Sexual Revolution and College Hook Up's

Questions:According to Risman and Schwartz article, what are the main trends in sexual activity among teens? How do the authors explain these trends? According to England and Thomas, what are the main trends in romantic and sexual behavior among college students? What gender differences are documented in both of these articles? Compare these authors' observations to your own high school and college experiences.


One of the main trends in sexual activity among teens is that research suggests that teens have become more sexually "conservative" during the last decade of the 20th Century. There are lower percentages of teens that are sexually active under age 18. Students between the ages of 15 and 17 who reported engagement in sexual intercourse dropped from 54.1% in 1991 to about 48% in 1997. Blacks continue to be at the top pof the list for sexual activities compared to whites and hispanics. Teenage pregnacy has shown a decline, abortion rates, and the rate of sexually transmitted disease is in decline. This could be due to the fact that teens are waiting to somewhat older ages, cultural backlash against the sexual revolution, fear of disease, sex education (or maybe a combination of sorts) so the rates of coitus has fell. The authors tell us that weighing these various explanations is comlicated. Reports that the rates of birth, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases fell much faster than rates of coitus convince them that young people are acting more responsibly when they are sexaully active. This may explain the "improvements." Responsible sex rather than post-poned sex seems to be the explanation.

When the authors took a closer look at the data, they found dramatic story changes when the data was seperated by gender. Several studies have indicated that boys under age 18 are remaining virgins more and more. The rate of sexual activity among whites and hispanics has remained stable, while black girls rates are moving towards comparisons of whites and hispanics. In conclusion these authors feel that today's teenager are more sophisticated sexual actors than in the past.

In the next article, the authors covered a number of different aspects regarding sexual and romantic behavior amongst college students. The first that stood out to me was the "orgasm gap". It's proven that women have fewer orgasims and men's belief percentages of women having orgasims is substantially lower than those given by women. Hook up sex does not seem to be "equal opportunity" when it comes to orgasm. "Equal opportunity for women has gone further in the educational and career world than in the college sexual scene." They talked about women faking orgasims to boost guys' egos and men being confused because of the amount of noises women make. Reason why guys are overestimating the frequency of their partners's orgasm. From talking with friends, to reading books, etc Ican definitely attest to girls doing this and guys asking a girl if they "came" or not and the girl saying yes just because they wanted to make their guy feel good about them selves. It sounds harsh on the girls part but it's completely understanding at the same time. If a woman can not meet orgamsm though I feel that it should be something that should be openly/comfortably talked about because every seems to think that when a guy meets his peak that's the end of the road. What about the females? Anyone?

Next, the authors talked about the stigmas attached to a woman that hooks up alot. Some seem to understand that women are sexaul beings just like their make counterparts but there is still a stigma attached to a girl who "hooks up" with more than one guy in the same group or who openly talks about it. This is where the idea of double standards come in. Take for example, the walk of shame aspect. I feel like there is more embarrasment attached to this for the girls because their "walk back" is so obvious because there is no reason in the world that if it's 10 a.m. when everyone is walking to class, your coming up in the cute clubbing outfit from the night before. It's just more obvious for Ithink because of the accessories we use to (heels, smeared makeup, messy hair, and so on). Guys on the other hand are usually the one's who let the hook up take place in their room. On BC's campus for some reason male roommates seem to be more understanding if a guys brings a girl back. Some people come up with codes or write a certain word on the writing board outside to make their roomie BEWARE ENTRY. From what I have experienced on the girl side, unless your other female roommate is out of town, alot of girls will not respect the fact that she has to be excluded from the room just because you want to hook up with some guy. Females that are open about who they are bringing over and when are looked down upon more I feel on my campus. And other girls that see that going on (especially if it involves more than one guy) would find it easy to call the girl or slut or just look at her like she's a dirty person. Guys from what I know get a high five for getting a certain girl. Thjis is where the authors brought up the idea that women may have internalized different values than men or that women are more subject to judgment the cause. Is this because women are socialized to have skills at intimate relationships? I'm not sure but I think the author makes a good point here. A few other factors and aspects of these relationships that the authors put forth were:

-Sexual revolution and changes in gender inquality affected the path of change in romantic and sexual behavior. (birth control, freedom to choose careers and abortion legalization led to idea of equal right to sexual freedom)
-Oral sex used to be less common but now is seen as less serios or intimate. Intercourse seen as something that people save for relationships. (I'm not sure about this one because in certain environments this seems to not be a big deal anymore. I've heard that oral sex has grown very bid amongst middle school and high school children because they feel this is not actual sex. In college oral sex at least for the guy goes hand in hand with kissing and hooking up)
-People marrying later--- contribute to the rise of the hook up? Increased acceptance of of cohabitation and easier availability of sex outside marriage contributed to putting marriage off longer?
-The term dating comes to refer more to couples already in an exclusive relationship.---Definitions changing?\-Hooking up the pathway into relationships today.
-Expectations to be virgins at marraige deminishing.