The College Fix

56 percent of a group of Boston University freshmen and sophomores randomly chosen last semester stated in a poll that they believe in waiting until marriage to have sex. 15 percent said they believe “they are wasting their youth if they don’t have sex,” reported Teri Aronowitz, Ph.D. and Nurse Practitioner at Boston University’s Student Health Services.

Last spring, Aronowitz, along with a team of research assistants, began constructing a picture of the hook up culture at Boston University.

Aronowitz set up a survey and polled 237 students about subjects ranging from how often they drink alcohol to how often they frequent fraternities, Sarah Merriman, a College of Arts and Sciences junior and a research assistant in this study, said.

In addition to an online survey, some students participated in focus groups, sharing information about their behaviors and attitudes to help Aronowitz and her team “more fully understand the social norms around sexual attitudes and behaviors on our campus so as to work with students to promote sexual health,” Aronowitz said in an email.

The idea for studying why and under what conditions students interact in a sexual manner arose when the Sexual Violence Taskforce at BU noted a rising trend in cases of sexual assault. Aronowitz and her research team recognized the importance of understanding under what conditions sexual assault occurs in order to construct an effective plan for fighting assault.

Defining a “hook-up” proved to be as difficult a task as finding that special someone to lock lips with under the dark lighting and blaring noise of a frat house.

“Hooking-up,” Zach Schwartz, a sophomore in the College of Fine Arts and the College of Arts and Sciences, said, “can denote anything from kissing to sexual intercourse. Its basic definition revolves around two individuals physically engaging in romantic exploits.”

Read the full story at the BU Daily Free Press.

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