Hookups and friends with benefits: Nonrelational sexual encounters as contexts of women's normative sexual development.

Abstract

Hookups are sexual encounters between friends or acquaintances that include intercourse or non-coital behaviors. Although hookups are very common occurrences on college campuses, little is known about the role of these behaviors in women's sociosexual development. Thus, this dissertation, composed of three studies, used a sex-positive/normative development framework to explore women's hookup behavior during emerging adulthood. In the first study, socialization about sex and relationships was examined with regards to the extent to which young women participated in sexual hookups, and the age at which they began to do so. Peer communication and perceptions of peer behavior were the factors found that most consistently distinguished between groups of women. Communications that encouraged selflessness, self-objectification, or sexual exploration were each associated with having a larger number of hookup partners and starting to participate in these encounters at a younger age. In contrast, messages emphasizing the importance of love or marriage tended to dissuade women from engaging in sexual hookups. With the intention of exploring when hookups could be normative/healthy and when they might be problematic, the second study examined various aspects of hookup experience in relation to six indices of sexual health and well-being. Although data indicated that participation in sexual hookups was associated with lower levels of well-being in the short term, analyses of individuals' patterns of behavior over high school and college suggested that moderate levels of participation might actually be positive for women in terms of their sexual assertiveness, sexual self-esteem, body comfort, and authenticity within close relationships. The last study sought to add richness and context to these numerical data by analyzing undergraduate women's own explanations of the meanings and functions of hookup behavior. This qualitative data pointed to the role of these behaviors in negotiating three developmental tasks of emerging adulthood: establishing one's autonomy and independence; exploring possible selves; and forming emotionally intimate relationships with others. Together, these three studies add to the existing literature on women's casual sex behavior by focusing on the developmental context and significance of this behavior, and by including attention to positive health outcomes.