Another Look at Hookup Culture: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Opt-Outs at Canadian Universities

This article provides a rejoinder to the prevailing (mostly American) scholarly narrative that portrays hookup culture as a pervasive feature of student sexual life. Based on findings from an exploratory study in Canada involving self-identified heterosexual students who partially or entirely opted out of hooking up, the study identifies five ways that opt-outs negotiate their participation in and abstention from hookup culture. The findings indicate that hooking up is not a uniform feature of campus life, but rather an activity with spatial and temporal boundaries commonly associated with first-year dorms, fraternities, and social events. The authors conclude by calling for focused and directed sexual education strategies and campus interventions that openly address misconceptions about sex, consent, and belonging in university settings.