A prominent body of sexuality research on college-enrolled students in the twenty-first century focuses on "hookup" culture, marked by the prevalence of sexual encounters between students with no expectation for a relationship to develop. This article will review and respond to current themes in the literature on hookup culture on college campuses. I argue that this literature privileges the White, middle-class heterosexual experience, although less is known about how students who cannot or choose not to participate in this culture experience sexual relationships on college campuses. I place studies of hookup culture in conversation with those attentive to the effects of race, class, gender, and sexuality on access to, and experience of, hookup culture. I conclude with suggestions for future research, to include a renewed interest in sexual relationships forged outside of hookup cultures.

An "inhabited" approach to the study of institutions examines how organizational actors produce locally distinctive meaning in response to similar institutional forces. Adopting inhabited institutionalism to the study of campus sexual life, this study draws on interviews with 54 undergraduate women at two four-year universities in the United States-Ivy U and State U-to show campus cultures unique to a university inform women's decisions to engage in hookups and/or relationships. For women attending Ivy U, an elite institution where pressure to succeed is palpable, both hookups and long-distance relationships alike are posited as advantageous for the time-crunched, preprofessional student. At State U, a public school with a party reputation, women explain their engagement in hookups as part of the "fun" of college life, while women seeking or involved in committed relationships are obligated to negotiate the effects of the party culture in their partnerships. This study challenges the notion of a monolithic sexual culture across university settings by showing how campus cultures cultivated at the local level create unique organizational conditions within which undergraduate women forge and explain their engagement in hookups and relationships alike.

Simon and Gagnon's sexual script theory identifies multitiered influences, which shape individual ideas about sexual relationships. The cultural celebration of heterosexuality as the accepted standard dominates major social institutions and permeates cultural sexual messages. The reception of these heteronormative messages influences the formation of individualized sexual scripts; however, how individuals apply these individualized scripts to understanding the sexual lives of others is little understood. More specifically, what are the effects of heteronormative sexual scripting for imagining a sexual scenario not marked by a male-female partnership? This study asked a sample of heterosexual, bisexual, and non-identified college students at a 4-year private institution in the northeastern United States to define lesbian sex. Results suggest the influence of culturally heteronormative sexual messages for orienting one's initial understanding of what sex is, though participants described various levels of acceptance, rejection, and/or revision of these messages as they formed their own scripts. However, when asked to define lesbian sex, participants drew from the more rigid heteronormative cultural script to form their definitions. The association of lesbian sex with vaginal penetration by a phallic substitute, such as a dildo, affirmed the overarching influence of the heterosexual, male-centric sexual standard for shaping the individual sexual imaginary.

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The emergence of socialist, radical, and lesbian feminisms during the 1960s was a reaction to, and critique of, liberal feminism. Activists in this women’s liberation branch of the second wave strongly agreed that liberal feminism, with its focus on rights, choice, and personal achievement, was insufficient in its analysis of women’s status and condition. Each of the three strands differed in their analysis of the roots of the problem and in their approaches to social change. This chapter details “the turn” to socialist, radical, and lesbian feminism during the 1960s and 1970s with a focus on the ideological underpinnings, strategies, and organizations, examining the differences between and within each strand. Each of these strands faced varying levels of criticism for their lack of attentiveness to the diversity of women’s experience beyond the interests of a mostly White, middle-class constituency. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research on these feminisms.