Hooking Up : Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus Read Online Free PDF Page A

created antagonisms between the sexes. He attributed part of the reason for these antagonisms to the unbalanced sex ratio, which left many men shut out from the dating pool altogether. Additionally, Waller noted that this system was particularly difficult for those who rated low on the dating desirability scale. In other words, those who did not “rate” were often left behind.
    Waller acknowledged that, in some cases, dating led to true courtship and ultimately to marriage. However, the system of dating made this outcome unlikely. Instead, Waller argued that dating often became exploitative.24 Men exploited women for sexual favors, and women exploited men by “gold digging.” Waller believed that exploitation occurs only when one party is masking his or her true intentions. Thus, if both parties realized the relationship was not “going anywhere,” then the relationship was not exploitative. However, in most cases, one party was more interested in the continuation of the relationship than the other. This created a scenario where one person could 16
    F RO M DAT I N G TO H O O K I N G U P
    get what he or she wanted from the other by promising to keep the relationship going. Waller concluded that with heterosexual dating relationships, we may surmise that the party with the least interest in continuing the relationship has the most control.
    Dating in the 1920s and 1930s was largely a competitive enterprise.
    In fact, dating was secondary to “rating” or popularity. One dated in order to rate among one’s peers.25 To achieve the goal of “rating,” one would date as many members of the opposite sex as possible as long as those individuals were believed to enhance one’s popularity rather than detract from it. At this point in history, it was seen as scarcely better to date one person than to date none at all.26 In other words, most young people looked down on exclusive dating relationships before one was ready to get engaged and marry.
    One’s popularity as a date was not determined mostly by intrinsic qualities of the individual. Instead, popularity, which was largely defined by the peer culture, determined who “made the cut” in terms of being a worthwhile date. At some schools, rating was not merely determined informally by word of mouth. Rather, in some cases, lists would be floated around college campuses to help determine one’s dating value. For instance, some women at the University of Michigan rated the “BMOCs” (i.e., Big Men on Campus) according to their campus dating stock. “Those qualifying were rated either A—smooth; B—OK; C—pass in a crowd; D
    —semi-goon; or E—spook.”27 This list was used as a guide for women on campus to determine whether they should accept a date or not. Whether or not such lists were taken seriously by college women, the fact that these lists were created provides evidence of how much peers were involved in rating and monitoring each other’s dating partners.
    THE DATING ERA—“GOING STEADY”
    Despite the prominence of the norms discussed above throughout the 1920s and 1930s, they did not last. Dating continued; however, the onset and aftermath of World War II in the 1940s led to a new version of the dating script.28 During this time, men literally became a scarce resource.
    Millions of men were now in the armed forces and went overseas during the war and, unfortunately, thousands of men never made it back home alive. Awareness of this scarcity of eligible men changed the tone of the dating scene. Popularity in terms of getting the greatest number of F RO M DAT I N G TO H O O K I N G U P
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    high-ranking dates possible went out with the war. In its place came an increasing focus on exclusive dating or “going steady” with one person.
    College girls who reveled in the number of dates they went on with a variety of partners in the 1920s and 1930s were replaced by college girls hoping to be “pinned” to one fraternity man or hoping to be engaged soon