Sociology 1201: Week Six

Sociology 1201: Week Six Sociology 1201

Sociology of sex • How do we learn about sex in the United States? • Families: reality or an idealized version • Schools: the facts but often not the meanings • Church • Mass Media: commercialization of sex • Peers and lovers • Sex and the double standard • The sexual revolution: when, why, where, what? Sociology 1201

How do sociologists study sex? • Survey Research • 1st efforts: the Kinsey Reports • Lauman et. al: The Social Organization of Sexuality 1992 N=3,432 Adults • National Survey of Family Growth: Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures 1995 N=12,571 Ages 15-44 Sociology 1201

Lauman et al: The Social Organization of Sexuality Sociology 1201

Bogle, Hooking Up, 2008 • A. “During my own college career in the early 1990s, hooking up seemed to be at the center of the social scene.” • B. 2000: as a graduate student, she found herself trying to explain hooking up to an older faculty member with two sons soon to enter college. He said: “Why don’t you do a study of that?” and it became her Ph.D. thesis • 1. Interviews with 76 people, at two colleges on the East Coast (one a large state university, one a small Catholic institution). Interviewed 76 people from 2001 to 2006, 34 men and 42 women, 51 undegraduates and 25 alumni, 95% white, some in fraternities and sororities, some who neither drank nor attended parties. 2. More informally, she has spoiken to hundreds of college students about these issues and to many twenty-something singles. • C. “Ultimately I found that one of the most useful ways of comparing today’s hooking-up culture with the dating era is to look at each as a script.” Sociology 1201

Script for the dating era • Dating, at least formally, controlled by men; they did the inviting; they paid; and there was a sexual double standard. • Sexual experience a status marker for men. • An elaborate code, learned informally: “necking” and “petting,” above the waist and below the waist • Women expected to apply the brakes? “Why would he marry you when he’s already sleeping with you?” • Only 17% of baby boom brides had sex with someone besides their husband before marriage, and if you got pregnant, marriage was expected (though it didn’t always happen, of course) Sociology 1201

Script for hooking up • Bogle: “Define hooking up” • Tony, quote, p. 24; Lisa, p. 26 • B: “Both men and women may have reason to be intentionally vague.” Leaves men free to exaggerate and women to minimize. • How it happens: Jack, p. 30; Lisa, p. 31, Bogle, p. 33; Kevin, p. 34; Emily, p. 35, Max p. 36. Sociology 1201

Why is Everyone Afraid of Sex? • Discussion questions from reading by Pepper Schwartz, Reading 12 in “Families as they Really Are.” Sociology 1201

Hooking Up Script II: What Happens Next? • No strings attached? (p. 40) • The least likely outcome (p. 42) • Rebecca, p. 42-3 • “Several women indicated that knowing nothing might come of a hookup was something they learned over time… the hard way.” • Central role of alcohol Sociology 1201

Alternatives to hooking up? • “Students who do not participate in the hookup culture on campus are on the margins of the social scene and they know it.” p. 69-71 • “Although some students were able to find a relationship without hooking up, most students see hooking up as the only game in town.” Sociology 1201

Still a double standard? • “One thing that has not changed with the shift to hooking up is that men continue to hold most of the power, as they did in the dating era…” • Quote, p. 173 • Waller, 1930s study at Penn State, “principle of least interest” Sociology 1201

Orgasm in colllege hookups and relationships • Discussion questions from reading 31, Families as they Really Are Sociology 1201

After college • “After college, the men and women I interviewed became increasingly focused on finding a girlfriend/boyfriend, and in order to do so most virtually abandoned hooking up in favor of traditional dating.” • Elizabeth (p. 130): “It’s kind of funny because no one has really ever asked me out during college….” Sociology 1201

“How is the hookup scene now compared to college? • Matthew: “Now it’s more date oriented…(p. 134 • KB: “Do you even try for a hookup and it doesn’t work, or don’t you even try? • Matthew: “I would have to say I don’t even try. • KB: “So if you are interested in someone…” “I ask them for a date.” Sociology 1201

Why the change? • “A major factor …is the change in relationship goals for both men and women…. They are increasingly looking for relationships with marriage potential.” (p. 137) Sociology 1201

Very traditional dating script • “According to alumni, the man generally…initiated the date by first asking for the phone number and then following up with a phone call to ask for a date.” • Will: “I would say 75 to 80 percent of the time, the girl wants the guy to call; the girls wants the ball to be in the guy’s court” Sociology 1201

Who pays? • KB: “So, you call and ask them out to dinner. Then do you drive, do you pay, how does that work?” • Jake: “I am old fashioned. I take care of it all.” (p. 140) • KB: “After college, men seem to interact with the opposite sex as one might expect their grandfathers to have done.” Very much NOT “Sex in the City.” Sociology 1201

Sex and dating • KB: “Suddenly the same people who hooked up in college now believe men and women should find out more about each other before anything sexual happens.” • Carol: p. 142 • KB: “By senior year many women had figured out that the more they liked someone and the more they wanted a relationship, the less they should do sexually.” Sociology 1201

Revisiting the double standard • KB: “The change, with a dating script, to more conservative sexual norms is ironic…” p. 145 • Matthew: “I would never , never date a girl I banged on the first date. “ The men I talked with were also concerned about their date’s sexual history… Jake, Matthew.. Pp. 149-150 Sociology 1201

Sociology 1201: Week Six