Media Credit: Alex Trautwig Students and a faculty panel said that the hook up culture has mostly usurped traditional dating practices, a trend that has left many unsatisfied.

Last Thursday, Boston College students gathered to discuss the social culture. The discussion, titled "The Hook-up Generation: The Connection Between Hooking Up and How It Makes Us Feel about Our Bodies," was part of BC's Love Your Body Week, co-sponsored by the Women's Resource Center and women's studies department, and coordinated by Mari Knuth-Bouracee, LSOE '09, and Amanda Read, LSOE '09.

The panel was led by Mary Troxell, professor in the philosophy department, and Pamela Lannutti, professor in the communications department. "We want this to be a discussion that everyone is involved in, in which we listen to others' opinions on the issue," Lannutti said. Students discussed several aspects of the hook-up culture and what trends and social norms had contributed to their generation being deemed the hook-up generation.

The panel said there are two ways to define hooking up. The first interpreted the practice more neutrally than the latter, which defined hooking up as, "When two people agree to engage in sexual behavior for which there is no future."

Some felt that this was not an equitable definition of hooking up, and did not reflect what truly occurs within the hook-up culture. "I know a lot of relationships that have started with a hook-up. Dating has disappeared with the introduction of the hook-up, so hooking up has become a way to initiate relationships," said Rachel Wojciechowski, LSOE '10.

Other students felt that because of the unsteady, unpredictable nature of a hook-up, honest emotions and the basis for a healthy relationship were compromised. They felt that the hook-up culture had socialized many members of their generation to go against their instinct of equating emotions and responsibility with sexual encounters, as having casual sex is now considered socially acceptable by many. It was here that they agreed the feelings of "being used" most often associated with hooking up arise.

While different opinions existed on the long-term social effects of hooking up, many present said that it was a detrimental social habit that held negative consequences in terms of body image and self-esteem for women. "As females, we immediately hold it against ourselves if someone does not want to hook up with us," Troxell said.

Continued...

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