Dude, Where's My Orgasm? Gender and Post-feminism in College Hookup Culture

• In Event: 035 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Hookup Culture

Abstract

Gender inequalities in college hookup culture have been well documented by scholars and cultural critics. Yet existing research often overlooks how students explain and negotiate these inequalities in everyday life, limiting our understanding of contemporary gender relations. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 50 undergraduate women and men at a large private university, I demonstrate how students use the cultural logic of postfeminism to help make sense of and guide their experiences within college hookup culture. I examine how students talk about one form of gendered inequality—the gender “gap” in rates of orgasm and oral sex—as a point of entry for understanding the broader connections between postfeminism and the practice of hooking up. My findings suggest that hookup culture is postfeminist in at least two ways: a revival of ideas of natural sexual difference and a "grammar of individualism" (Gill 2007) that undermines notions of the social or political. By reframing hooking up as a central site where postfeminism is articulated, negotiated, and occasionally contested, this research suggests a new way of thinking about contemporary gender interaction.

Author

• Jess Butler, Butler University