Young adults in Washington, D.C. this month gave their opinions about what they say is increased pressure in recent years to hookup without emotions or strings attached, adding that communication by text message adds to that culture.
Amy Zahn, 24, said she has never been pressured into hooking up and defines it as meeting someone and having casual sex where no emotions are involved.
“It’s important to have no expectations of it developing into anything further,” Zahn said.
The American Psychological Association writes that, “Hookups are becoming more ingrained in popular culture, reflecting both evolved sexual predilections and changing social and sexual scripts.”
It continued, “These encounters often transpire without any promise of — or desire for — a more traditional romantic relationship.”
Emily Richter, 22, who defines the word “hookup” as meeting someone and having sex with them, without any strings attached. She believes that technology is a big part of hookup culture in which “hanging out” is used more than “going on a date.”
And although there’s the pressure of having no emotions, Richter says that “people leave more strings attached then they assume.”
And although hookups many agreed can tarnish a woman’s reputation more than a man’s many feel the pressure to hookup with an individual who is widely-viewed as classically “handsome or “beautiful” from their friends’ perspectives. And as a result of the perceived effect a hookup may have it mostly affects the individual’s “status” and, by extension their friends.
An example of a motivation to hookup which was illustrated by The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University that included “118 female first-semester students, 56 percent perceived attractiveness of the partner.”
Richter believes that men are pressured by expectations set upon them to to find someone that is seen as attractive by collective agreement.
“It’s very crowd sourced,” Richter said.