American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus

by Lisa Wade Narrated by Callie Beaulieu

Overview

The hookup is now part of college life. Yet the drunken encounter we always hear about tells only a fraction of the story. Rising above misinformation and moralizing, Lisa Wade offers the definitive account of this new sexual culture and demonstrates that the truth is both more heartening and more harrowing than we thought.


Offering invaluable insights for parents, educators, and students, Wade situates hookup culture within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education, and the unfinished feminist revolution. Working with new research, she maps out a punishing emotional landscape marked by unequal pleasures, competition for status, and sexual violence. She discovers that the most privileged students tend to like hookup culture the most, and she considers its effects on racial and sexual minorities, students who "opt out," and those who participate ambivalently.


Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and brutally honest, American Hookup explains where we are and how we got here, asking not "How do we go back?" but "Where do we go from here?"

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Today's crucial book for your teen's library…as relevant for high schoolers as for college students."— Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex

"A myth-busting, eye-popping, and important work of social research. Lisa Wade spent years observing hookup culture on college campuses across the United States and analyzing all the good data available. The result is the best book about sex on campus, bar none."— Eric Klinenberg, author of Going Solo and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Modern Romance

"Intelligent, sympathetic, and unflinching."— Cordelia Fine, author of Delusions of Gender and Testosterone Rex

"Lisa Wade pulls back the curtain on campus culture and reveals the tableau of racial, class, and gender inequality on which the not-really-so-pervasive phenomenon of student hookups is playing out. If you want to understand what is happening on campus today, this book is not only excellent; it’s necessary."— Michael Kimmel, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University and author of Guyland

"An urgently needed and well-researched front-line report on ‘hookup culture.’…This book is a welcome wake-up call to the nation."— Arlie Hochschild, author of Strangers in their Own Land

"Lisa Wade investigates the biggest misconceptions about casual sex on college campuses—and tries to reach an understanding that more accurately reflects realities about gender, race, and class."— Suzanne Weiss Broadly

"[American Hookup] conveys exceptionally well the perverse callousness of hookup culture."— Jennifer Senior New York Times

"Wade invites us to consider the nuances of hookup culture that have formerly been overlooked or oversimplified, and the result is powerful."— Charlotte Lieberman Guernica

"An extraordinary window into today’s hookup culture among young people. In its pages, you will find incredible insights tying together the history of college campuses, human brain development, and cultural shifts on gender norms to explain how young people conduct their sexual relationships. Working with young people myself, I see what Lisa Wade describes every day. This is an extraordinary and important book."— Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees

"One of the more thoughtful books about the sexual lives of young people in the US today."— Metapsychology

Kirkus Reviews

2016-10-05
How and why American college students are engaging in nonintimate one-night stands.Although students on college campuses profess to be having a lot of sex, according to Wade’s (Sociology/Occidental Coll.; co-author: Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, 2014, etc.) research, “today’s students boast no more sexual partners than their parents did at their age.” The difference is the culture surrounding the intimacy, a topic the author thoroughly and perceptively explores. Using in-depth research and multiple surveys from hetero, bi, trans, and queer students of all ethnic and economic levels from colleges across the country, Wade delves into the new hookup culture, which allows students access to sex but can leave them feeling anxious, depressed, and overwhelmed. It comes as no surprise that drunkenness and sex often go hand in hand, that many students feel they would not be able to have sex with just anybody without the alcohol, and that the hookup often starts on the fraternity party dance floor. What is surprising is the intentional lack of emotions allowed after the sexual encounter has taken place, with students deliberately acting cold toward each other after sex. Since no one wants to be tied down or viewed as clingy, needy, or desperate, all partners act as if the other person doesn’t exist, which leads to doubts about why the hookup happened in the first place. Wade does a solid job explaining the pros and cons of this new culture and includes historical data that shows how it evolved from the shift in family dynamics following the Industrial Revolution. The most interesting perspectives come from the journal entries written by students, in which they admit to wanting an emotionally charged relationship with someone but don’t want the stigma of being “uncool” or of losing the opportunity to “live their sexual lives freely.” An eye-opening, conversation-starting examination of sex on the American college campus.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171359478
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	01/10/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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