Hooking Up Bogle Argument Response

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We live in a world filled to the brim with so many different people that we have been spoiled into thinking that we can say just about anything is true “in general.” However, in her book Hooking Up: Sex Dating, and Relationships on Campus, Kathleen Bogle takes this for granted. The psychologist argues that outside of college, sex is a private affair rather than public and therefore, people join the hooking up culture based on peer pressure. In her journey to this conclusion, Bogle used strong interviews and stereotypes as support yet fumbled by leaving out valuable contrasting data and assuming all interviewees were truthful and easily influenced. In order to state that sex is more public in college and that people engage in it because they are being pressured to, Bogle first has to make some assumptions. This was her first misstep. Bogle takes it as a fact that all her interviewees told the truth and also that no one would join the culture by choice. The men and women could have lied in order to seem more respectable in the eyes of Bogle, their elder and a psychologist. For example, some women may have said that peer pressure was their reason to join simply because they felt that Bogle would have seen them as a “slut” if they had actually wanted to participate in the hook-up culture. Secondly, she also assumed that all students cared enough about others’ opinions that they would have been swayed by the pressure placed upon them. In previous chapters, there were examples of students on campus who did not participate because of their religious values such as Hannah, a junior. KB: Did you want a girlfriend because you weren’t comfortable with [the hooking-up] system? Or did it just so happen that you found a girlfriend? Robert: Actually I abhor the whole idea of [hooking up]. I don’t think you actually allow yourself to get to know the other person [that way]… So I

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