Dating is outdated. That's what this generation of young people has concluded, and it may help explain why huge parties and random "hook-ups" have replaced the social convention. Large parties at Duke and other campuses are alluring because they provide an opportunity to be around hundreds of other young people, usually with plenty of alcohol available as a social lubricant. But the parties also provide opportunities for students to hook up, meaning anything from a heavy make-out session to intercourse. A hook-up, students say, is viewed as an isolated encounter that may or may not lead to any subsequent interaction.

But because of that ambiguity, a hook-up can lead to misunderstandings, creating a situation in which sexual assault or date rape is more likely to occur. In a study, "College Women's Experiences of Sexual Coercion," published last year in the journal Trauma, Violence & Abuse, co-authors Leah Adams-Curtis and Gordon Forbes argue that "coercive sexual behavior among college students can best be understood within the context of other sexual behaviors and values on college campuses," including sexual promiscuity and alcohol.

Duke's social scene is not an anomaly. According to a 2001 study, "Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Mating and Dating Today," commissioned by the Independent Women's Forum, 91 percent of college women say the hook-up culture defines their campus. Whether this is good or bad is up for debate. Some women, including two female columnists for The Chronicle, have celebrated the idea that women can be as sexually liberated as men. Last year, Whitney Beckett '04 wrote a column, "Sex and the Chapel," that channeled Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City. She offered breezy snapshots of Duke women gathering to drink and compare sexual partners.

In her columns last year and this fall, sophomore Shadee Malaklou encouraged her peers to embrace their sexuality and have as much fun as the guys. Malaklou taught a student-led, half-credit house course last spring titled "Dating and Mating: The Hook-Up Culture at Duke" and is teaching it for the second time this spring. She also notes that most Duke students are so driven, with career paths charted through postgraduate schooling and beyond, that no one expects to meet his or her future spouse as an undergraduate.

What is missing in all these blithe assessments of twenty-first-century relationships is the idea of romance, of caring relationships marked by mutual respect. "Part of the problem is who is defining social norms," says Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs. "TV shows and popular music celebrate drugs, drinking, and casual sex. Students seem to want an accelerated approach to relationships so that it becomes almost utilitarian."

Sue Wasiolek '76, M.H.A. '78, LL.M. '93, assistant vice president for student affairs, has spent most of her professional career watching the changing social mores of Duke students. She says that no matter how students rationalize the hook-up culture, "the whole notion of sexual relationships is not frivolous. I'm not saying that from a moral standpoint. I'm talking about the way we view physical intimacy and take care of one another. And it is more significant and important than people in this generation treat it."

--Bridget Booher