The
rules of dating have changed in the world we live today. The hook up culture
and casual sex are everyday occurrences in a college student’s life, and its
progressively becoming more intertwined with our dating habits. Knowing what is
best for one’s own development when engaging in these actions and keeping the
consequences in mind are extremely important. It is crucial for students and
scholars to know either the negative consequences or benefits the hook up
culture can yield to young women. It is also imperative for women to know what
this means in terms of future relationships and how their own past experiences
can shape their current relationship’s success.
I
initially became interested in this topic when I realized that my own personal
experience in regards to dating was extremely different from that of my
friends. I knew that even though this was somewhat of a new phenomena there was
a lot of interest on the topic from scholars. It is somewhat of a controversial
topic to research because it does not align with traditional dating ideas.
Casual sexual activity has a lot of negative stigma associated with it. In the
media women are sexualized but then chastised if they behave sexually, on
campuses women are called sluts if they have intercourse outside of a
relationship but yet single men are always looking to “get it in” and praised
when they do. I wondered what the real consequences of the hook up culture were
and set out to find out.
Much
of the recent scholarship has focused on undergraduate student’s experiences,
however my research expands on this by focusing on graduate students past and
present history. I am currently conducting interviews with graduate women and
coding a survey that was sent out to different universities.This process has
taken hours and hours of work, but it has already yielded some very promising
results. After my last week of interviews I will be transcribing them and
starting analyzing the qualitative data. A normal week up to this point has
involved a lot of reading (past research on the topic), conducting interviews,
and emailing my survey out.
I
plan on presenting my research at NCUR and the Southern Sociological Society.
My long-term goal with this research is to write some articles and get them
published in sociological journals so that as many people as possible can have
access to my results.
