UNMASKING THE HOOKUP
Introduction and Argument
COVID has radically changed the way people exist in the world – as we find many of our relationships and daily tasks that involve other people digitized, plastic-wrapped, and masked. Even as our need to keep living has pushed us out of a state of total lockdown, we continue abiding by social-distancing rules, putting up with routine quarantines and testing, wearing masks, and limiting our movement based on what’s deemed ‘essential’. Unsurprisingly, these new social norms are making many reconsider hooking up, as a “COVID-safe hookup” seems like an oxymoron. In a world rendered socially distant, how can we be physically intimate with those outside our ‘bubble’? This question is especially complicated for college students, who are sexually active but do not typically live (or quarantine) with their sexual partners – and who find themselves accountable to institutions that want them to share as little physical space as possible. This is the case at Hamilton College, at least. While many academic institutions across the U.S. made the decision to keep their students remote due to the pandemic, Hamilton opted to bring students back on to campus – relying heavily on testing and rules to control the spread of the virus. The institution’s decision to bring students back to campus, while requiring them to stay 6’ apart, makes for an unprecedented shift in on-campus intimacy, as students navigate social and institutional changes that have radically challenged their pre-pandemic notions of “hooking up” and “hookup” culture.
As I argue in this thesis, the pandemic, and the social and institutional changes that have accompanied it, necessitate a reconsideration of the topic of hookups, and hookup culture, which have long garnered the attention of Anthropologists. The context of the COVID college campus is particularly well suited for this kind of reevaluation – college as long been considered one of the primary social contexts, if not the primary social context, in which “hookup culture” unfolds. Anthropologists who have studied collegiate hookups and hookup culture in the past have peeled back its many layers — examining aspects such as race, class, gender, sexuality – to highlight how “hookup culture” is exclusive and driven by toxic social influences. Past anthropological work has affirmed the implications of substance-use, peer-pressure, and notions of fun, exposing how the hookup can be harmful to students mental, emotional, and physical health. That said, all their work comes before the context of a global pandemic, which poses an opportunity to build on and reconsider this research.
Even if hookup culture were “toxic” before, hooking up now could have any number of physical, social, and emotional consequences. How do students navigate the biological risk of spreading and catching COVID when they are intimate with others? On a left leaning campus, the physiological risks of the pandemic hookup are compounded by social pressures – many students “trust science,” abide by masking and social distancing rules, and expect their peers to follow suit. Does this mean that students run the risk of being ostracized by their peers for engaging in behaviors considered “careless,” or for being “covidiots”? On top of that, when college students hookup in COVID, they are faced not only with the threat of disease and quarantine, but also with the threat of institutional punishment. If hooking up now could get one sick, in hot water with one’s friends, and in trouble with one’s school, how do students justify doing it? My conversations with 14 students currently enrolled at Hamilton College reveal that despite all odds, COVID has not killed hookup culture, and that it is in fact thriving in more ways than one.
Whereas before the pandemic “hooking up” often served as a lens through which to analyze “unhealthy” social pressures and contexts in which sexual assault was prevalent, for many of my informants being able to hookup during COVID was seen as a positive part of being at college. Thus, before the college hookup scene may have been dominated by careless, one-off acts of intimacy following parties at frat houses and bars, but now it is often discussed as an important part of being a healthy person. However, this doesn’t mean that the choice to hookup comes easily.
Talking to students to understand how they think about and experience hooking up in COVID has presented me an opportunity to find the “good” in hooking up that is so often overlooked when describing the “bad” or the “toxic.” COVID has made the college party scene far less relevant in on-campus social life, and in this context, I have been able facilitate conversations with students that has allowed me to examine their notions of selfhood, the way they understand their ‘needs’, and what it is that makes physical intimacy so important to them. What I’ll show is that, in a time where our entire social world seems to be framed by practices that protect our bodies from physical illness, students have begun thinking about hooking up and hookup culture in terms of mental and emotional health. Though they may be at risk of conduct points and COVID strikes while on Hamilton’s campus, they view the Hamilton College community as a bubble of physical safety, trusting in the frequent testing, cleaning, and protocol of the college to keep themselves and their friends healthy. Because they feel they are able to put the physical risk of illness posed to themselves and others aside, the door opens for them to pursue the physical intimacy that they deem central to their emotional and mental health – especially after months of isolation at home with their families.
Methodology
In this project, I hoped to uncover how Hamilton College students are (re)evaluating the importance of hooking up and being physically intimate in the face of COVID, its associated restrictions, and its threat to the community, in order to find out how intimacy is entangled with views regarding safety, the self, and the community. In efforts to achieve those goal, I conducted interviews, which took the form of casual conversations with 14 Hamilton College students.
Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, I thought it essential that my participants came to me, as I felt it was inappropriate to solicit particular individuals to talk about the intimate aspects of their lives. I therefore opted to post on social media about the project, and when I did, 14 Hamilton students contacted me, indicating that they were interested in the project and willing to be interviewed. Before I began my interview with each individual, 12/14 of which took place via Zoom or Facetime, I verbally briefed them on the privacy measures I was taking in the project. To assure the confidentiality of my participants, I anonymized the interviews by using pseudonyms, where needed, and taking general notes as opposed to recording the dialogue word per word. I attached no identifying information to the notes on each participant interview, unless identifiers such as gender-identity or sexual-orientation were particularly relevant to the response. Additionally, I assured that only my Professor Julie Starr (my advisor) and I would ever have direct access to the data from each interview. After making the privacy terms clear, I asked my participants if they had any questions, and then asked for their verbal consent – confirming beforehand that they were able to skip any interview questions or end the interview at any time. After each interview, I sent my participants a written statement containing the privacy information and contact information for myself and Professor Julie Starr.
My interviews with my participants were causal. There was no exact sequence of questions, as the conversation unfolded based on how my participants were responding, and which topics they seemed most eager to discuss or avoid. I determined to forgo a rigid format due to the sensitive nature of the content discussed – student’s sex and intimate lives are personal – and I wanted to give my participants as much agency as possible in driving the conversation. That being said, there was a rough framework for how each interview was conducted.
Each interview began with a broader discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic and coronavirus at Hamilton. I started with COVID to orient the discussion, as I found in informal practice interviews that starting with sex led to a far less focused conversation about the overlay between sex and the pandemic. By starting with COVID, I hoped to situate the entire conversation I had with my participants in the context of a pandemic. I started by asking questions like: In what ways has COVID-19 impacted your life? What are your thoughts or feelings about social distancing/mask wearing? On the one hand, these questions were intended to bring forward any COVID-associated traumas, such as the death of a loved one, in order to avoid potential triggers or distress later in the conversation. On the other, such questions gave me a sense for how my participants generally responded to the disease, in terms of safety, risk, the needs of the self, and the needs of the community outside of the context of sex and intimacy. I proceeded by asking questions that pertained to their experience of COVID-19 at Hamilton specifically, such as: Do you think that Hamilton’s COVID guidelines are effective and/or realistic? Would you say you follow all of Hamilton’s COVID guidelines? Knowing how my participants felt about the institution served to confirm or complicate their broader beliefs about COVID-19. As my participants are all knit together by Hamilton College, knowing how they felt about the institution’s response showed how the institution is, or is not, understood to be a key-player in the pandemic-college experience.
The interviews then turned to asking people about their sex lives in the COVID pandemic. I asked questions like: Have or would you have sex during a pandemic? Do you think that having sex in COVID is risky? What is it about sex that makes the risk worth it? By asking such questions, I was able to evaluate my participants general understanding of and feelings about sex in a pandemic. I followed by asking questions specific to Hamilton, such as: How would you characterize Hamilton’s hookup culture? Has it changed in COVID? Questions regarding Hamilton’s specific hookup culture gave me general sense of whether participants perceive sex and hookup culture at Hamilton to be positive or negative, and how their perception of it as positive or negative has influenced their participation. Through these questions, I uncovered the reasons students continue to participate in sex and intimacy on college campuses, even though “hookup culture” is often understood to be negative and harmful. I continued by asking: Have you continued to participate in Hamilton’s hookup culture during COVID? Knowing whether a participant has continued to be intimate with others drove the rest of the interview, as I asked more in-depth, experience-based questions to those who continued to participate, and more general, preference and opinion-based questions to those who have not.
I ended each interview with questions that synthetized the themes previously discussed in the interview, such as: In the time of social distancing, what does intimacy mean to you? Do you think intimacy is possible from 6’ apart? Do you think intimacy is a requirement for sex? Through these questions, I was able to get closer to understanding how feelings and thoughts about intimacy have shifted in COVID and bring to light the ways in which the hookup, the motivators of the hookup, the pursuit of the hookup, and the effects of the hookup have or have not changed in the social context of a pandemic. Ultimately, all the questions and this interview format were laid out with the intention of enabling participants to elaborate on topics they were most comfortable with. While I attempted to make guesses as to which questions to certainly avoid, and which to certainly ask, the specific set of questions I asked in each interview depended on how the interview unfolded with each participant, their level of comfort, and their willingness to share.
Hooking Up
The All-American Hookup
Across academia, different big-picture models emerge for understanding so-called “hookup culture,” highlighting the notion that hookup culture, in reality, is too complex a phenomenon to fit neatly into a single theoretical framework. Indeed, different scholars and disciplines offer different models for making sense of “hookup culture.” Some sociologists argue that hookup culture is best understood as a “script,” wherein norms and roles dictate the action and dialogue actors in any given scene (Bogle 2008). Others prefer to think about hookup culture as a play-by-play, presenting a model wherein players move through a set series of steps that constitute hookup culture – such pregaming, grinding, initiating the hookup, “doing something,” establishing meaninglessness, claiming to be plastered, capping one’s hookups, and ultimately creating emotional distance (Wade 2017). Biologists, on the other hand, tend to discuss sexuality in terms of “drives,” and “urges,” and understand hookup culture as a means to an end (Bogle 2008). One author in religious studies understands hookup culture as a town that everyone knows how to get to, in which some reside in and others visit (Freitas 2013).
In any case, hookup culture revolves around the practice of hooking up. The term “hookup” constitutes a wide set of behaviors – but is typically understood to refer to just about any physical, sexual interaction between two (or more) individuals, much like sex (Cameron and Kulick 2003, Bogle 2008, Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011). While heterosexual “sex” has long carried the connotation of vaginal penetration by the penis, “hookup” has typically been understood to permit a wider range of interpretations (Cameron and Kulick 2003, Bogle 2008). It refers to an act, which can be either public or private, that consists of anything from a hug or kiss to penetrative sex, or anything else someone might consider sexual (Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Freitas 2013, Bogle 2008). It can also refer to a relationship status – much like terms like “friends with benefits” – indicating that two people are participating in sexual contact with one another without putting an official “label” on their relationship (Bogle 2008). The hookup is not a behavior exclusive to college campuses, nor to college-age students, as hookups and casual sex take place in all sorts of contexts around the United States (Regnerus and Uecker 2011).
While “hookups” happen everywhere, “hookup culture” is typically tied to college campuses. Popular notions of “hookup culture” thus stem from a particular version of the collegiate “hookup” which is understood to take the form of a drunken dancefloor make out, or after-party dorm room sex (Bogle 2008, Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Freitas 2013). On a broader level, this version of the hookup is understood as an intoxicated, fast, uncaring, and even perfunctory act, in which students completely separate emotional and physical intimacy to accumulate social capital or be “part of” campus social life (Bogle 2008, Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Freitas 2013). This separation of the emotional from the physical has been deemed dangerous, as careless, uncommunicative sex serves as an avenue for spreading STDs and normalizing sexual assault (Wade 2017, Bogle 2008, Freitas 2013). “Hookup culture” therefore emerges as mechanism to normalize these kinds of behaviors – leading many students to believe that this kind of hookup is the norm, that everyone is hooking up in this way, that their peers are hooking up more than they are, and that this version of sex is the only one they should be pursuing in order to fit in (Wade 2017, Bogle 2008, Freitas 2013). Many academics therefore argue that “hookup culture” is rampant and harmful to students, especially women, as it pushes students to strive for complete separation of emotional and physical intimacy in their pursuit of sex, normalizing risky behavior and causing poor mental health (Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Freitas 2013).
The “going out scene” is a culprit in constructing this narrative. Parties and collegiate social life are largely connected to use of substances, social pressures, and other risky behaviors that are, in many ways, harmful (Wade 2017, Bogle 2008, Freitas 2013, Regnerus and Uecker 2011). Embedded within the “going out scene” is the prevalence of historically white, affluent institutions such as fraternities, which are often regarded as the ultimate perpetrators and perpetuators of the exact kind of hookup culture that is considered harmful to young people, and especially young women (Wade 2017, Bogle 2008). The “going out” version of the hookup is so predictable and prevalent, scholars have gone so far as to break the particular way of facilitating a hookup into steps like pregaming, grinding, and initiating the hookup (Wade 2017). That said, this specific narrative surrounding collegiate hookups and hookup culture only shows us one model for understanding how hookups happen and is not entirely representative of how human sexuality unfolds on college campuses (Bogle 2008, Wade 2017, Regnerus and Uecker 2011).
Though the “going-out scene” version of hookup culture does not draw hard lines around the exclusion of different demographics, differential participation in it highlights how it is not universal, but mostly accessible to white, affluent, straight, cisgender students (Wade 2017). Only 2/3 of college students in the U.S. report experiences with hookup culture, most of whom are white (Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Wade 2017). Institutionally speaking hookup culture is most open to those students that see themselves reflected in the “majority,” and therefore emerges as “a white thing” on college campuses (Wade 2017: 95). White students tend to be less actively religious, have less conservative views about sexuality, report weaker gender egalitarianism, and have higher rates of alcohol consumption than their black peers, making them more primed to participate in hookup culture (Wade 2017). The link between whiteness and participation in hookup culture also relates to the link between whiteness and wealth, as white students are more likely to come from affluent backgrounds than students of color, and lower-income students of all racial backgrounds hookup less than their wealthier peers (Wade 2017). Hookup culture does not just tend to discriminate on the basis of race and wealth, but the basis of sexuality and gender identity, as those who do not identify as cisgender-heterosexuals find their romantic options on campus more limited (Wade 2017).
Hamilton, The Hamily, and the Hamilton Hookup
While previous research has reckoned with hookup culture as it plays out across college and university campuses across the United States, the data on which these evaluations are based has come, for the most part, out of large universities and state schools, where Greek life and athletics dominate. Considering how hookup culture has unfolded at a smaller school, like Hamilton College, presents an opportunity to consider how hookup culture plays out on a smaller scale.
Hamilton College, originally founded in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, is a small-liberal arts school located in central New York. It was founded by Samuel Kirkland, a missionary to the local Oneida Nation, who sought to enhance educational opportunities for this group. The academy never realized this purpose – as it came to be attended by and large by the children of white settlers. After Kirkland’s death, the academy was transformed into Hamilton College – an all-male college attended by students from the surrounding area. Hamilton’s notoriety increased throughout the 19thand 20th centuries, as it attracted more and more students and enhanced its infrastructure and curriculums. According to Hamilton’s own website, the “most revolutionary change,” the institution underwent during this period was the establishment of a sister institution, Kirkland College, in 1968 – which it merged with 10 years after its founding. In the 43 years since this merger, Hamilton has continued to grow – attracting an ever-increasing applicant pool with its open curriculum, small class sizes, academic rigor, division 3 athletics, and tight-nit community.
When prospective students are accepted to Hamilton, they are often greeted by the slogan, “Welcome to the Hamily.” Because Hamilton is so small, with only 1850 students enrolled, the concept of “Hamily” is essential to facilitating the institution’s construction of community. The “Hamily” is 52% female, 45% male, and 75% white. Though Hamilton boasts that its students come from 47 states and 49 countries, only 6.8% of its student body comes from outside the United States. Considering such demographics makes it clear that while the “Hamily,” acts as an all-inclusive community construct, it is mostly made up of white-students from the United States, especially from the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
The homogeneity of Hamilton’s student body plays a large role defining student social life – especially before the onset of the pandemic. Social life at Hamilton in recent years has been driven in large part by student groups – as shared interests, talents, and passions facilitate the formation of smaller communities within the Hamily. One in three students at Hamilton is a student-athlete, and 20% are involved in Greek-life. Other dominant interest and social groups on campus include club sports, acapella groups, and clubs. 100% of students live on-campus, but “party-culture,” has been historically split between taking place on campus and off. While some Greek organizations and some sports teams have “illegal” houses in downtown Clinton, where they can party without regulation and oversight from the college, parties in dorms are also common. It is in both venues that what would typically be known as “collegiate hookup culture” has historically taken place.
As an institution dominated by white students, many from affluent backgrounds, hookup culture, as it is traditionally understood, could thrive at Hamilton College. That said, Hamilton students I spoke with feel that hookup culture at Hamilton is different than at other schools. As one student, Arthur, put it, “Hamilton’s really small – it’s [hookup culture is] not the same as a big state school, you always see the people you get with. There are one-off one-night stands but they aren’t terribly common… Its better having a longer than one-night stand because if you just do that at Hamilton you’re gonna hookup with a ton of people and then no one wants to get with you.” As Arthur notes, it’s not that Hamilton students do not have access to social contexts that foster the intoxicated, fast, uncaring, and perfunctory hookup that happens frequently at other institutions – but that because Hamilton is so “small” engaging in this practice regularly could be damaging to one’s reputation – meaning “no one will want to get with you.” Arthur’s point reinforces points other participants made about the “everyone knows everyone,” nature of Hamilton’s hookup culture – as many noted that the small size of the community leads to increased knowledge about potential hookups, meaning that students are more aware of the sexual and personal “reputations” of themselves and others, and know which other students are and are not “safe” to hookup with, in terms of predatory behavior and STD transmission. Because the tight-knit community makes ample information available, a number of my participants argued that Hamilton’s pre-pandemic hookup culture was “safer,” compared to hookup culture at “big state schools.”
While hookup culture has historically played out differently, and arguably less toxically, at Hamilton than at other schools, students’ key motivators for participating overlap with some of those established by past literature. Of the students I interviewed that had participated in hookup culture, many reported that “hooking up” is a “fact” of college social life – and they feel that their participation in hookup culture was, in many ways, “inevitable” (Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Wade 2017). The interpretation of hooking up as “the norm,” is typically considered by academia to be one of hookup culture’s “toxic” traits, as many students feel they must hookup to “fit in,” (Wade 2017, Bogle 2008, Freitas 2013). Like students at other schools, Hamilton students understand social influence to be a prevalent factor in facilitating entry into hookup culture. Some referenced that being a member of a sports team, participating in Greek-life, and generally being a part of certain peer networks is what initially “threw them into” hookup culture at Hamilton. That said, many reported that once they were involved in hookup culture their motivation to continue participating came to be separated, at least in part, from social influence. Past literature has established that students who opt-in to hookup culture can typically be sorted into three categories: romantics, experimenters, and enthusiasts (Regnerus and Uecker 2011, Wade 2017). All my participants either fell into the romantic category, reporting that they saw hooking up as an avenue for pursuing more committed relationships, or the enthusiast category, noting that hooking up served to destress their lives and let them have a little fun.
Hamilton’s students’ evaluations of pre-pandemic hookup culture highlight some of the ways in which hookup culture at Hamilton is both different from, and similar to, hookup culture across the United States. By and large, Hamilton’s students believe that its hookup culture is healthier, safer, and less “toxic” – even though some of the same “toxic” perceptions and attitudes drive it. The search for intimacy and pleasure has historically driven Hamilton’s students to hookup, highlighting that in addition to seeing hooking up as a mechanism to fit in, they also see it as a means by which to achieve personal fulfillment. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s associated social and institutional repercussions, call for a closer reevaluation of hookup culture, especially as it manifests at a small institution that made the decision to bring its students back to campus.
The New Normal
The COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
To understand the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on college social life and hookup culture, it is first necessary to contextualize the disease itself. COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory disease, characterized by symptoms like fever, dry cough, inability to taste and smell, loss of appetite, body ache, and in severe cases shortness of breath and pneumonia (Velavan 2020). COVID-19 is most likely to be fatal for those “at risk” – which include the elderly and people which preexisting conditions (Velavan 2020). While some are at far greater risk than others, COVID has the potential to gravely impact even those in perfectly good health, and no one is truly immune to it. The global threat of COVID comes in large part from the way it spreads. While Americans have long been instructed to cover their coughs, sneeze into their elbows, and wash their hands during flu season, COVID-19 presents a new challenge in that it spreads through microscopic respiratory droplets, either inhaled through shared physical space or transferred through surfaces, meaning it can spread easily through regular breathing (Velavan 2020). The risk presented by COVID calls for a radical adjustment of American life, as institutions and individuals seek to combat a viral agent that is largely invisible.
While other countries have successfully mandated and enforced strict quarantine, social distancing, and mask wearing orders, the United States government has struggled to unite on a way to combat the disease. The failure of the United States to enforce precautions leaves a window of opportunity open for its residents to pursue risky behaviors, like hooking up and partying, that those living in other countries cannot. This failure to enforce preventative measures has hindered the United States, as over a year into the pandemic, the Center for Disease Control reports more than 31 million cases, and upwards of 560,000 deaths (CDC 2021). While the threat of the disease is very real to everyone living in the United States, illness is always a political issue – and some demographics face far greater risk than others. Even though COVID hypothetically cares not for borders, race, class, or gender in its transmission, in the U.S. certain privileged demographics – especially young white people – are relatively “safe” from the fatal impacts of this disease. We see this reflected in statistics that deal with race, as Black, Latino, and Native American residents are 1.4-1.8x more likely to get COVID than white residents, 3.7-4.1x more likely to be hospitalized for it, and 2.6-2.8x more likely to die from it (CDC 2021). We also see this in statistics that deal with age, as those between the ages of 0 and 27 are least likely to be hospitalized and die from COVID, while risk of hospitalization and death increases exponentially with age (CDC 2021). Thus the young, white American – the exact same person that is most likely to participate in hookup culture – is also the least likely to experience severe consequences if they catch COVID-19.
The privilege of this low-risk group is visible in their willingness to resist COVID safety protocol. Across the United States, college students have continued partying in the pandemic – putting themselves and others at extreme risk. These behaviors and attitudes have largely informed college and universities decisions on COVID-safety protocol – as some academic institutions have forgone in-person instruction altogether and kept all students remote. Others have completely changed on-campus policies in an attempt to bring students back while minimizing the risk of super-spreading. Those in the latter category have had differing degrees of success. In many cases, testing, quarantine, and conduct protocol has not been sufficient to slow the spread of the disease, and small outbreaks of COVID cases among socializing students have sent colleges remote within their first week back on campus. Even colleges that have been able to keep students on campus have been met by extremely high case numbers that threaten the campus community. Hamilton College, however, is an exception to this trend.
Creating and Maintaining the Hubble
Hamilton College has been able to maintain operations and keep students on its residential campus throughout the entirety of 2020-2021 academic year. Their ability to keep students on campus and keep case numbers low enough to continue operations has relied on “risk-management” strategies that revolve around the constant management and monitoring of the body and its biological state through strict testing, quarantine, and contact tracing protocol (Briggs, 2021). The threat of students bringing COVID onto campus is minimized by Hamilton’s requirement that they get tested in the days leading up to their arrival on campus, get tested upon arrival, and consequently quarantine until they obtain another negative test result. This process allows the college to identify students that have contracted the virus en route to campus, and subsequently quarantine them. Even after it has been confirmed that students do not have COVID, they are required to stay on campus and in the surrounding area to preserve the “hubble”. A large part of maintaining this “hubble” is frequent testing. By outsourcing testing to a private company, the Broad Institute, Hamilton is able to test the community as often as they see fit – currently, students test three times weekly, and employees test twice weekly. Working with a private company assures rapid and effective test results – meaning the college can identify positive cases and act upon them very quickly, identifying positive students and close contacts, and putting them in isolation. While the college was faced with an outbreak in the fall that sent them into a “yellow” operating status, meaning that students were faced with increased restrictions in on-campus life, in the spring semester, it has managed to maintain an almost non-existent case rate. Thanks to these protocols, Hamilton has successfully been able to create a “bubble,” or “hubble,” of COVID safety – especially in its second semester.
While much of the success of creating the “hubble,” has relied on the testing, contact-tracing, and quarantine protocols that manage and monitor the biological body, maintaining it relies on COVID-safe behavior within the Hamilton community. Hence, in addition to testing and quarantine rules, Hamilton has strict conduct requirements of its students. These conduct requirements are set forth in a “Community Agreement,” that students are required to sign before coming to campus. According to the Community Agreement, students must be masked and distant from each other at all times, unless they are roommates. They may not gather inside or outside – unless granted permission from the school. When they do gather, their gatherings are capped at 10-25 students, depending on the space in which they gather and the operating status of the school. Students have not been allowed to enter each other’s residential halls in some parts of the year due to increased concern about spreading COVID-19, but when they have been permitted to enter other dorms, the number of students in a room at any given time may not exceed double the room occupancy. Violation of any of these policies might result in conduct points, or a “COVID-strike,” and if a student receives more than two COVID-strikes, they get sent home for the semester.
The combination of biological monitoring and conduct protocols complicate notions of safety and risk, especially for the students I spoke with. Thanks to the constant testing, and strong quarantine and contact tracing procedures, my participants feel there is little risk that they will get COVID, or that they will give it to someone else when they are on campus. In the words of one of my participants, Kathleen, “It feels safer, here than elsewhere, and I consider the risk of catching and spreading COVID negligible. Once we’re on campus solidly and have established the bubble I think about [COVID] a lot less.” As Kathleen points out, Hamilton is a place that “feels” safe. This “feeling” of safety relies on certain traits that are unique to Hamilton – as there is a difference between “here” (Hamilton) and “elsewhere.” What sets Hamilton apart is the “solidity” and “establishment” of the Hubble, which affords students like Kathleen the privilege not to “think about” COVID, or to think about it “a lot less” than they might when they are functioning outside of it. It becomes apparent that for Kathleen “thinking about COVID,” refers to measuring biological risk – as “[she] think[s] about COVID a lot less” when she considers the biological risk of “catching and spreading COVID negligible.” The “safety” of the hubble is thus grounded in the success of Hamilton’s biological risk-mitigation strategies, which allows students like Kathleen to shift their priorities away from calculating biological risk in their day to day lives.
Student’s perception of Hamilton as biologically “safe” and “low-risk” environment sometimes leads them to partake in behaviors that could put them at higher risk of getting sick. One student, Pippa, argued that because she feels biologically “safer” at Hamilton than she does “at home,” Hamilton “is a circumstance where [she doesn’t] necessarily have to,” engage in the practices that protect her biologically – like wearing masks and social distancing. Pippa is not alone in believing that because Hamilton is “safe,” she can disregard COVID protocol – as all of my participants indicated that they have violated the masking and distancing rules laid out in the Community Agreement, mostly in pursuit of their “social lives.” This is not to say that Hamilton’s campus is an unmasked free-for-all, but that many students with whom I spoke feel compelled to violate COVID-19 protocols in situations where their friends are doing the same. As one participant, Hannah, put it: “violating the guidelines is more about what the people around me are comfortable with – if [my friends] are wearing masks, I will, if they aren’t, I won’t.” Hannah’s willingness to conform to the practices of her friends, speaks to how she, like Kathleen and Pippa, exercises little concern for her own biological safety when at Hamilton. What matters most to her in her navigation of her social life and routine is the “comfort” of others – which aligns with Tunçgenç et. al’s, finding that the strongest predictor of an individual’s adherence to COVID safety protocol is the perceived adherence and attitudes of one’s “close circle,” (Tunçgenç et. al, 2021: 9). Pippa and Hannah’s statements about rule-breaking highlight that when they are in an environment that they perceive to be biologically “safe” for themselves and others, they are willing to revert to pre-COVID, “high-risk,” social routines as they come to prioritize social concerns over biological ones.
All of the Hamilton students with whom I spoke regularly violate protocols and ignore biological threats in pursuit of their social lives, which leads them to think about “risk” in terms of administrative consequence when they are on campus. The institution’s emphasis on severe punishment causes anxiety among students, as they argue that they are living in a “police state,” because they are “constantly terrified,” of being caught on a COVID violation and getting sent home. While this policing comes, at least in part, from agents within the institution, such as Campus Safety officers and Judicial Board officials, this fear is also grounded in fear of other students. In the fall especially, the Hamilton community saw an extreme increase in policing within the student body – as students began reporting each other to the administration for COVID violations – sending screenshots of other students from social media, taking videos of other students violating rules, making complaints against both individuals and organizations. The administration has validated this kind of behavior – and sent many students home after their infractions were reported by other students – fostering what students call “culture of fear.”
According to the students with whom I spoke, this “culture of fear” has been largely unsuccessful in deterring them from socializing in an unsafe way. Indeed, several of my participants indicated that all the “culture of fear,” has really accomplished is damaging their mental health and weakening solidarity within the community. As one participant, Arthur, explained, “Hamilton completely underestimated the mental health impact of these policies and has not shown proper empathy toward people that make Hamilton what it is…It’s absurd how punitive they are about things that students probably shouldn’t be doing but will do regardless. It causes a lot of extra stress.” For Arthur, and many of my participants, the Hamilton College administration as a governing body has come to be evaluated in terms of their “policies.” Through these “absurd,” and “punitive,” policies, Hamilton’s administration has failed to account for the “mental health” of its student body, and in turn has not “shown proper empathy” toward the individuals that constitute the community. By constantly penalizing students for things, they “shouldn’t be doing but will do regardless,” all the college achieves is the creation of “extra stress.” Though the students with whom I spoke are happy with their decision to return to campus, and grateful toward the administration for creating a “hubble” that keeps them safe, the administration’s creation of the “culture of fear,” has failed to deter them from socializing in an unsafe way, and instead has damaged their mental health and weakened what solidarity and trust is supposedly instilled within the Hamily.
In sum, despite the prevalence of the body’s importance, and the emphasis on constantly managing it, in discourse around the “risk” of COVID-19, students I spoke with correlate risk with non-biological consequences. Thanks for the “culture of fear,” they worry more about being caught violating the Community Agreement, and being reprimanded for that, than they do about actually getting or spreading COVID-19. Their concern over non-physical consequences is driven by their concern that each violation they are caught for will bring them closer to being sent home, and consequently isolated from their friends on campus, or that conduct violations might impact their future. That said, many continue to prioritize their social lives over these concerns and continue to socialize in an unsafe way. For students in the “hubble,” then, the body thus becomes a secondary concern, as rigorous testing and quarantine protocol give them a sense of safety in their physical wellbeing – and they come to prioritize social concerns and consequences over physiological ones.
The Pursuit of Intimacy
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated protocol and rules it has brought to Hamilton, pose and interesting question for hookups and hookup culture. While some groups of students have continued pursuing modified versions of their old social routines, the “going-out” culture that once facilitated hookups and hookup culture has shifted radically. The pandemic has essentially killed off parties at downtown houses, bars, and many students who live on campus are unwilling to host parties in their residences due to fear of violating the Community Agreement. Other venues where students might meet potential sex partners on campus, such as class, have been moved onto digital and socially distanced platforms, which do not lend themselves well to facilitating physical intimacy among students (Karampamas 2020). Even if, and when, students are presented with the opportunity to pursue intimacy with another person, doing so exposes them to various risks: they potentially compromise the health of their bodies by exposing themselves to another person in close proximity, and put themselves in a position where they violate COVID-safety protocol and could face consequences if they are caught. Given these circumstances, it seems that the pandemic might have killed-off hookup culture at Hamilton, as well. According to the students I interviewed, however, this is not the case. They reported that students at Hamilton still hookup with each other, and their willingness to continue doing so, despite all odds, speaks to some of the ways in which hooking up as a social practice, and hookup culture as a social phenomenon, have shifted.
Shifting Social Intimacy and Influence
Some of the most notable changes in hookup culture at Hamilton pertain to the changing role and prevalence of close friends. When asked about the changes COVID has brought on their life, Hamilton students reported that the “biggest change” pertains to their friendships. The pandemic has challenged friendships in more ways than one, as students across the United States reported feelings of loneliness, introversion, and isolation after months of lockdown with their families left them feeling disconnected from their social network (Cains, 2020). For some, this has prompted a reconsideration of friend groups – as many found themselves maintaining more contact with certain friends during lockdown than others. As one participant, Sophia, explained, “I’m much closer to people I’m friends with now, because COVID has made it more obvious who I’m close with. I’ve lost friends by choice.” Several my participants echoed Sophia’s sentiments – observing that COVID clarified ambiguity in their friendships by making it more “obvious,” which friendships were most valuable. As Sophia notes, this clarity has allowed her to invest more in those she’s “close with,” because it has given her agency to choose which friends to “lose” and which to keep. Even though many of my participants were eager to set their social lives “right,” upon their return to campus, core friends and friend groups have taken on a larger role in their lives.
The reason for this prioritization of close friends comes at least in part from the fact that \ needs, and foundations of safety, within friendship have been shifted by the pandemic. In close relationships, foundations of safety have traditionally been separated into four categories: physical, emotional, commitment, and community (Stanly and Markman, 2020). In COVID, it might seem that the most obvious adjustment to close relationships might be a higher level of commitment to keep each other physically, and physiologically, safe. As my participants explained, however, when they are on campus physiological safety is “assured” by the hubble – and their concerns about community and emotional safety become more relevant. Community and emotional safety are the aspects of safety most threatened by the “culture of fear,” on Hamilton’s campus. Students thus turn to their core friend groups to create community safety by aligning on attitudes about COVID rules and breaking them, to create a private, intimate context in which they can escape the “fear” associated with the larger, public community. In creating this space, friends and friend groups can foster emotional safety by making each other feel comfortable and supported in a challenging social context. Even though “physiological safety,” is understood to be the biggest threat of COVID-19, fear of the broader, public community, has left many of the students with whom I spoke increasingly relying on close friends and friend groups to fulfill their needs for community and emotional safety.
These shifts in the requirements of friendship are particularly pertinent in female friend groups – whose current models of friendship both reinforce and deviate from pre-pandemic western constructions of female friendship and social intimacy. Western friendship, especially for women, has been seen as a “means to help cultivate and support” the autonomy of each other (Starr 2019: 218). The interest in preserving and maintaining autonomy typically means that people avoid mutual obligation and influence in their friendships, as being a “good friend [means] not exerting too much influence over each other,” (Starr 2019: 217). This results in a form social intimacy that relies on being “explicit about intentions,” in such a way that “everyone [can] make their own choice about how to respond,” (Starr 2019: 219). While friendships in COVID rely extensively on the clear communication around intentions and boundaries that is typical of western female friendships, there is now less room for individuals to choose how they respond, especially if they want to maintain the friendship. Differing attitudes about COVID-safety, social distancing, and mask-wearing for example, are difficult for students to reconcile while simultaneously supporting each other’s autonomy – and make it nearly impossible for them to foster community and emotional safety. On the other hand, when individuals reach consensus and align in their attitudes about COVID, they can provide each other community and emotional safety, allowing them to facilitate more social intimacy and trust. Though the need for consensus in friendship can require mutual obligation and limit autonomy, students with whom I spoke report that their friendships now are “healthier” and more connected than before – as pursuing closer friendships has emerged as a mechanism to undo some of the feelings of disconnectedness brought by isolation and the “culture of fear.”
The changes COVID-19 has brought to friendship and social intimacy have radically changed the role of social influence in driving hookup culture. Though young people’s “negotiations of sexual pleasure are often supported by advice and counsel from friends,” the role of friends in hookup culture has shifted, as participation in hookup culture has come to be separated from social influence (Byron, 2017: 491). As Sophia put it, “Before COVID hooking up was something I needed to do to keep up with everyone else. Now I feel no incentive to please anyone but myself.”Redirecting attention away from larger social networks has lessened the pressure on Sophia to “keep up with everyone else,” as she feels confident in the emotional safety, trust, and social intimacy fostered among close friends. As a result, she feels there is now little outside “incentive” to hookup, but that hooking up is instead centered on “pleas[ing] herself.” Sophia’s sentiments were echoed by a number of my participants, as they reported that distance from the larger social network and prioritization of their immediate friend group increased their interest in pursuing hookups “for themselves.”
Intimacy, the Self, and Health
In the COVID-19 pandemic, students desire to hookup for “themselves” is heavily tied to their subjective constructions of wellbeing. Per Neil Thin, a consideration of constructions of wellbeing comes in three parts: first, a consideration of how people feel, as “feeling well is the core meaning of happiness,” second, an understanding of how people make meaning in their lives by “evaluating the quality of their own lives,” and motives (Thin 2012: 31). Students with whom I spoke believed that “feeling well,” or “being healthy” in the pandemic centers more on emotional and mental health than physical health. As Hannah noted, “I do feel that the mental health epidemic that comes with the pandemic is in some ways worse than the physical backlash.” Hannah’s “feeling” that the pandemic is “worse” for mental health than physical health speaks to how she subjectively constructs “wellness.” While the discourse around COVID-19 has largely framed “health” and “wellness,” as objective states that can be achieved and protected through certain protocols that revolve around managing the body, Hannah, and many other students with whom I spoke, reject these “objective” constructions of health, instead evaluating what it means to be “well” based on what they “feel.” For Hannah and others, mental and emotional health are therefore more important for “wellbeing” and “quality of life,” than physical or biological health in the pandemic. In turn, “doing things” and “hooking up” for “themselves,” emerge as practices that allow them to pursue personal wellbeing by improving emotional and mental health.
Students’ belief that they can pursue wellbeing through hookups is connected to their belief that “intimacy,” is central to their emotional and mental needs. As Arthur described, “I do think intimacy is a human need. Not being intimate when you’re really craving it will just make you miserable.” Arthur’s construction of “need” ties back to Thin’s arguments about understanding wellbeing (Thin 2012). Thinking about “needs” in the survivalist sense highlights how, when needs go unmet, the repercussions are largely health related – when the human need for food is not met, one can die of starvation, when the human need for water is unmet, one can die of thirst. Arthur is now evaluating “need” in terms of the emotional wellbeing, as opposed to biological wellbeing. As he notes, when the “need” for intimacy goes unfulfilled the result is “misery,” – an emotional state defined as “wretchedly unhappy” (New Oxford American Dictionary). Above all else, Arthur’s evaluations of intimacy as a need are based on his feelings. He was not alone, however, in these beliefs – as all of my participants referenced “needing” intimacy in some capacity. Intimacy means different things to different students – as some understand intimacy to mean feeling loved and cared for, and others believe it means feeling connected to others in a way that supersedes friendship. Regardless of how they characterized what intimacy means to them, the students I spoke with argued that it is central to their own emotional needs, and the emotional needs of all humans.
Improving health by fulfilling the supposed “need” for intimacy has thus become student’s primary motivator for hooking up. As one participant, Emilie, described, “In the pandemic, one of the biggest losses we’ve had to adjust for a loss of intimacy. Now I crave intimacy more – I want someone who can comfort me, not just to have meaningless sex.” As Emilie points out, the “loss of intimacy,” brought by the pandemic has driven her to “crave intimacy more.” This “craving” for intimacy is not something that can be fulfilled by “meaningless sex,” as she emphasizes that physical pleasure alone is not what motivates her to hookup. For Emilie, hooking up now is about seeking the “comfort,” provided by “someone” with whom she is physically intimate. Emilie’s sentiments about pursuing emotional intimacy (comfort) through physical intimacy (not-meaningless hookups) were echoed by almost all my participants – as they have come to view hooking up “for themselves” as a way to make up for the “loss of intimacy,” and the associated damage to emotional and mental health, brought by the pandemic.
Because the hookup is now more centered on making up for “lost” intimacy and the pursuit of emotional and mental health, the practices around it have shifted. As discussed above, the “meaningless sex,” once made available by downtown fraternity parties and off-campus bars are no longer prevalent, nor desirable for many of my participants. As Arthur said, in COVID “the ideal type of hookup at Hamilton is more consistent and has a connection.” Where before students might have just gone out and “found someone,” or moved rapidly from one partner to the next, the ideal of “consistency” and “connection” leads many students to think more about their hookups in advance. As Emilie noted, “hookup culture now is more intimate because you have to identify the person first, and then stick with them.” As Emilie notes, this intentionality behind hooking up – “identifying” and “sticking with” someone fosters “more intimacy,” as students build more intimate connections with their potential sexual partners prior to being physically intimate with them, and commit to these intimate relationships once they are established. This is not just the case for students like Emilie and Arthur, as across the board, my participants noted that hookups are “less spur of the moment,” more intentional, more precipitated, and less reliant on substances like alcohol, than before COVID. Students intentional “planning” of hookups highlights how hooking up has moved away from being a “spur of the moment” outcome of a night out, to a thoughtful practice in pursuing emotional intimacy.
The pursuit of emotional intimacy through physical intimacy is not unique to my participants – but is evident in students attitudes about “safe sex practices” on and off the hill. Safety measures, from masks to condoms, have long been viewed as barriers to the kind of intimacy college students seek through hooking up. Condoms, like masks, serve as a proven mechanism to prevent the spread of disease and infection. However, only half of sexually active college students report using condoms in penetrative sex (Fehr et. Al 2014). The decision not to use a condom, especially in the 21stcentury, is thoroughly intertwined with relationship dynamics. Even though students do believe condom use “to be a responsible, safer sex practice,” they also believe that not using condoms conveys “commitment and deeper affection,” (Fehr et. Al 2014: 116). The decision to forgo condom use therefore acts as a way to convey emotional intimacy and “affirm trust,” (Fehr et. Al 2014: 115). Students report similar attitudes towards wearing masks in intimate settings. Though the majority of students seen on Hamilton’s campus wear masks in the public sphere, their decisions about mask-wearing in the private sphere are more informative – as 72.8% of respondents polled on Jodel, and all of my participants, indicated that they would not wear a mask while being intimate with another person. If “hooking up” was really just about having fun and having sex, students might be more willing to protect themselves from physical and biological threats. The fact that they are unwilling to “protect” themselves in this sense speaks to the fact that many students in the Hamilton community, my participants included, pursue physical intimacy in hopes of achieving emotional intimacy, and improving emotional health.
The dichotomy of emotional needs for intimacy and physical needs for protection from biological risk in hooking up demonstrates the challenges of navigating selfhood and wellbeing during a pandemic. In normal semesters, students might typically feel their qualities of life are “higher,” leading them to pursue sex for different reasons. The pandemic, however, has presented challenges that leave them feeling that their quality of life is much lower than usual – putting their notions of wellness and the self in question. Emotional and mental health have come to take priority over physiological health – as students reject objective constructions of physiological health, in favor of their subjective constructions of emotional and mental wellness. Intimacy has thus emerged as a mechanism through which they “reset” their quality of life – pursuing intimacy through hookups enables them re-instill wellness, as they bridge the emotional expanse of loneliness created by the isolation of COVID, and “fill the void.”
Conclusion
Before the pandemic, hooking up was framed as an "unhealthy" side effect of collegiate social life. It’s emphasis on male pleasure, social status, and meaninglessness was understood to leave students damaged and “confused about intimacy,” by the time they came out of the college experience (Freitas 2014). That said, speaking to students about hooking up and hookup culture during a global pandemic has challenged these findings – making visible the “good” in hookup culture that underlies all of this supposed “bad.”
In COVID-19, students have begun framing of hooking up and hookup culture in terms of their “feelings,” their “health,” and their “needs” – marking a shift in the significance of hookup culture and the practice of hooking up. While hookup culture is still centered around “fun” in many ways, hooking up as a practice now serves as a means by which students fulfill the perceived needs of the self. For my participants, these “needs” revolve more around emotional and mental health than objective physiological health – as they forgo biological safety precautions, like condoms and masks, to pursue emotional, social, and physical “connection” with others. Their prioritization of connection over physical health speaks to how central intimacy is to their subjective wellbeing in COVID – and the fact that they see hooking up as an avenue to pursue intimacy, and in turn, wellbeing, in this social context. During the pandemic, students have thus found “health” in the hookup – as hooking up has emerged as a practice through which students pursue emotional and physical intimacy, and, in turn, “set right” the aspects of their mental and emotional health that have been damaged by COVID-19.
As Mathilde pointed out, “There’s so many other things we do in our day to day lives that I would totally give up, but we can’t just give up sex.” In a world rendered socially distant, there are many “things we do in our day to day lives,” that we have, in some capacity, had to “give up,” – or move online, mask, and modify. For my participants, however, “sex” is not one of these things that one can simply forgo or fit into a COVID safe mold – because to do so would render sex hopelessly unintimate. As much as sex, and hooking up, have been understood as acts based on physicality and physical pleasure in the past, students with whom I spoke have demonstrated a paradigm shift in what hooking up means, and what goal it achieves, as they universally put their needs for intimacy, and by proxy emotional mental health, over their need for physical and biological health when they are operating within the context of the COVID college campus.
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