High School and College Dating

The first article by Barbara Risman and Pepper Schwartz was entitled, "After the Sexual Revolution: Gender Politics in Teen Dating." The main issues that this article deals with are whether teens are returning to conservative sexual values and how the main trends in sexual activity have changed. This article also takes a close look at the different statistics between gender and race.

"Much reasearch suggests that teens became more sexually conservative during the last decade of the 20th century" (16). "The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, designed by the Center for Disease Control, showed that the percentage of high school students, ages 15 to 17, who reported they had engaged in sexual intercourse dropped from 54.1 percent in 1991 to 48.4 percent by 1997. This is a dramatic decrease of 5.7 percent in a short period of time" (17). "Another trend that was apparent was that the serious problems that can result from irresponsible teenage sexuality declined. The teen pregnancy rate showed an impressive 14 percent reduction. Most research also finds that the rate of sexually transmitted diseases also declined throughout the 1990s" (17).

These trends, or findings, have many explanations. Risman and Schwartz write, "The various speculations for the decline in sexual activity and the problems associated with it include the following: the success of abstinence education, the cultural backlash against the sexual revolution, the positive effect of comprehensive sex education, and the fear of disease" (17). "The authors also state that today's teens looked at the disaters of their parent's generation, including divorce and disease, and decided to reestablish their power through less, not more sexuality" (17).

The other big issue of this article was the gender differences. "Several studies indicate that the number of high school boys, but not girls, under 18 who remain virgins dramatically increased. Boys' sexual behavior is becoming more like girls' behavior" (18). Along with the differences in gender, they also look at the difference between races. "The rate of sexual activity among white and Hispanic girls has remained generally the same; however, black girls reduced their rates of sexual activity, moving towards levels comparable to that of white and Hispanic girls" (18). "Furthermore, among whites, boys are less likely than girls to be sexually active by age 17. Black and Hispanic boys are still more likely than girls to report sexual intercourse, but the gaps are closing here" (18). "One explanation for the decrease in boys' activity could have to do with girls' increasing control over the conditions of sexual intercourse. Girls' increasing ability to define sex as part of a relationship is one of the reasons for more responsible teen behavior" (19).

"While the incidence of sexual intercourse among teenage boys under age 18 has decreased, by the end of the teen years nearly all American youth are sexually active" (21). "Nine out of ten Americans are sexually active by the time they are 20" (21).

In regards to the sexual revolution, no counterrevolution has taken place. "Instead the revolution was such an overwhelming success that it has revised the entire framework of how American society thinks about sex" (21). "It is actually the gender revolution that is unfinished and still progressing. The sexual revolution redefined sexual activity as a right of individuals and not mearly a means for reproduction or marital intimacy" (23).

The second article by Paula England and Rueben J. Thomas was entitled "The Decline of the Date and the Rise of the College Hook Up." This article focuses on the change from dating to hook ups. "It states that dates are no longer that common and that people mostly hang out with friends or hook up" (151). This article also focuses on the discrepencies surrounding gender.

"England states at the beginning of the article that the demise of the date and the rise of the hook up is a national trend, probably starting in the 1980s" (152). "In the 1950s and 1960s, dates were pretty much the only way to move in the direction of sex. Today, students on college campuses state that the traditional date is nearly dead" (152). "In a survey done by England and Thomas, they asked students how many dates they had been on since they came to college with someone they weren't already in a relationship with. 21 percent of the men and 32 percent of the women hadn't been on any dates! Only 7 percent had been on more than 10" (152). "But when he asked how many dates they had been on since coming to college with someone they were in an exclusive relationship with, the numbers were much higher. It showed that 45 percent had been on more than 10 dates. This shows that today, dating is much more common after than before exclusive relationships are formed" (152).

The other trend, besides the decline of the traditional date, is the rise of the hook up. In a survey they asked students how many hook ups they had been on. "Over a third had hooked up more than 10 times. About half of these started at a party and about a quarter started when two people were hanging out in a dorm" (153). "England also found that sometimes a sequence of multiple hook ups with the same person ultimately leads to an exclusive relationship. The other statement England makes is that hook ups often follow lots of drinking" (153). England clarifies that "the term hook up implies that something sexual happened, but not necessarily that you "had sex", by which she means sexual intercourse" (154).

The other interesting trend that England and Thomas discovered was "that 44 percent of relationships in college are started by one or more hook ups first" (155).

The other big issue present in this article is the topic of gender and the hook up. "The big thing here was that hook ups involve orgasm for men twice as often as for women. The orgasm disparity is much worse than gender gap in pay in the labor market; women have less than half the orgasms of men on hook ups, but women earn more than three-quarters as much as men" (156). Another issue having to do with gender differences is how women get a bad reputation if they "hook up too much, or with too many men who know each other, or have sex too easily" (158). "Men who do the same thing sometimes get a bad reputation also, but if they do it doesn't last as long as women" (158). "Meanwhile, men gain status from talking to other men about their exploits. It would seem more consistent if both men and women got an equally bad reputation for the same behavior, or if neither got a bad reputation at all" (158). The double standard is an area where cultural changes have not liberated women much at all. "Another gender disparity is that more men than women think casual sex is okay. In England and Thomas's study, women showed more interest in turning hook ups into relationships than men, and more women wanted to limit sexual intercourse to relationships" (159).

In conclusion, among college students "traditional dating is on the wane" (161). "The hook up is much more common. The term dating has come to refer more to couples already in an exclusive relationship" (161). Lastly, the hook up scene creates a large gap between men and women. Women are still held to the traditional double standard.

In my own high school experience, dating was more common than the hook up scene. Yes, hook ups definitely happened but they were not as prevelant as traditional dating. However, since I have come to college it is definitely the hook up that is much more common, so based on what I have experienced since coming to Boston College, I would agree with this article and study by England and Thomas. In regards to the first article, from what I experienced as a teen in high school I belive it is true that teens are becoming more sexually conservative. At my high school, hearing about students having sex was not very common. It was common to hear about students doing other things associated with sex, but not actually having sexual intersourse.