Hooking up and dating are different strokes for different folks
Based on the standing-room-only turnout, the first goal was achieved. The second, not really. Wade mentioned that, based on responses from 17,000 students surveyed at 17 universities across the country, many women reported they failed to feel empowered after sex — not at all in line with the liberation and hoorah portrayed on "Sex and the City." But I think that women on this campus should take ownership of their horniness and “go get some.”
To compare Dartmouth to another college, my recent visit to Denison University in Granville, Ohio showed me what life might be like if every hookup was actually a relationship. Hand-holding, public displays of affection and dates seemed to be happening everywhere, and all of my friend's friends had significant others. Although relationships gone sour can also have scary consequences — for example, one girl reported that a sorority president set fire to a Greek organization's chapter room after her boyfriend broke up with her, while another girl said her ex-boyfriend broke her window and trashed her room — a "meaningful" sexual experience is what many college students lust after. But they are too afraid to speak up, Wade said. The hook-up culture is limiting, just to be clear — finding a partner in a sweaty frat basement after one too many warm cans of Keystone isn’t exactly as fulfilling as finally kissing your lusty crush after weeks of conversation. But does the prevalence of hooking up really affect Dartmouth students so negatively?
You tell me. But in my opinion, men and women enter into social situations here with certain expectations about how their nights will end. They know what they are getting into, and although the potential for awful and tragic things to occur is very real — especially with freely flowing alcohol as a social lubricant — bringing someone home after a night out dancing is usually a conscious choice, at least in my experience. Whether people are sexually satisfied or not is not a widespread a social problem in my opinion. Because lets be real here, dating gets in the way of studies, and we all love studying, right?
Katherine Armstrong '14 has her nose to the ground for breaking news on campus. She loves everything purple, except purple grapes, and can be seen wearing one of two backpacks around campus — both of which she designed.