Article Review On Human Sexual Behavior

The contemporary cultural milieu exudes a permissive attitude to sexuality and this pattern is also reflected in the popular culture and media portraitures of sexual behavior. It has also been noted that college students have erroneous notions regarding sexual norms which get influenced by the perception and influence of media. Hookups are reflections of the human social behavior and provide room for studying evolved mating psychology and cultural context. Cultural shifts in dating have shown transformations with time and it was propagated that sexual behavior is not bound by the context of marital union. The contemporary culture also encourages sexual behavior where a number of films, television shows and books delve into the subject of sexual encounters. There are also pro-hookup same sex representations in the television.
In a study among undergraduates, 98 percent opined that kissing is involved in hookups. Also, 81 percent had engaged in hookups. Among them, 58% had engaged in sexual touching above the waist. 53 percent had engaged in touching below the waist, while 36 percent performed oral sex and 35 percent received oral sex. 34 percent engaged in sexual intercourse. It was found that there are minimal gender differences in terms of such behavior.
Hookup has been defined as “casual sex” or “uncommitted sexual behavior” and outside the domain of a formal relationship. It has also been viewed as a sexual encounter which lasts only a night between two strangers or friends. Hookups do not bring mutual expectation of romantic involvement. It has been found that ‘friends with benefits’ relationships have potential for unanticipated romantic relationships and the concept is distinct from hookup in many ways. Hookups are different from infidelity. Also, some sexual subcultures with open relationships allow extra-relationship casual sex as found in a study among 2027 gay men from Australia.
The study of human sexuality should take into consideration the many variations and potential of sexual behavior. Between 60 and 80 percent of North American college students have been involved in some sort of hookups. In 2003, 70 percent of sexually active individuals ranging from 12-21 years engaged in uncommitted sex in one year. Parties, dormitories, bars, clubs and cars are all the popular hookup venues among the individuals. Spring break is also a popular time to engage in hookups. In a survey among 508 gay bisexual people, one-third told of meeting their partners in anonymous places.
An inter-disciplinary bio-physical model is required to synthesize the disconnected views and thus tread toward a holistic understanding of hookups. Fisher explained that parental investment theory gives ultimate level of explanation with the social role theory providing proximate understanding. Both evolutionary and social scripts need to be viewed to understand the occurrence of uncommitted sex.
Human sexual behavior is explained by several mid-level evolutionary and biological theories. It is found that large-bodied organisms benefit from sexual reproduction. Males have faster potential reproductive rate and women have a slower one in human beings. Female chooses male on the basis of many critical features and males are in a bid to display these features. Thus, a complex cognitive process is overlaid on it. Uncommitted sex can be viewed as fitness-enhancing short-term mating strategy. Male should prefer maximum number of mates to enhance reproductive output, while women tend to have long-term relationships to maximize the resources from males. A number of studies in North America showed that males have higher socio-sexuality scores than women. Lippa, however, has demonstrated that gender equality and economic development can predict the magnitude of sexual differences in socio-sexuality. A cross-cultural study among 16,288 people across 52 countries showed that males have greater desires for sexual partner variety than women irrespective of relationship status or orientation. There is a conflict between the motivational drives in the context of the environment in which the individual is situated. According to this model, both male and female will have competing motivational drives which will mean risk of reproduction by females. However, contraception and reproductive technologies in the present day challenge certain aspects of mating psychology. Thus, the evolved reproductive motive differentiates the ways for procuring pair-bonding and als distinguishes the priorities.
Gender-normative scripts dictate behaviors and the most widely used cultural sexual scripts are heterosexual in nature. For men, sex is shown as central to male identity, while females are seen as sexual objects. Question arises if popular media is the origin of gendered sexual scripts. However, both evolutionary perspectives and social scripts have failed to comprehend the sexual behavior fully. Media actually reflects the evolutionary penchants. Exaggerated examples are used for sensationalism. It is true that these contemporary sexual messages in media impede the female sexual initiation navigation. Women are challenged with the dichotomy of being sexually expressive beings as well as maternally committed ones. The scripts have inconsistencies in portraiture of emotional investments and casualness of the sexual encounters. Thus, the media messages are found to be contradictory.
Surveys were carried out among groups and many contextual results were found. In emerging adults, the desire for committed relationships was higher. Individuals whose relationships started as FWBs or hookups were satisfied depending on whether they wanted those relationships or not. There is also high female assertiveness in contemporary hookup behavior. It is to be noted that beyond heterosexual relationships, casual sex is reported as normative sexual script which may be due to the absence of the reproductive role.
There are many negative consequences of hookups which include psychological and emotional injury, sexual violence, STDs and pregnancy. Most students did not consider these risks while getting involved with people from their own community. Another important issue is the involvement of substance abuse. In the age group of 15-25 years, people who took marijuana or cocaine in the preceding year also got involved in casual sex. Alcohol is also found to be a factor behind such hookups. However, the role of individual difference in the shaping of decisions regarding hookups is not certain. Both the sexes may be governed by fairly sexually monomorphic biological factors in their sexual behavior according to Garcia and Reiber.
Social-sexual relationships have great influence on the physical and mental health. It has been found that individuals wrongly overestimate people’s comfort levels with hookups and thus attribute meanings to the behaviors. Misperception leads to behavior which is not endorsed personally. Feelings of performance pressure may accompany hookup situations. In a contextual multiethnic sample size, hookup scripts and rape scripts were compared. It was found that hookup scripts contained psychological consequences, but not feelings of assault. Another important thing is that an individual’s affective behavior prior to and after a hookup may be conflicting. Mental health factors were associated with depression and loneliness. The causal relationship between hookup and self-esteem is not known yet. Hookups can bring negative effect and regret. Women show more negative reaction after hookups in comparison to men. This also complies with the gender difference where women are more emotionally involved than men. It might be so that this feeling emerge from the attempt of negotiating multiple desires. The dichotomy between sexual gratification and stable romantic relationships come to the forefront. It was comprehended that all hookups are not consensual or wanted. An individual may consent to a sexual act, but might not want to have sex. Such unwanted and non-consensual hookups occur under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
A web based study which was carried out among 1,468 undergraduate students revealed consequences of hookups to be embarrassment, loss of respect and emotional difficulties. A similar study in Canada reveals similar results pointing at the participant’s regret. However, better quality sex reduced this regret. A sample size of 311 people opined that men were glad about hooking up on the morning after, while lesser females were happy about it. That almost a quarter of men feel regret does not comply with the two theories which have been discussed. The biological or sociological model alone cannot describe the individual differences. It needs to be comprehended that young men and women are equally entitled to engage in sexual acts and should get equal respect in hookups and relationships.
The cultural shift which has influenced the Westernized world is a driving factor behind the hookups. Both evolutionary and sociological factors are encouraging hookup behavior on the part of the individual. The research aids in the process of comprehending the nature of uncommitted sexual relationships in the present day. The historical transformations which have led to the reordering of the sexual scripts and fall of romantic relationships among the young adults are not known. It may be so that recall bias influences the individual’s reports of such incidents. The cross-cultural data helps in providing a quintessential comprehension of hookups and romantic relationships.
The review points to the fact that uncommitted sex needs to be understood from a bio-psychosocial perspective incorporating research work in biology, mental health and sexuality studies.