Hooking Up, Hookups

Casual sexual interaction among adolescents and young adults, especially college students, has been an important topic of study in the last three decades. Hooking up is a contemporary form of casual sexual relating popular among youth. Hookups are brief sexual encounters between individuals who are not-at-all, barely, or somewhat acquainted and with whom there is no expectation of further relating. In keeping with the popular definition of casual sex, neither commitment nor emotion is expected in hookups. Hookups involving partners who know each other and may even be friends are referred to as “friends with benefits.”

Hookups involve a variety of sexual behaviors, including but not limited to sexual intercourse. More than half of older adolescents and young adults have hookup experience; some estimates are as high as 80 percent. Some evidence suggests that about half of individuals who hook up tend to engage in vaginal sexual intercourse as part of the interaction. Kissing, petting, and oral sex are also common in hookups.

Researchers and practitioners have viewed forms of casual sex as physically risky behavior, primarily increasing the hazard of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Thus, a primary goal of research on casual sex, including hookups, has been to determine who is most likely to hook up and under what circumstances to develop prevention programs to effectively reduce the physical risks associated with these risky casual sexual behaviors. For example, researchers have examined personality and social factors common among youths who hook up. Individuals who have a preference for risk taking are more likely to hook up, as are individuals who have permissive sexual attitudes.

Individuals who begin to use alcohol at an early age, and especially those who tend to binge drink, are more likely to hook up. Alcohol use is also common before and during hookups, particularly those involving partners who do not know each other. Such risk takers, especially under the influence of alcohol, are also more likely to engage in sexual intercourse and are less likely to use condoms or other contraceptives during the hookup.

Youths are more likely to hook up in some situations than in others. Research on hooking up has focused primarily on college students. Only a few studies have studied noncollege-attending late adolescents and young adults; hooking up appears to be more frequent among youths in colleges and universities than among youths not attending college. Research on the transition from high school to college has revealed an increase in casual sexual behavior upon entering college. Researchers have also studied youths on vacation, especially during spring break, the famed college holiday. The likelihood of [Page 814]engaging in hookups during spring break is quite high, as is other risk-taking behavior, such as lack of condom and other contraception use and bingeing on alcohol.

Youths' perceptions of social norms, or how common hooking up is in a particular situation, influences their likelihood of hooking up. Moreover, youths practice “pluralistic ignorance” wherein their perception of how comfortable or enjoyable their peers find hookups is greater than their own experience. This motivates youths to engage in hookups, partly because their skewed perceptions of their peers' experiences lead them to anticipate a positive experience and because they seek social acceptance and conformity with what they perceive as the norm. For some youths, hookups are seen as a route to social acceptance and status.

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