Dartmouth Events

“Hooking up” at Dartmouth is an integral aspect of student life, subjected to relentless conversation and gossip, often characterized by frustration and resignation. Yet students continue to engage in it and fail to interrogate why hookup culture functions the way it does. This empirical study places data from fourteen interviews with undergraduates alongside the academic literature to argue that a current neoliberal sexual framework is failing students. This thesis considers the sexual scripts ingrained in today’s young adults from sources such as social media, pornography, and other forms of media, which fill in the massive gaps created by inadequate sexual education. The inequities perpetuated by sexual and gendered scripts present themselves in insidious, often underlooked ways at Dartmouth. But this thesis also argues that hookup culture is not fixed: that in shifting to a culture of care, we can transform a transactional, neoliberal model of sexuality and move towards a more equitable and pleasurable future.