Does Hookup Culture Differ on Catholic Campuses?

Daniel is “free-spirited and open-minded” about hooking up. As one of the 70 percent of students who do so each year on U.S. college campuses, he embraces hookups and their culture of students having sexual encounters without expectations of any feelings, much less relationships. Hooking up, according to Daniel, is all about “fun,” “gratification,” “curiosity,” “party culture” and “hormones.”

As Catholicism teaches abstinence before marriages, there is a common perception that Catholic schools would be places without hookup culture.

But, are they?

Different types of Catholic cultures

In fact, all of the previous research indicated students on Catholic campuses hooked up just as frequently as their peers on other campuses, and maybe a bit more often.

Daniel was one of the students who spoke to me as I surveyed 1,000 students on 26 Catholic campuses between 2013 and 2015. As I started my research in 2013, I greatly increased the number of students and campuses being studied.

My first finding was there wasn’t any one type of Catholic campus – but three.

Some students described their campus as “very Catholic.” Mason, a sophomore, described his strongly Catholic campus by saying, “People identify with it and are drawn to it