
McEachern said, “Most of the time, if you’re focusing purely on their physical appearance, you’re going to get a physical relationship, not emotional.” Nick Hebert, KSC senior, said he believes that technology has killed dating, “Awkward pauses are avoided by people hiding behind their phones, when those awkward pauses are how you learn to be comfortable around one another. If you can be comfortable in those awkward pauses you can be comfortable in a relationship.”
Lemley said, “Media and technology exacerbates the hookup culture to the point where it’s an obsession for some people.” He said sites such as Facebook and Instagram makes people more available for other’s to see when they would otherwise not have been.
Lemley said, “A lot is based on being able to say you got with someone. It’s a point of pride for guys now—if they see some girl on Facebook or Instagram they’re able to say ‘I hooked up with her’ and get a pat on the back from friends. Social media makes that more easily accessible.” Damon thinks girls have the upper-hand in a hookup situation because “Most guys are out looking for girls to get with and girls are aware of that. So, girls have the power to say yes or no.”
However, St Pierre thinks guys have the upper-hand because “They are able to hide their emotions because they are surrounded by other guys who make the hookup culture something they want to pursue [and] be proud of. They encourage it and praise it.”
In agreement, Jenks said, “Men have [the] hand up because they have less to worry about, like pregnancy. Men are nowhere near as likely to be ostracized for hooking up with people.”
She continued, “Our culture sexualizes female bodies but then condemns women for being sexual.”
“Women benefit because they can express themselves sexually, because sexual repression is not great for the psyche,” Jenks explained, “But they stand a fair amount of chance for getting backlash and being shamed back into the corner they were in.”
Oliveri believes there is still a double-standard because the way guys are looked at for being involved in the hookup culture is different from the way girls are looked at.
“It’s cool to be a guy who hooks up with people, but it’s ‘slutty’ and looked down on to be a girl that does,” Oliveri said.
St Pierre said from what she’s experienced at other schools, people still go on first dates, but she doesn’t see that often at KSC. She thinks this is partially because dates make people nervous and could potentially lead to rejection, “So why would people go through that then it could just be hanging out at a party?”
St Pierre said, “Most friends with boyfriends have met their boyfriends by hooking up with them first while drunk at parties.”
Hart wishes there were still first dates because it’s a much more mature way to get to know someone, but getting to know someone first isn’t the norm anymore. Hart said, “It starts as a hook up and goes from there.”
Lemley said, “I have a friend, who we rag on all the time, who still firmly believes in taking a girl on a first date before he hooks up with her and that’s cool—it gets the girl interested and there are more positive results that come from that.”
Lemley said he believes more in the dating culture over the hookup culture.
“That’s [dating culture] more fun and more involved. You get to experience new things when you go on a date with someone. For example, if you’re not into nature but you want to meet this girl that likes hiking, that’s a cool thing to do and new thing to experience if you haven’t done it before. Whereas it might not have happened if you were just trying to hook up with her and you invite her over to your room and that’s it,” Lemley said.
Jenks said, “College is [a] great time for dating because there’s so many people—people with similar interests to yours. Explore options and find out who you are and if you want to be with someone; what type of person would complement you.”
Oliveri said she thinks it’s more difficult to have a relationship in college because there’s jealousy, alcohol, different schedules and time restraints. Although it’s a lot of work, it’s still possible.
St Pierre said more often than not, women would prefer a relationship to hooking up and people have a hard time in college actually starting a relationship because the hookup culture seems so much more-appealing to some people.
“From a guy’s point-of-view, there are always other guys looking at your girl and looking to hook up with a girl even if she has a boyfriend. They don’t care, because they’re more interested in hooking up with them and being able to say they did because there’s a physical attraction,” Lemley said.
This is a continuation from a story in the Sept. 25, 2014 edition of The Equinox. To see part one, visit keene-equinox.com
Taylor Thomas can be contacted at tthomas@keene-equinox.com
