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Hookup Culture: The Unspoken Rules Of Sex On College Campuses

Today's college students aren't necessarily having more sex than previous generations, but the culture that permeates hookups on campus has changed.
Mark Peterson
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Corbis via Getty Images
Today's college students aren't necessarily having more sex than previous generations, but the culture that permeates hookups on campus has changed.

Few topics send the media into a panic like the idea of hookup culture on college campuses. But are college students actually having more sex than their parents did a generation ago? Research suggests the answer is no.

Lisa Wade, a sociologist at Occidental College, says something has changed, though: In today's hookup culture, developing an emotional attachment to a casual sex partner is one of the biggest breaches of social norms.

For her new book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, Wade spent 5 years investigating hookup culture on American colleges and universities. In this culture, she says, there's a dichotomy between meaningless and meaningful sex, and students have to go out of their way to "perform meaninglessness." They have to prove that they're not emotionally attached to their sex partners, and in fact that they care less than the other person.

This leads to seemingly contradictory situations, such as people who only have sex with partners they're not interested in, and friends being meaner to each other after developing a sexual relationship.

This Valentine's Day, Lisa Wade talks with us about hookup culture and investigates the complex social rules surrounding casual sex on American college campuses.

Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Maggie Penman, Jennifer Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, and Renee Klahr. Our intern is Chloe Connelly, and our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.

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Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Tara Boyle is the supervising producer of NPR's Hidden Brain. In this role, Boyle oversees the production of both the Hidden Brain radio show and podcast, providing editorial guidance and support to host Shankar Vedantam and the shows' producers. Boyle also coordinates Shankar's Hidden Brain segments on Morning Edition and other NPR shows, and oversees collaborations with partners both internal and external to NPR. Previously, Boyle spent a decade at WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. She has reported for The Boston Globe, and began her career in public radio at WBUR in Boston.
Jennifer Schmidt is a senior producer for Hidden Brain. She is responsible for crafting the complex stories that are told on the show. She researches, writes, gathers field tape, and develops story structures. Some highlights of her work on Hidden Brain include episodes about the causes of the #MeToo movement, how diversity drives creativity, and the complex psychology of addiction.
Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling unit, working across Embedded, Invisibilia, and Rough Translation.
Chloe Connelly