To browse Academia. Hook-up activities may include a wide range of sexual behaviors, such as kissing, oral sex, and penetrative intercourse. However, these encounters often transpire without any promise of, or desire for, a more traditional romantic relationship. A review of the literature suggests that these encounters are becoming increasingly normative among adolescents and young adults in North America, representing a marked shift in openness and acceptance of uncommitted sex.
We reviewed the current literature on sexual hookups and considered the multiple forces influencing hookup culture, using examples from popular culture to place hooking up in context. We argue that contemporary hookup culture is best understood as the convergence of evolutionary and social forces during the developmental period of emerging adulthood. Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference, This is a deviation from the traditional relational model that relies on steady, intimate, monogamous relationships, which was the norm as recently as 20 years ago.
Of the 30 participants in this study ages , the majority had participated in "hook up culture. Female participants consistently described hookups as "unintentional. The reported difference of opportunity to "hook up" between participants who were full-time students and those who were employed full-time was noteworthy and explicitly mentioned by 28 of the 30 participants.
Increased attention in the media, popular culture, and scholarship has been paid to the relationship context of adolescent sexual activity. The terms used to refer to sex outside of the confines of traditional dating relationships range from "hooking-up" to non-romantic sex to casual sex. Here, we refer to casual sex and define it as sexual intercourse between a teenager and someone he or she is not dating or in a committed relationship.
It is during adolescence when most people become sexually active. The majority of research on adolescent casual sex assumes the behavior is vaginal sex, but oral sex is also an important sexual behavior to consider. In fact, among adolescents, oral sex is more common than vaginal sex. The percentage of people who have ever experienced oral sex increases as individuals age.
