Confronting the Hook-Up Culture

Public Discourse ^ | March 17, 2009 | Robert P. George and John B. Londregan

[reaganaut1]

[...] Princeton, where we teach, is a wonderful university; but like other colleges and universities there is a dark side to its social life. Our students are bright, enthusiastic, and eager to learn. Most did not come to college bent on boozing and hooking up. Many feel deeply ambivalent about these aspects of campus life. Yet, they find little support on campus for the “alternative lifestyle” of living by traditional moral virtues.

More than a few freshmen of both sexes arrive believing that romantic relationships are properly oriented toward marriage and that sex belongs in marriage, not outside it. They do not want hook ups; instead, they aspire to what an earlier generation would have called courtship. How hospitable are colleges and universities to these students?

Whether it is a private institution such as Yale or a public one such as the University of Delaware, the truth is that things begin going badly for them right off the bat. Princeton is all-too-typical. As part of the freshman orientation program, students are required to attend an event entitled “Sex on a Saturday Night.” It consists of a series of skits ostensibly designed to discourage “date rape.” For years, critics have contended that the play, which features vulgarity and suggestive conduct, does nothing to serve this laudable goal; rather, it reinforces the campus culture of sexual permissiveness, primarily by shaping students’ expectations to include sexual license as normal.

And then there is “Sex Jeopardy” (officially “Safer Sex Jeopardy”), an event that Princeton freshmen are “strongly encouraged” by the University to attend. Modeled on the long running television game show, this activity invites students to show off their knowledge of such topics as anal intercourse, flavored condoms, dental dams, sex toys, and sado-masochism.

[reaganaut1]

Maybe when the time comes, I will have my kids commute to college from home.

[luckystarmom]

My son is a freshman in high school, and college is creeping up on us. We’re in California, and I really don’t want him to go to one of the public universities out here.

It’s scary to a parent.

[hoppity]

I went to a private “Christian” college in California, and it happened all of the time. It really doesn’t matter which college, generally speaking. I’d bet there is a lot debauchery in nearly all of them.