What influences college students and hooking-up?
Ed. 0819 Tweens and Teens
Hooking-Up 2
Hooking-up can mean just kissing someone with tongue but it can also mean giving or receiving
oral sex or having sexual intercourse without being in a relationship with the other person. People who
hook-up with their friends call it friends with benefits. This broad definition of hooking-up leaves people
to come to their own conclusion when someone tells them that they hooked-up with someone. There
was a time when hooking-up just meant kissing but now its definition has expanded. This hooking-up
trend is so significant to American teens because so many teens are doing it. The reason so many teens
are hooking-up is because more and more teens don’t want to be in a relationship because they don’t
want commitment.
Sex is supposed to be something that two people who love each other engage in and yet teens
are doing it with anyone they find attractive just for fun. Sex used to be intimate but now it has been
transformed into something that people do for fun. The consequences of having multiple sex
partners are getting sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. Condoms do not protect
you from getting an STD and when people get drunk and hook-up they may not use condoms which may
cause an unplanned pregnancy. Becoming pregnant by someone you just hooked-up with can be a
problem because you both were hooking-up for fun and now you may end up having a huge
responsibility that neither of you are ready for. These risks and possibilities that can happen when
people hook-up contribute to the reason why this trend is so significant to American teens.
This hooking-up trend leads me to wonder why so many people are hooking-up and why it has
become so popular. By responding to the following questions I will find out what the influences are
behind this trend: Does the media have anything to do with whether or not college students are
hooking-up? Does religious affiliation have anything to do with whether or not college students are
hooking-up? Does anything else besides the media and religion have an influence on who participates in
this trend and who doesn’t?
Hooking-up 3
From the research I’ve done and everything that I’ve read about this trend, it seems as though
this trend started because of teenagers not wanting to commit or their fear of commitment. Teenagers
feel as though they should have fun while they can before they become adults and settle down and have
children. This goes against the whole no sex before marriage, saving yourself for your husband trend
that was encouraged well before the twenty-first century. Teenagers don’t really cherish their virginity
anymore and lose it at such young ages, even though many of them eventually regret it. Just because
I’m focusing on college students and this trend does not mean that they are the only ones hooking-up or
that nobody is hooking-up until they get to college. Teenagers and adults can all participate in this trend
if they choose to do so. I found that apparently out of all the people that hook-up, white guys that are in
college are hooking-up the most.
To be a part of this trend all you have to do is hook-up with people. You are identified as being a
part of this trend if you are hooking-up with different people and are not committed to one person. By
participating in this trend females learn to put their emotions aside and in turn they feel a sense of
power when they hook-up. They feel this power because they get to show that they don’t always get
emotionally attached and aren’t always looking for a relationship and that they can act like guys and do
whatever they want. This trend’s popularity has come from the change in the role of women. Women
used to be looked at as being weaker than men and were told that they were only good for