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5
The Campus as a Sexual Arena
On the cover of
Glamour
magazine’s February 2006 issue is 21-year-oldpop singer/actress and “America’s Next Sweetheart,” Mandy Moore.Among the cover stories in this issue is a featureentitled “Are you nor-mal about sex? Intimate details on what
everyone’s
doing.” Popular-cul-ture sources, like this one, are one of the ways by which young peopleget information about sex and relationships. Like most men andwomen, college students want to know what is “normal,” because un-derstanding the norms for their peer group helps them to navigate theirown sexual lives.
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College students’ perceptions of what their peers aredoing sexually areshaped, in part, by the messages they receivethrough pop culture, but perhaps even more so by peer culture. Collegestudents do not have to pick up a magazine or turn on the television tofind out what their contemporaries are up to—they can just lookaround campus. This makes the college campus a sexual arena.Some of the students I interviewed, like Adrienne, a senior at FaithUniversity, keenly felt a sense of watching and being watched and talk-ing and being talked about in the campus sexual arena.
 Adrienne
:Yeah, definitely [I have] a complex about looks aroundhere[on campus]. There’s a saying that [Faith University]gives out more eating disorders than diplomas. ... when Icame here for open house, I was like: “Oh [this is a] laid-backkind of campus.” The girls are like dressing in Gap or OldNavy or something like that. And then I came here [to startfreshman year] and I was like: “Oh my God it’s like all thegirls are dressed up, done up, all the time.” [I] never felt likeyou could wear sweatpants to class. The girls were“on” like24/7 and it made me very self-conscious.
KB
:Why do you think the girls are dressed like that and why arethey “on” all the time?
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 Adrienne
:Ithink a lot of it is like fashion. There is like very wealthy[students here]. I feel like that’s what they spend theirmoney on is like clothes. Everybody here, not everybody, alot of people here have really nice clothes from all the de-signers and stuff like that. So they know how to dress if they... come from that kind of circle. So I think they dress forthat. But I do think on the weekends they dress like reveal-ing for the guys. So I think they do, like hope to attract guyswhen they’redoing that.Another senior at Faith University, Robert, added this exchange:
Robert
:I think a lot of women dress comfortably for
them
 but for
 guys
[they see it as] very provocative. If you look now onthis campus, [you will see] very short, shorts and tightshirts. You can see cleavage and I think guys kind of acceptthat and they also will just sit out there and look. They’ll belike: “She’s an 8. She’s a 5, or a 10+.” Guys still rate girlswhen they walk by.Guys like to look at girls and their bodystructure.
KB
:Would girls be thought of as “sleazy” or “slutty” if theywere dressing in a provocative way or is that just [seen as]normal?
Robert
:I think it is just normal, as long as it’s not see-through. [Em-phasis by interviewee]Adrienne and Robert describe somewhat of a fishbowl existencefor students on campus, particularly women. Students wereawarethat they wereon display for other students, especially members ofthe opposite sex; but watching one another extended far beyond ob-servations on style of dress. Students were also monitoring one an-other’s sexual relationships. Outside of campus, sexual encounters arelargely a private matter; but during college, men and women arehighly awareof what their peers aredoing sexually.Much of thehookup script, from the initial signaling of interest to pairing off withsomeone, is enacted publicly.At parties students watch one another,the next day they gossip about each other, and while socializing withclose friends, they ask about their sexual and romantic relationships.Gloria, a freshman at State University,had firsthand experience of
THE CAMPUS AS A SEXUAL ARENA
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this: “[Afew acquaintances and I] were talking the other day out [infront of the dorm] having a cigarette ... they were like: ‘Who do youthink is [a virgin]?’” Kevin, a senior at Faith University, elaborates:
[When you are at a party with friends], they will see you putting workin. Like if I’m at the bar with my friends and me and you meet and I’mtalking to you all night, then I disappear with you, I don’t say: “Hey,I’m leaving,” we just disappear. The next morning I come home, theywill know that. [And then they’ll say:] “Did you go home with that girlyou were talking to? Oh shit!” They’ll know that they saw me puttingthe work in. Talking, hitting on, that’s what it is. So if you are not outwith them and you walk in [the next day], they arenot going to dothat, but you may say: “I hooked up last night.” In college, everymorning it was like ten of us sitting around watching TV on three dif-ferent couches. So if someone did walk in, say it was Tyler, [we would]say: “Tyler, we saw you working on that girl last night.” He’d be like:“Yeah, I’m coming home right now.” We call it the walk of shame,which is the walk across campus after you hooked up in the sameclothes you went out in the night before.
On the campuses I studied, this fascination with one another’s “per-sonal” life was central to the college experience.
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Thus, sexual behavior,far from being a private matter, is happening under the watchful eyesand curious ears of all who inhabit the college campus.
PERCEPTION OF OTHERS
College students’ preoccupation with the sexual behavior of theirclassmates is not all for idle gossip. By studying how other men andwomen behave, college students learn the norms for their peer group,which in turn affects their own choices. It is important to find out howstudents view their classmates’ behavior because students definetheir own sexual behavior relative to others, particularly other stu-dents of the same sex. College men I spoke with perceive other menin the hookup cultureas being very preoccupied with sex. When Iasked if they believed the stereotype that men’s actions are sexdriven, almost all of the men agreed with the stereotype. In fact, sev-eral men suggested that college men cannot avoid being preoccupied
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