Forget the old-fashioned romantic script: the first date, the first kiss and the invite home. Forget the redundant softball metaphors for sexual encounters: first base, second base, third base and the home run. Technology is changing the dating map. People are dealing with a new set of norms that don’t fit neatly with the old narratives. Apparently.
We're told the rules of sexual encounter used to be governed by a complex web of social customs. The dating maps were clearly marked (the first date here), the romantic scripts were clear (the first date leads to the first kiss), and the outcomes were more certain.
But now, the rules are more porous. Relationships can begin on Facebook, romance can happen over text and a casual pickup in town is a Tinder swipe away. Technology has changed the way young people think about and act on sexual encounters. There’s little stigma attached to a hook up in town or a pick up online. The dusty rituals of 20th century courtship are out. Virtual courtship –and hookup culture – are in.
Photo: 3 Mile
The term “hookup culture” was coined in American college culture and has been exported to New Zealand, where it has been defended or pilliored depending where a particular columnist sits on the moral compass. But a recent study [pdf] suggests it has been sensationalised. Researchers from the University of Portland found that, despite a popular perception of “a new and pervasive hookup culture” among college students, there hasn’t in fact been any kind of ‘sexual explosion’ among 18- to 25-year-olds.
Of the students surveyed who attended university for one or more years between 1988 and 1996, 65 per cent reported having sex at least weekly. However, students surveyed who attended university for at least one year between 2002 and 2010 – a period that coincided with the perceived emergence of hookup culture – only 59 per cent reported having sex at least weekly.
In New Zealand, a University of Auckland study [pdf] found that, between 2007 and 2012, the proportion of teens who reported having had sex at least once actually fell. So where is this idea coming from?
“I know it’s clichéd, but I think hookup culture is the new norm,” says Josh*, 23, a student at Victoria University. “I’ve never been in a committed relationship. Some of my family think that’s weird… when I go home they always ask whether I have a girlfriend. The answer doesn’t change, but the question keeps on coming.”
I got sucked into lad culture pretty quick. Trying to be one fo the boys was what pushed me into hookup culture. It was like knowing a secret no one else knew.
Josh grew up in a conservative farming family. Originally from Taranaki, Josh moved to Wellington six years ago and was a “reluctant player”. He says he “hadn’t come from an environment where it was acceptable to explore”, but moving to an environment where it was felt “refreshing”: “For me it wasn’t really the hook up itself that was empowering – obviously I liked it – but the fact that the choice was there was the most liberating part.”
He says he “got sucked into lad culture pretty quick”. “Trying to be one of the boys was what pushed me into hookup culture… it was like knowing a secret no one else knew.” A graduate this year, Josh also (jokingly) calls himself a “graduate of hookup culture”. “It was a big part of my university career… But how I experienced hookup culture won’t apply to everyone. Peer pressure drove me into it – you know, I was doing it to be ‘one of the lads’ – but the experience was part of finding my independence. That peer pressure in the beginning was good in that respect.”
Auckland University student Justine Sachs, 18, says that it’s not that simple. She says a pervasive hookup culture can create an environment where women are pressured to conform. “Most women will be familiar with the glaring double standards in how male and female sexuality is treated and perceived.”
But Justine believes that “the increasing acceptance of casual sex is ultimately a good thing for women”. “Young women are socialised to tolerate sexual exploitation and submissiveness”, but hookup culture is helping break down the stereotype “that women are merely the target of male sexuality and we don’t have agency or sexuality separate from men”, she says. “I’m glad that the stereotype that men love sex and women love cuddling is slowly dying a much-deserved death”.
As much as the notion of a pervasive hookup culture might offend some sensibilities, “as a woman who enjoys the freedoms only recently afforded to her I find it hard to empathise with them,” says Justine.
But not all young people are captivated by the rise of hookup culture. “I did it… and I hated it after,” says designer Nick Bollen, 22, who recently moved to Germany with his new partner, whom he met while active in the hookup scene.
New Zealand hookup culture is constrained by the fact that “two degrees of separation is f... all,” says Nick. Scale is what enables young people to participate in hookup culture anonymously, but here, we’re to some extent constrained by the size of our social groups for fear of “getting a reputation”. “We party in our friend groups over and over, and the world becomes smaller and smaller ... It’s too awkward.”
Although Nick found his partner while active in the hookup culture scene, he has reasons for speaking against it, he says “There’s this problem of trying to find a relationship by getting real smashed... It’s all done under the guise of New Zealand’s binge-drinking culture.”
If these studies above are to be believed, young people aren’t having any more sex than previous generations. But that doesn’t mean hookup culture isn’t real. It's simply a narrative or shorthand for the rules of sex in the 21st century.
The narrative is a result of generational differences in how we perceive and approach relationships and casual sex. It often feels like older generations want to re-impose the sexual ideologies of their time. But young people are dealing with a new set of norms that don’t fit neatly with those ideas. Previous generations valued formality: the first kiss, the first date, the dance hall. But now, technology demands and facilitates dating in a way that wasn’t possible a generation ago. The romantic script has changed.
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