Name: American Hookup
ISBN: 9780393285093

Lisa Wade (Professor)

A revelatory account of the new culture of sex that has come to dominate the American college experience.

The New Culture of Sex on Campus

American Hookup

Lindy

DISCLAIMER: Yes, this was a hateread. Those who know me know that I have longstanding beef with Lisa Wade, and that beef persisted through reading American Hookup. 

As I see it there are three major issues:
1) This book contributes nothing new to the conversation around hookup culture. I have a passing familiarity with many of the works (mostly published between 2005 and 2012) Wade cites, and American Hookup is more of a summary of them than any new theory or analysis. What is unique to this book is the personal accounts of freshmen students, which Wade collected from students doing journaling exercises for her classes. 
2) Wade provides no workable solutions to the problem. She is unable to do so because she locates the problem as "hookup culture" rather than misogyny and those who perpetuate it. To develop a true solution would require a true interrogation of men/heterosexuality, and lord knows Wade is never going to do that. 
2) Following from the point above, Wade argues that many college rapists are "nice guys" (in the non-ironic sense) who experience momentary, situational lapses in judgement and therefore are themselves victims of hookup culture. Maybe we should all realize that the default man is not, in fact, "nice," rather than excusing them. 

Additional minor complaints:
1)The tone of the writing is like a questionable self-help book. 
2)Wade should stop talking about gay people. Please. 
3)She should also stop claiming masculinity is encouraged in female children.

Lisa Wade

"The hookup is now part of college life. Yet the drunken encounter we always hear about tells only a fraction of the story. Rising above misinformation and moralizing, Lisa Wade offers the definitive account of this new sexual culture and demonstrates that the truth is both more heartening and more harrowing than we thought. Offering invaluable insights for parents, educators, and students, Wade situates hookup culture within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education, and the unfinished feminist revolution. Using new research, she maps out a punishing emotional landscape marked by unequal pleasures, competition for status, and sexual violence. She discovers that the most privileged students tend to like hookup culture the most, and she considers its effects on racial and sexual minorities, students who "opt out," and those who participate ambivalently. Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and brutally honest, American Hookup explains where we are and how we got here, asking not 'How do we go back?' but 'Where do we go from here?'"--Hardcover jacket.

American Hookup The New Culture of Sex on Campus

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