Introduction:
New York City is one of the most diverse states when it comes to sex and sexuality. Sex and sexuality is a huge controversy because everyone has different beliefs on how women and men should behave. In today's society, it is all about being a part of the hookup culture. The hookup culture means “brief uncommitted sexual encounters among individuals who are not romantic partners or dating each other”(Garcia, Reiber, Massey, Merriwether, 2012, p.2). It is harder to be in a relationship because now that technology has advanced, it is much easier to meet someone online and get your needs met without the hassle of a relationship. I conducted a study to get a better understanding of what my friends and family’s attitude and behavior towards sex and sexuality is. They like to believe that their views are the correct views. They also have different beliefs about certain sexualities. The study was conducted in Jackson Heights in Queens between 94 St and Junction Blvd. Jackson Heights is a diverse community that has a mix of people from different countries. There are people from Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Dominican Republic, and India. It is pretty noisy during the day, but at night it is more relaxing. The group of people that I studied are my friends and family. The friends I interviewed have been in my life for many years. We all met in middle school and stayed very close after that. We do pretty much everything together. All of my friends are outgoing, affectionate and frank. My two family members are outgoing, amiable, and sincere. My friends know my family because we have all grown up together and we all get along great. I studied my eight friends named Diamond, Wynonna, Jasmine, Becky, Jasper, Michael, Michelle, and Kelly. I also interviewed two family members named Jessica and Maria. Most of my friends have similar ethnic backgrounds. For instance, Wynonna is a 19 year old Colombian female, Diamond is a 19 year old Honduran female, Jasmine is a 22 year old Dominican female, Becky is a 19 year old Dominican female, Jasper is a 19 year Dominican male, Michael is a 20 year old Puerto Rican male, Michelle is a 20 year old Cuban female, and Kelly is a 19 year old Dominican female. My sister Jessica is a 34 year old Dominican female and my sister in law Maria, is a 29 year old Puerto Rican female. All of my interviewees sexual orientation was straight except Wynonna and Diamond. They are both bi-curious. This group of people may not be so random because they are my friends, but it will prove that there is a group of people that want serious relationships. Therefore, if there is one group, there could be many more in our society.
Methods:
For this project, I had to conduct a survey for the first part and then conduct a interview for the second part. For the first part, I chose ten people to survey about sex and sexuality in New York City. The group of people I chose to do the surveys were my friends and family. They are all similar in many ways, but when it comes to sex and sexuality, they all are very opinionated. More than half of the people I was going to survey were comfortable about taking the survey. However, when it was time to take the survey they were not as comfortable because they did not know what to expect. The survey consisted of thirty three questions. These questions were general questions. So, they consisted of yes or no responses. Some examples of the type of questions on the survey were “Have you ever been in an open relationship?” and there is questions like “How many serious relationships have you had?”. In order to better understand their behavior and begin to narrow down who I will be interviewing, I decided to walk through the survey questions with each participant. By walking through each question, I was able to get them to relax and feel comfortable. It also helped because all of the participants would open up more about why they answered the question the way they did.
After the surveys, I moved onto part 2 of this study, which was the interviews. I interviewed three people from the group of ten. The three people I decided to interview were Becky, Jasmine, and Jasper. I chose to interview them because while conducting part 1 of the study, they had a lot to say about sexuality, even though all the participants responded with some contextual information for almost all of the questions. Some of my friends and both family members were not as talkative about the subject. So, since I saw a bit of discomfort, they clearly were not too comfortable to go into detail about the topic. I knew I had to choose respondents that felt comfortable with the subject and felt comfortable with me asking these questions. Becky, Jasmine, and Jasper were the most talkative, which showed their comfort with the subject. They even had began to share their personal beliefs about sex and sexuality. This helped me to narrow down who I was going to interview. As a result, I chose Becky, Jasmine, and Jasper because they would freely and willingly to go into detail about the subject. The questions in this interview were open ended, so those who were chosen for the interview can tell me their answers and they can discuss why they chose that answer and can even give me examples or personal stories to get their point across. Some examples of the type of questions that were asked during the interview were “What advice do your friends give you (pertaining to dating, hooking up, etc.)? What advice do you give them?” and there was also questions like “What has worked well for you? What has not worked well for you? (In terms of relationships, hook ups, etc.)”.
Results:
In this study, the surveys were a big help to get some general knowledge about sex and sexuality. The surveys asked a variety of questions of questions from “What is your ethnicity and age” to your relationship status and “Do you use contraceptives”. The questions in this interview were like background information to collect before going into depth in the interviews. It was also used to increase the participants comfort level. The respondents answers to the questions were similar, however there were some differences. For questions like, are you in a relationship, all except three were in a relationship. All the respondents lost their virginities at around the same age, which was 14 to 18 years old. The survey also asked were you in love with the first person you had sex with. Everyone except Diamond answered yes. For that question, those who answered yes, they gave me a little more information than what I had asked for, they all began to discuss how the person they lost their virginities to was their first serious relationship. As a result, just these couple questions taught me that everyone except Diamond, was in a relationship and in love when they lost their virginities. For them, their first time was important, it was not just about doing the act.
After I was finished with the surveys, I conducted the interview with Becky, Jasper, and Jasmine. All three of the interviewees had a lot to say during the interview because there is always so much to say about sex and relationships. For the interview, they all had similar views about sex, sexuality and relationships. There were a handful of questions that were very helpful in gathering information to understand their beliefs better. One of the questions was, “Are you in a relationship? If yes, can you tell me about it? If not would you like to be? What are you doing about that?”. Becky’s response was
“No i [sic] am not in a relationship because I was cheated on. I would like to be in a relationship as long as i [sic] know it's going to last a long time hopefully until marriage. I don't like putting effort into a relationship if the other person isn't putting the same effort. I'm tired of being in short lasting relationships”(personal communication, April 1, 2018).
Becky’s response shows that she is a 19 year old female who wants to find someone worth her time. She wants someone for the long haul. Another question was, “People date for a variety of reasons, for example, companionship,intimacy, friendship… could you reflect on how relevant they are to you and why? Which is the most important to you?”. Jaspers response was
“The least important to me is companionship. Companionship is the least important to me because anyone can be there for you. You don’t have to date someone to have companionship. Intimacy is in the middle because who doesn't like sex. When looking for a serious relationship your priority isn’t sex, it's about finding the right person and then sex is a bonus. Friendship is the most important to me. It’s the most important to me because without friendship, you can’t have a solid relationship. Your partner should also be your friend too”(personal communication, April 1, 2018).
Jaspers response shows that he is a man wants more than just a hookup. He wants an actual strong friendship that holds together a relationship.
Another great question that helps demonstrate that there are people who want serious relationships and that not everyone is part of the hookup culture is question 29. Question 29 is “Could you tell me about someone whose relationship you admire? What did you learn from them?”. Jasmines response for this question was
“I admire my grandparents relationship because after all these years they are still in love and happy with each other. And not a lot of people marry someone and last their whole lives together. It taught me that you have to communicate and be honest and simply love the other person”(personal communication, April 9, 2018).
Jasmine’s answer proves that people in our society have goals in life to have a happy and loving marriage and family. She also thinks about how to create a lasting relationship.They have dreams to be loved and love a special person in their lives. They do not just want to hookup and move on to the next.
Discussion:
I have learned a lot while conducting this study. One important piece of information that I learned while conducting this study was just because the society is perceived one way does not mean that every single person in our society is that way. The participants for the study and interview showed multiple times that they are not apart of the hookup culture. Throughout the survey and interview, my interviewees showed no interest in participating in the hookup culture because that is not the lifestyle that they want. The only person that showed interest of being apart of the hookup culture was Diamond. Diamond has hooked up with multiple people she met online and by using dating apps. When Diamond took the survey and was asked where she would prefer to meet someone, she chose online services. She prefers to meet meet people online because her goal is to hookup.
The hookup culture does exist and there are a lot of people that enjoy those type of relationships. However, just because the people that make up our society are apart of the hookup culture, does not mean that those who want serious and long term relationships are all gone. The significance of this study is that not everyone belongs to the hookup culture. So, for those people that want serious relationships and not just a hookup there is still hope. I expected to discover that more people were apart of the hookup culture, but instead I only found out about one person. It is interesting to see that those who participated in the study were on the same page about wanting serious and long term relationships instead of hookups. I am also intrigued that there are so many people out there that enjoy hooking up, but I personally only know one person. What is even more alluring is the fact that a lot of people in this society are on the same page about prefering to hook up instead of a relationship. The problem in this society is that they prefer to not communicate on a personal level with each other. Hooking up does not involve any real bonding between two people. This study makes me wonder why my participants for this study would not consider trying out the hookup culture.
Conclusion:
The hookup culture is looked at as a pervasive trend, but there are people who want serious relationships. Society is constantly being viewed one way, when in reality it does not mean everyone is the same way. The hookup culture is not only in New York City, its worldwide. The significance of this study is that if a group of individuals that want serious relationships exist, then there are more people out there that want serious relationships as well. The spread of the hookup culture is a an issue because that means that more and more people do not want to be in a relationship. It can be for a variety of reasons like they do not want to be in a relationship or they want to, but everyone they meet just wants to hookup, or they just do not want to be tied down in a relationship. Whatever the reason, it means that people are not connecting with others and forming bonds. However, this study proved that there are still groups of people that want real long lasting relationships. If there is one group of people that want it, there has to be more around New York City.