Casual Sexual Scripts on the Screen: References Publications referenced by this paper. Showing of references. Predictors of hooking up sexual behaviors and emotional reactions among U. Hook - up behavior: How media contribute to misper. The contexts of sexual involvement and concurrent. Orgasm in college hookups and relationships. Sex, dating, and relationships on campus. The shift from dating to hooking up in college. The shift from dating to hooking up in college: Among heterosexual emerging adults of both sexes, hookups have become culturally normative.
Dating for courting purposes has decreased but certainly not disappeared and sexual behavior outside of traditional committed romantic pair-bonds has become increasingly typical and socially acceptable Bogle, , Most notably, individuals of both sexes are willing to openly discuss the topic and advertise their acceptance and experiences of hooking up. Sexual hookups are most comprehensively understood in an interdisciplinary framework that combines multiple levels of analyses.
In this review, we consider how aspects of sexual popular culture reflect both the biological reproductive motive, social—sexual scripts, and how individuals adaptively, facultatively, respond to their environment. The evolutionary biological and sociocultural paradigms produce parallel, sometimes interacting, and sometimes contradictory, patterns of explanation. The emergence of sexual hookup culture provides a case of human social behavior through which to explore the relationship and possible interaction between evolved mating psychology and cultural context.
Hookup culture has emerged from more general social shifts taking place during the last century. As early as the s, with the rise of automobile use and novel entertainment venues throughout North America, traditional models of courting under parental supervision began to fade Bailey, ; Stinson, With the invention of visual media, images of erotic sex began finding their way into popular culture Black, ; Doherty, Again in opposition, many health care providers in the s denied oral contraceptives to single, unmarried, women Coontz, Throughout American history, young adults were told, and at least publicly endorsed, that sexual behavior should only occur in the context of a marital union.
Contemporary popular culture is now ripe with examples that depict and often encourage sexual behavior, including premarital and uncommitted sex. Popular media, including television, has become a source of sex education, filled with inaccurate portrayals of sexuality Kunkel et al. The film Hooking Up , released in , details the chaotic romantic and sexual lives of adolescent characters. The film No Strings Attached , released in and staring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, features the uncommitted element of uncommitted sex, as two friends attempt to negotiate a sexual, yet nonromantic, component of their relationship.
Popular television shows often portray hooking up as acceptable, entertaining, and perfectly sensible. The hit British series Skins , which began in , and was remade in North America in , often highlights the uncommitted sexual exploits of adolescents.
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The popular reality show Jersey Shore , which started its run in , glorifies hookups among strangers, acquaintances, friends, and former partners. Popular pro-hookup same-sex representations have also emerged in television series like Queer as Folk and The L-Word. Several popular books on hookups have hit the shelves, with unscientific yet racy claims. These include, The Happy Hook-Up: Hookups may include any sexual behavior in a seemingly uncommitted context.
Other behaviors are less ubiquitous. Research has found minimal gender differences in terms of hookup behaviors. Operational definitions of hookups differ among researchers. Glenn and Marquardt used an explicitly heteronormative definition for participants: Yet, popular culture representations e. FWB relationships represent a unique variation of hooking up worthy of more research attention, which it is beginning to generate. Of those who had engaged in a FWB experience, Much like in the movie of the same name, a common concern of participants describing their FWB relationships was the potential formation of unanticipated romantic feelings.
At the time of the survey, Because these situations represent a greater entanglement of friendship, trust, and emotional comfort, FWBs are distinct from notions of hooking up in some aspects. Namely, hookup scenarios do not implicitly include a friendship relationship component as a condition.
However, some sexual subcultures with open relationships actually allow extrarelationship casual sex without considering it to be a betrayal. Attention to causal sexual encounters among men who have sex with men also emerged as an area of study during the AIDS epidemic in the s until today. These complementary literatures and approaches should be integrated into the future study of hookup behavior, because the study of human sexuality must consider the vast range of variation and potential in human sexual behaviors. A case in point, findings from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior identified a much higher rate of American men and women who had ever engaged in same-sex sexual behavior compared to those who identify with a homosexual orientation see Herbenick et al.
This raises an important, but as of yet unanswered, question: If a proportion of heterosexual Americans have at some point engaged in at least one same-sex sexual encounter, is the context of such a scenario a hookup? Although speculative, it seems most probable that many such encounters are sexual experiments and uncommitted, but investigations of how this relates to the larger hookup culture are sorely lacking. This is consistent with the view of emerging adulthood typical college age as a period of developmental transition Arnett, , exploring and internalizing sexuality and romantic intimacy, now including hookups Stinson, Among college students, hookups have been reported in a variety of college settings.
Such settings may help facilitate a preexisting desire for hookups i. More generally, in a sample of sexually experienced men and women, participants indicated a variety of settings where they met someone with whom they had casual sex: In addition to sharing common social venues with heterosexuals, gay men and other men who have sex with men have an expanded array of venues in which hookups may occur.
Although uncommitted sex among gay men occurs in a variety of locations, antigay prejudice and structural heterosexism can limit the availability of supportive and safe options for connecting with other men Harper, Consequently, more anonymous, sometimes public, spaces have been an alternative for some gay men. In a sample of gay and bisexual men in college all under the age of 30 , nearly one third admitted to meeting partners in anonymous places i.
Public cruising areas, Internet cruising networks, and bathhouses are somewhat popular venues although by no means archetypal for explicitly initiating uncommitted sex among men who have sex with men Binson et al. These are not findings that seem to be prevalent among lesbians and women who have sex with women or among heterosexual hookups.
An interdisciplinary biopsychosocial model can synthesize traditionally disconnected theoretical perspectives and provide a more holistic understanding of hookup culture. Which of these factors prove to be most important depends on culture, personality, gender, and social context. Using two midlevel theories, Fisher et al. They argued that evolution may be most helpful in exploring the reproductive motive, and sexual scripts may be useful in exploring the cultural discourse agenda.
That is, evolutionary biology influences why emerging adults engage in uncommitted sex and the way young men and women react to these encounters ultimate level explanations. At the same time, social roles and sexual scripts influence how emerging adults navigate their desires in a particular socio-cultural context proximate level explanations. It is important to point out that many sociocultural theorists disagree with the idea that culture offers only a proximate level explanation for human sexual behavior.
Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review. - Semantic Scholar
However, it is not the goal of this review to resolve this debate. Instead, we attempt to articulate better the multitude of factors that shape the rich variety of human sexuality to enhance understanding of uncommitted sex among emerging adults. In the next two sections, we will introduce both evolutionary and social script views of uncommitted sex, to simultaneously consider the influence of each on hookup culture.
- Hookup culture?
- relative dating rules?
- kw dating?
Human evolutionary behavioral studies attempts to explain sexual behavior by understanding our evolutionary history and how this may influence behavioral patterns in a given environment. There are several different midlevel evolutionary or biological theories about the nature of human sexual behavior. These theories seek to understand the way evolutionary pressures influence human sexual propensities, variation, and, in some cases, sex differences. This logic is based on the premise that, compared to asexual reproduction, sexual reproduction is quite costly.
Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review.
Sexually reproducing organisms pay many costs, including the time, energy, and resources spent in finding and attracting mates—tasks that are unnecessary for asexual reproducers Daly, Offsetting the costs of sexual reproduction in large-bodied organisms is the benefit sexual reproduction provides against easy colonization by parasites and pathogens Van Valen, Sexual reproduction scrambles up genes, creating genotypes that are novel environments and forcing the parasites and pathogens to begin anew in their quest to exploit the host.
Thus, large-bodied organisms with long lifespans generally benefit evolutionarily from sexual reproduction despite its substantial costs.
In humans, producing a viable offspring, from gestation through lactation, takes females longer than it takes males. The sex with the faster potential reproductive rate— generally males— can benefit by attempting to co-opt the reproductive effort of multiple members of the opposite sex.
However, the sex with the slower potential reproductive rate— generally females—will be operationally in short supply relative to the sex with the faster potential reproductive rate, simply because it takes them longer to complete a reproductive venture. Males are predicted to compete for access to the reproductive potential of the slower sex; this generates expectations of psychological and physical adaptations in males that enhance their chances of success, including aggression and an array of physical features e.
Females are predicted to be choosy concerning their mates because they invest more in each offspring, and they stand to lose more if they make a poor reproductive choice. Relative parental investment costs are thought to be the arbiters of mating behaviors Trivers, Thus in sex role reversed species where males provide a majority of parental support, it is females that are then expected to compete more for mates and be more indiscriminate in their mating Alcock, Because females choose males on the basis of critical features and resources, males are expected to compete with other males to acquire and display these features and resources.
This provides a basic framework with which to begin, and in humans we expect complex cognitive processes to be overlaid on it. In this view—sexual strategies theory—men prefer as many mates as possible, including short-term sexual encounters that can potentially maximize reproductive output. Men will attempt to mate with a maximum number of partners sexual variety , consent to sex more quickly than women, and provide minimal resources to any but long-term partners, only conceding to a long-term relationship for the purposes of enhancing offspring vitality Symons, ; Buss, Also in this view, women are expected to prefer long-term relationships to extract a maximum amount of resources from mates.
In measuring propensities for nonrelational sex, a variety of studies conducted within North America have demonstrated that men consistently have higher sociosexuality scores than women Schmitt, Several scholars have argued that the degree to which evolution shapes mating behaviors, including sociosexuality, will be contingent on particular environmental conditions Frayser, ; Low, ; Schmitt, To support the idea that sociosexuality is likely a combination of evolved sex-specific mating strategies and social structural factors, in a study of over , participants from 53 nations, Lippa demonstrated that although consistent sex differences emerged, gender equality and economic development tended to predict the magnitude of sex differences in sociosexuality more permissive.
Similarly, Wood and Eagly have endorsed a biosocial model for understanding sex differences cross-culturally that takes into account multiple levels of analyses, including biological constraints alongside social and economic constraints. In support of evolved sexual strategies, in a cross-cultural study of 16, individuals across 52 nations, Schmitt et al. Using the short-term seeking measure asking participants on a 7-point scale whether they are actively seeking a short-term mate , they reported that, in North America, relatively more men Of note, using the cross-cultural responses of those who are single excluding those currently involved in a relationship , Evolutionary-inclined researchers have often used these findings to point to the adaptive nature of sex-specific mating strategies see Schmitt, These data demonstrate fairly modest relative sex differences in propensities toward sex beyond a committed relationship—which are indeed important to document.
Yet, a cross-cultural sex difference of This is especially true considering that, compared to males, the relative risks of sexual behavior are higher for females: Although there is a reasonable proportional difference between sexes, there are still nearly two thirds of unpartnered women interested in uncommitted sex and over one fifth of unpartnered men who are not interested in this activity.