Schramm 1Kristen SchrammDr. ArberyDISC 1313, MWF 9-9:50May 5, 2014College Relationship Trends: Cohabitation vs Hook-Up Culture As a modern day college student, living with a long-term partner may not sound appealing, but many seem to have no problem engaging in casual sex. Somewhere along the waya double standard has evolved on the expectations of romantic relationships for college students. On one side of the spectrum, many college students who are involved in a committed, long-term relationship decide to take their relationship to the next step by forming a cohabiting lifestyle. The idea of cohabitation seems to have earned a kind of stigma on college campuses. Students fear that, by being in a cohabiting relationship, they will be held-back by its demands in several aspects of their life, including their career and social freedom. The truth is that individuals who are in a cohabiting relationship during college have a higher level of happiness, higher quality interpersonal relations, higher level of sexual satisfaction, more positive self-esteem and gender relations when compared to non-cohabiting college students(Dan 353, Risman 80). On the other end of the spectrum, an increasing amount of students are choosing to participate in “uncommitted sexual encounters”(Garcia 162) or, what has now been coined as, “The Hook-Up Culture”. Hook-up culture trends have been found to have many outcomes that negatively affect college students’ opinions of love. These affects include: lack of commitment, misinterpretations of sexual encounters, unstable relationship bases, multiple forms of psychological and physical damage, increased substance abuse, sexual abuse, and loss of traditional romantic courtship. InSchramm 2the college love relationship double standard between cohabitation and hook-up culture, the effects of hook-ups are detrimental to a healthy idea of love, and cohabitation relationships offer a well-balanced portrayal of what romantic love is professed to be. Being a college student myself, I have had first-hand experience with both sides of the standard and firmly believe that my personal testimonial follows along the same lines, and backs up what the research has discussed thus far. The subject of cohabitation has an extremely personal relevance to my life right now. I currently live with my boyfriend of six years, and I have faced many ups and downs brought on by our living situation. I have faced the internal relationship conflicts that come with living with your significant other, but I have also faced the negative opinions of not only family, but even of my peers. I have found that being in a long term relationship at the age of twenty is not thought to be normal by the standards of my fellow college students. On more than one occasion I found myself facing negative comments from my classmates about being in a committed relationship. I came to SMU because of an athletic scholarship, so when I got here many people assumed that I was a freshman, and proceeded to ask me about how I am adjusting to college life—one of the most common questions was what dorm I was in. When I replied that I live off campus with my long-term boyfriend the reaction I observed was always the same bewildered expression with an instinctive “Oh”. After a while, I got used to this reaction, but I felt, and sometimes still feel, that I am being looked down upon; that I am expected to take part in the “hook-up culture” that is so normal for other college students. I am sure that I am not the only one that feels that the integrity of love in college relationships will suffer because of the pressure of the double standard formed by cohabitation and hook-up culture.Schramm 3Commitment is an ability that serves as the very premise on which love is built, and without it any romantic relationship would be doomed. Cohabitation has formerly been a heavilydisputed phenomenon even for some of the same implications as hook-up culture is criticized fortoday. Perhaps one of the most prevalent is their projected effect on future romantic relationship commitment. An article published in 1977 by Newsweek argued that cohabitation “indicates [a] lack of commitment to long-term relationships”(Risman 77). This kind of thinking toward cohabitation had been popular in past decades, but further research has predicted otherwise. A study conducted in 1981 claimed that “lack of commitment…do[es] not appear to be justified with respect to cohabitation in college”(82), and instead described college student cohabitation as “a stage of courtship”(78). This would imply that cohabitation should be treated as a stage in romantic love relationships; not a commitment-free sexual advance as it has in the past. In contrast, the very idea of hook-up culture “focuses on the uncommitted nature of sexual encounters”(Garcia 162), and in effect distorts the common college mentality toward commitment—and ultimately romantic love. College aversion toward commitment also stems from the idea that they should be delaying their relational goals in order to focus on educational and career oriented goals, which in turn, leads to behaviors driven by disregard toward any long-term relations (Katz 51). In effect, the formed acceptance by college students of the hook-up culture has resulted in their substitution of casual sex for a committed relationship in to order to replace their natural need for intimacy. The process of replacing commitment can ultimately affect the students’ relationships later in life due to never having to utilize the vital skill of commitment earlier in life (Aubrey 437). College students living a cohabitating lifestyle have theopportunity to gain the vital skill in love of commitment, but students that embrace in the idea of hook-up culture may not; potentially causing damages later in life.Schramm 4Sexual relations are meant to be an action of love only when a couple has both a mutual physical and emotional attraction, but this has not been the case in the context of modern day hook-up culture. As sexual relations have become more casual and less driven by love, in collegestudents, a new sense of confusion has arisen between the two. One type of confusion that has been driven by hook-up culture is the intentions of casual relations. Although a large majority of students in self-report surveys expressed that they considered a hook-up to be non-committal. Sixty five percent of woman and 45