The Sexual Politics of hookup culture: A Black feminist intervention

Abstract

Sexuality researchers wrestle with the question of how power both generates options for sexual behaviors while also constraining them, but the potential for creation and agency among minority groups remains underexamined. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 LGBTQ and racial minority college students, this article makes two core contributions. First, I document their experiences of fetishization; their concerns over safety and the potential for violence; and the invalidation of their identities in campus hookup culture. Second, I show how in response they create “community-based party cultures,” differentiated from hookup culture by four major features: (1) Differentiated access to resources, (2) varying emphases on casual sex, (3) varying expectations of anonymity, and (4) emphasized trust/safety in these spaces. Findings update research assumptions that racial minority and/or LGBTQ students passively avoid hookup culture by illuminating how they organize spaces for themselves.