Our Bodies, Our Choices

Last week, the Washington Post published a now widely-discussed op-ed in which writer Donna Freitas laments what she calls the phenomenon of “hookup culture” on modern college campuses. According to Freitas, college students are subjected to a culture in which they feel compelled to have casual, noncommittal sex with a large number of partners, even though most students privately admit that they are either ambivalent about or regretful of the lifestyle.

Freitas’ article certainly seems troubling, but Harvard’s data paints a very different picture. Here, at least, the data suggests that there is not an overwhelming pressure to participate in hookup culture. To the contrary, most graduating seniors report having had sexual relations with two or fewer partners. The students who want to participate in a so-called “hookup culture” are able to do so, but there are many students who maintain long-term relationships or remain abstinent. If Harvard’s data is any indication of greater trends, then, there’s no conclusive reason to believe that most college students feel pressured to hook up.

Of course, Harvard’s data is not necessarily representative of college students in general, but the same could probably be said of Freitas’ data. Her op-ed cites quite a bit of anecdotal evidence—individual students discussing their sex lives with her—and her unrepresentative sample (1,230 students, 45 percent of whom attend Catholic colleges) constitutes only a miniscule percentage of the 12.6 million college students in the United States. A survey with a sample size that small simply does not add much to the conversation. Freitas notes that the vast majority of college students interviewed say their peers are casual about sex, but she and other commentators on hookup culture fail to make the important observation that casual sex on college campuses is often much less widespread than students perceive.

Of course, if students are as dissatisfied with the prevailing sexual culture on their campuses as some would argue, then that’s a problem.  Students shouldn’t feel that the predominant culture on campus is barring them from forming intimate, romantic relationships. But popular critiques of hookup culture fail to place it in its appropriate historical contexts. Modern dating culture may have faults, but so did dating and sexual culture in earlier eras. It is important that we not lose sight of the enormous progress that the sexual revolution and feminist movement have made in granting individuals, especially women, greater agency in their sexual choices. Today’s women enjoy much more freedom than they have in the past, and that’s a good thing—long gone are the days of “lights out” in the Radcliffe Quad.

Prevalent dating culture has always been (and probably always will be) a subject of controversy, but popular critiques that lose sight of the larger picture simply aren’t constructive. People’s sex lives will always be confusing, difficult, and sometimes disappointing, and hyperbolic moralizing on the matter is the last thing that our young people need.