Promiscuity Frowned Upon By College Students

Date: Aug-20-2012According to a new study presented at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, around 50% of all male and female college students display a negative attitude towards their male and female peers with a similar sexual history to themselves, and judge them as hooking up 'too much'.

The study's co-author, Rachel Allison, a doctoral candidate in the University of Illinois at Chicago's Department of Sociology, said: "Men and women are increasingly judging each other on the same level playing field. But, gender equality and sexual liberation are not synonymous. While we've come a long way in terms of gender equality, it seems that a large portion of both college men and women lose respect for individuals who they believe participate in too frequent casual sexual activity."

To assess data within the framework of the sexual revolution, meaning historical trends towards the disentanglement of sex from marriage, the researchers used a sub-sample of over 19,000 students with data from 22 different colleges from the 2011 Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS), in which participants were asked to respond to the statement: "If (wo)men hook up or have sex with lots of people, I respect them less."

The researchers evaluated the answers and other follow-up questions and divided the data into four groups consisting of egalitarian conservative, egalitarian libertarian, traditional double standard, and reverse double standard.

The findings revealed that around 48% of the participants were egalitarian conservatives, i.e. judging their male and female peers with similar sexual histories by the same standard and lose equal respect for those who they believe hook up too much, whilst around 27% were egalitarian libertarians, meaning they lose respect neither for their male or female peers irrespective of their amount of hook ups. Almost 12% held a traditional double standard, meaning they lose respect for women who hook up too much, yet not for men, and around 13% held a reverse double standard, meaning they lost respect for men who hooked up too much but not for women.

Women, in particular, tended to have a more egalitarian conservative attitude. Around 54% of female participants adopted this attitude compared with more than 35% of men. In addition, fewer women, i.e. only 6%, tended to hold a traditional double standard compared to almost 25% of men.

Male athletes and Greek affiliated men who were neither involved in campus athletics nor engaged in Greek life were more likely to judge women that frequently hooked up in a negative light, even though most men did not hold a traditional double standard. 38% of male athletes and 37% of Greek affiliated men adopted traditional double standards. According to the researchers, Greek culture tended to be widely spread amongst the university students, which led to the fact that many wrongly believed that the most common view of hooking up on campus was the traditional double standard.

Barbara Risman, a sociology professor at Chigago's Illinois University explained:

"Because Greek brothers and athletes tend to be at the top of the social stratification ladder - the big guys on campus - we see this adversarial double standard infused in people's perceptions of college and hook up culture. These men, who are in fact the minority, end up holding a great deal of social power on campus."

It was interesting to note that Greek affiliated women living in Greek housing had a higher chance of holding a reverse double standard towards hooking up compared with other female undergraduates, whilst sorority sisters who lived in Greek housing also had a 42% higher chance of believing in reverse double standards compared with those who had a egalitarian libertarian view on the issue.

The team believes that this attitude amongst women living in Greek housing could possibly be explained because of their close social and geographic proximity to the Greek culture, and a resultant unfavorable reaction towards fraternity brothers' casual sexual behaviors.

Risman remarked: "Women who hold to this reverse double standard are invoking a kind of gender justice. They are critical of men who treat women badly and they do not accept a 'boys will be boys' view of male sexuality."

The team also included other demographic factors in relating people's perceptions of gender equality and hooking up, such as religious affiliation, sexual identity, and the location of the college.

Unlike Catholic students, those who were Buddhists, Jewish, and non-affiliated students were less likely to lose respect for those who frequently engaged in casual sexual activity. Also, evangelical or fundamentalist Christian women were almost 76% more likely than Catholic women to pass hard judgement on those they believed engaged in too much sexual activity.

The team also observed a link between sexual orientation and people's perceptions of hooking up; whilst non-heterosexual men and women were less likely than heterosexual students to lose respect for other's casual sexual activity, most of the non-heterosexual young adults held egalitarian libertarians views.

They also noted that students' sexual attitudes were linked to their college's geographic region. Whilst both men and women from West Coast colleges seemed to hold a more liberal view in terms of their sexual attitudes, those from Midwest colleges tended to hold more conservative sexual views, and those from East Coast colleges held a view that was somewhere in between.

Risman concluded:

"You have to remember how far the sexual revolution has come. Before, sociologists would study stigma directed toward sexually active unmarried women. Now, we are looking at whether stigma still exists toward men and women who too often engage in purely recreational sexual activity outside the confines of a dating relationship. That's a sea change in attitudes towards sex."

Written by Petra Rattue

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