[media-credit name=’Taylor Hughes’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Boy and girl meet, drink lots of booze, flirt a bit and then get right down to business: your place or mine?

These days, young singles are not going out for dinner and a movie anymore. Instead, the phenomenon of “hooking up” — engaging in a causal physical encounter without commitment — is increasingly becoming the college-age mating norm.

“It’s not the 1950s anymore,” said Katie, a University of Wisconsin senior.

At bars and house parties across campus, hookups are such a commonplace occurrence that the practice has come to replace more steady, serious romantic and sexual relationships for many college students at Madison.

“I do find it hard to focus on one person … I think it’s just easier to have casual encounters,” said Katie, adding the ease of a hookup makes the practice much more appealing than dealing with the intensity and stress that often goes hand-in-hand with a long-term relationship. “Most people you meet in bars you don’t have that much invested [in], so you don’t really care.”

But the phenomenon of hooking up is not just a peripheral part of the college experience. Studies show the practice is extremely widespread on campus: 91 percent of respondents of an Independent Women’s Forum survey on sex and campus relationships said hookups occurred “very often” in college.

And at a major party school such as UW, with an intensely prevalent drinking culture, increasing numbers of students are finding it much easier to just jump into the hookup lifestyle.

“There is a lot of temptation,” Mike, a UW junior, said. “Having 40,000 young people [here], there are bound to be a bunch of people that you are going to be attracted to.”

Many students may opt for hooking up over either causal dating or a serious relationship because of its relative ease, coupled with a campus atmosphere rife with booze, a sense of sexual freedom and an overriding emphasis on school and career over romantic commitment.

“Dating requires commitment. This is like the anti-dating atmosphere,” he said.

Nevertheless, Mike said the prevalence of hookups does not mean students are uninterested in a more serious romantic relationship. In fact, one of his hookups — who was also a good friend — just recently became his girlfriend.

In the end, Mike believes students should pursue more long-term dating but also be able to “get a little on the hookup side” when not in a relationship.

“Personally, I like having the option for both,” he said.

But some experts say the high trend of hooking up on college campuses does not bode well for young peoples’ ability to eventually settle down and maintain a more intimate dating relationship after college.

According to UW sociology professor John Delamater, seriously dating someone allows students to develop needed social skills that are crucial in being able to eventually hold down a long-term relationship — namely marriage.

“You can be really good at one-night stands. You can be really good at picking someone up and getting them into bed. [But you may] not be able to sustain a long-term relationship,” he said, adding if young people get too accustomed to casual sex without commitment, they may never be able to successfully settle down.

But many students admit that though they participate in hookups, deep down they actually might prefer seriously dating someone.

The culture here, however, does not seem to facilitate that.

“It’s kind of too bad,” Adam, a UW junior, said, adding many people are surprised there is relatively little dating on campus outside of pre-established couples. “It’s kind of tough for people to get into relationships if they want to.”

Some students say hooking up has its place, but it should not substitute students pursing more serious relationships.

“It’s a shame. It’s fine to hook up and it has its place, but it shouldn’t be 80 percent of someone’s college dating experience,” Katie said, adding frequently engaging in casual physical encounters can quickly turn into a negative experience. “[If] you do it over and over again, I think people get really frustrated. They are looking for something that isn’t there.”

Delamater said the difficulty many students face when trying to initiate a date is the result of changing rules governing dating. Whereas in the past, assumptions about who asks who or who pays on a date were clearly understood, today the “script” for dating remains ambiguous. Many students find themselves baffled about the simple rules to dating in a world where the practice has come to seem almost obsolete.

Students may find themselves in a difficult spot if they want to find a serious relationship, in large part because they are looking in the wrong places. Too many times, young people choose to try to find a partner in settings heavily laden with alcohol.

“[You] are not going to find someone at the KK some night to be with in a relationship next month,” Delamater said.

But many students say that while they are keeping an eye open for a potential long-term partner in college, the hookup lifestyle will suffice as long as they are looking.

Yet while men and women are keeping themselves occupied by hooking up as they wait for a more serious relationship to come along, one gender may find the culture of casual sex on campus more fulfilling than the other. Many experts contend the hookup culture favors men over women, both because males don’t face the same social labels of being “easy” and because they are able to more readily disassociate sex from emotions.

In short, girls may be participating in hookups just as much as men, but they are reacting very differently.

“I think more girls want the call back [after hooking up]. Most girls are more invested than guys,” Katie said. “I feel like a lot of girls have hookups, have sex with someone, and then want something more.”

She said many college men may be so accustomed to hooking up, they don’t want to deal with the pain of wooing a girl and paying for a date.

“I think a lot of guys are lazy. They need to man up and take a girl out on a date,” she added.

But many men on campus argue both sexes are equally responsible for — and equally enjoy — the hookup culture on campus.

“It is not like girls are conned into it,” Mike said. “Girls are willing, too. It takes both parties to be up for it.”

Yet experts point to the fact women are often disappointed by hookup experiences as evidence the phenomenon may disproportionately benefit men.

“Women say they want to date someone. They want a call back,” Delamater said. “Some women are saying that the sex is awful.”

Indeed, the whole hookup experience can leave women not just emotionally unfulfilled, but also sexually unsatisfied. Since women physiologically need more stimulation and attention during sex, they may need a partner who is more attentive to their needs to reach the same level of sexual satisfaction as men.

“Most men, when they have sex, are going to have an orgasm. Most women are not,” Delamater added.

But the prevalence of hookups concerns experts not just in terms of students’ emotional well-being and their ability to foster skills for future relationships. Their physical safety — particularly sexual health — is at risk as well.

Due to the fact young people often have one-night stands while intoxicated, their judgment is often impaired when hooking up, resulting in poor decisions they might have chosen differently in another — more sober — situation.

“[The idea] you should not have sex with someone when you are drunk should be pushed as much as not getting into a car with someone who is drunk,” Scott Spear, clinical services director of University Health Services, said.

“Alcohol is a drug, and some people don’t know how big a dose they are getting,” he added.

But many students do not seem to take that advice to heart. According to Spear, the most common time students have sex is on weekends between 1 and 2 a.m., often after drinking heavily earlier that night.

Nevertheless, most young people are well educated about using protection when having sex, particularly because they have never known what is it like to live in a world without the threat of AIDS. Positive pregnancy rates on campus have dipped from 13 percent in 1998 to between six and seven, in part because of emergency contraceptive use.

Yet problems are still arising. A major issue is the incorrect use of condoms when people are drunk, resulting in little to no protection during sex.

Additionally, many people do not use condoms when engaging in non-vaginal sex. A rising number of students are turning to oral sex as a way to have “safer sex,” yet they remain unaware of the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease from the practice.

In fact, the percentage of Type 1 herpes (typically resulting from oral sex) has soared on campus from 30 to 70 percent of all herpes cases contracted. Although a condom would be effective protection against the disease, many young people don’t take that extra step to protect themselves.

And it is the sexual risks and the emotional toll hookups take on many college students that is causing a number of young people to forswear the practice altogether.

Jennifer, a UW senior, said after having several hookups she found the experience unsatisfying and not enjoyable, and she has not had one since. Above all, being sexually intimate with someone she hardly knows bothered her more than anything else.

“The impersonal-ness of it. It isn’t as meaningful with someone you just met,” she said.

She added, however, that hooking up can have its benefits for young people on campus, particularly those who are single, searching and feeling extremely sexual.

“Hookups do have benefits,” Jennifer said. “They are just not for me. [But] if you are safe, it’s a great way to discover your sexuality.”