Students can’t sync up on hooking up

When men and women join to talk about sex, there's almost nothing you can take for granted.

Almost.

About 30 students, male and female, gathered Friday for a panel entitled, "Do we live in a hooking-up culture?" Every student who spoke answered the question with a resounding "Yes." But besides that, the students agreed on little else.

In a conversation that ricocheted from questions about gender roles to the sustainability of a relationship predicated on little more than sex, the students explored the counters of the "hooking-up generation," moderated by Robin Sawyer and Anne Anderson-Sawyer, a husband-and-wife professor duo.

Sawyer, a health professor at this university, started the conversation posing the question, why do students hook up rather than courting and getting to know each other first?

Anderson-Sawyer, a lecturer at Howard County Community College, wondered aloud whether partners who hook up rather than date are seen as more attractive.

While freshman letters and sciences major Sean Bartlett said many young men measure their own self-worth based on the number of women they've been with, female students in the crowd said they veer away from guys with too many notches on the bedpost.

The students went back and forth on the matter, unable to reach a conclusion before Allison Lawton, a sophomore letters and sciences major, settled for the safe answer.

The number varies with your preference, she said, explaining: "When you're thirsty, you drink."

Anderson-Sawyer probed further: Does society pressure college students to put out?
Almost everyone in the room agreed that men can get away with hooking up more easily than women, but they also agreed that the pressure comes from both sides.

Sawyer proposed that college-age students still hold a double standard that sex is primarily for men, pointing to a standard Cosmopolitan magazine headline "How to Give Your Man the Best Orgasm" as evidence.

"Sex is for him — it's hardly for you," said Sawyer, talking to a group of women.

He then sought to prove the double-standard wrong.

"When two people have sex, it's because the woman says ‘yes,'" Sawyer said.

Lawton said hooking up is expected by men and can also stem from women's insecurities.

"I have to if I want this to continue," Lawton said. "Even if I don't want to do this."

Office of Campus Programs Director Marsha Guenzler-Stevens posed another question to the group, inquiring what students are looking for when they hook up with others.

On this matter, the students also found some common ground. Freshman history major Adam Rhodes summarized the consensus.

"You're not hooking up to find a long term relationship," he said. "Assholes are [more] attractive."

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