Last night, students and faculty gathered in McNeir auditorium to discuss something that isn’t usually talked about at events sponsored by the Office of Campus Ministry: hooking-up.

In the first of a four-part series on “The Sacred and the Sexual,” Donna Freitas (COL ‘94), author of Sex and the Soul and an assistant professor of religion at Boston University, discussed her findings about the impact of “the hook-up culture” on students’ spirituality.

Freitas defined hooking-up as any kind of intimacy in which the encounter is transitional or temporary and involves shutting off one’s emotional side in order to engage in purely physical activity.  She said  her research shows that students are participating in the hook-up culture not because they enjoy it, but because it’s a norm they feel obligated to conform to.

In a survey she conducted of nearly 600 students, 41 percent reported negative feelings about hooking up (and used descriptors like “used,” “dirty,” “empty,” and “disgusted”), 23 percent expressed ambivalence and 36 percent said they were more or less fine with it.  While those numbers don’t seem too skewed, Freitas said there were very few students who were really positive about hooking up—those who said they were fine with it were really lukewarm.

“Living in the context of hook-up culture made them feel exhausted and empty and spent,” Freitas said.

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