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Navigating Campus Hookup Culture: LGBTQ Students and College Hookups
Author(s) -
Lamont Ellen,
Roach Teresa,
Kahn Sope
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/socf.12458
Subject(s) - queer , human sexuality , lesbian , transformative learning , gender studies , sociology , transgender , queer theory , psychology , pedagogy
Research on the college hookup scene consistently shows it to be heavily gendered and heteronormative. In spite of the extensive research on hookup culture, there are limited data on how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer ( LGBTQ ) students navigate hookups on college campuses. Yet queer hookups potentially provide a space for students to challenge the dominant understandings of gender and sexuality that permeate the college hookup scene, creating alternative visions for how hookups and other sexual relationships may proceed. Drawing on interviews with 24 LGBTQ college students at a regional university in the southeastern United States, this research investigates how LGBTQ college students negotiate the hookup scene on college campuses. As we show, LGBTQ students are sharply critical of dominant hookup culture and aim to challenge heteronormative practices by deconstructing normative patterns of behavior, emphasizing communication and consent, and queering standards of pleasure. In spite of their stated aims, many respondents replicated gendered practices in their hookups, limiting the transformative potential of queer hookups. This study indicates that while LGBTQ students are actively working to remake hookup culture, and, in some ways, are succeeding, barriers to a more mindful hookup culture remain, even among those who explicitly seek new ways to pursue sexual relationships.