The Naked Truth: Christianity and Hookups
Before I talk more about hookup culture, it’s important I further define it.
Many people participate in hookups, including college students. My primary research comes from a study that was published in 2017, specifically focusing on hookup culture in the college setting and heterosexual relationships.
Furthermore, recent studies on a variety of college student populations find that around 60–80% of college students experience a hookup during their time at college. Needless to say, that also means that 20–40% of students will never have a hookup during their years at college. Regardless of whether that exact statistic holds true here at Augustana — due to our university’s unique position as a Lutheran, liberal arts institution in South Dakota — hookup culture must be addressed.
It is also important to note that participating in hookup culture does not mean hooking up with someone every weekend, or even every semester.
As sociologist Lisa Wade references in her book, “American Hookups: The New Culture of Sex on Campus,” “The average college graduating senior reports hooking up just eight times in four years… Half of those eight hookups are with someone the student has hooked up with before.”
Additionally, students don’t need to participate in hookup culture to have a good college experience; not participating in the culture during college isn’t a bad thing. Hookup culture is merely a fragment of the full college experience. Many college students have the opportunity to participate in hookup culture and choose not to do so, which is completely reasonable.
As I mentioned in the second edition of The Naked Truth, hookup culture disguises itself as sexual liberation and even feminine empowerment when it actually just perpetuates unhappiness for both parties based on dissatisfying sexual encounters. It is important to actively combat the negative parts of hookup culture, such as the absence of emotion and communication, to ensure both participants’ needs are being met. I simply see a broken culture that I believe students have the right to be educated on and the power to change.
The women I have spoken with at Augustana agree that there’s little judgment towards students who do not choose to participate in hookup culture; however, many of them feel that they will be judged by their peers for participating.
According to Wade’s study, one-third of the students who participated said that they felt “simultaneously attracted to and repelled by hookup culture.” The difference in these feelings of attraction and repulsion, Wade says, confuses college students.
At college, students’ religious beliefs and abilities to be self-sufficient and connect with new people are challenged by exposure to new individuals and cultures. In addition, students are separated from their families, meet hundreds of potential partners and experience heightened emotions and hormone fluctuations.
Due to these palpable changes, students often choose to participate in hookup culture, which, at first, seems sexually experimental and open compared to the possible strict and rigid sexual expectations from their backgrounds.
Along with that, many students who come to Augustana grow up in small, Midwestern towns with close-knit religious communities. Sadly, these communities can create a heavy blight of shame and guilt, primarily for women, around the desire to have sex and enjoy sex — casual or not. Because Augustana is a Lutheran university, feelings of shame and guilt have a high potential to be very potent here.
Simultaneously, these students face the freedom of sexual liberation and the feelings of intense shame from not adhering to the cultural expectations of their backgrounds. This shame can create religious doubt in young adults and foster a decrease in positive emotions.
This begs the question — when students are brought up within a conservative, Christian background, can they truly enjoy a hookup without feeling guilty? Even if it is what they desire?
Many Christian women on campus who I have spoken with wrestle with this question. As Christians, we are called to not judge others on the decisions they make or actions they take, yet it takes a conscious effort to move past this judgement and embrace both sexuality and religion for ourselves.
This effort can require some mental gymnastics when the enjoyment of sex suddenly becomes “okay” in college. Besides, it is perfectly acceptable to want something now that is different from what you grew up wanting, whether that is relevant to your sexual behaviors or life in general. College students’ perspectives should be challenged during their college years.
As I mentioned in the first edition of The Naked Truth, learning about sex in college can change students’ sexual mindset. In college, students can have conversations surrounding sexual safety, preferences and identity, which allows them to explore both sex and religion.
College students may find it difficult to move past feelings of shame and guilt surrounding sex and religion, but Augustana has many resources students can access, including free counseling available on campus or via telehealth, on-campus pastors, Augustana’s mental health and wellness specialist, and advice from a trusted mentor or friend.
It may be hard to balance participating in religion and hookup culture, but people can accept their past while moving forward to a more guilt-free society that encourages people to be who they are. If that means you become someone who enjoys a casual sexual encounter, that is great — and if not, that is great too.
We need to understand how to be there for each other and ourselves regardless of our judgments. Let’s all make the change to accept one another and move toward a safer campus culture that we all can feel welcome in.
XOXO
