Stories of Duke's alleged hook-up culture made national news during the past year, but a recent study by the American College Health Association has shown that Duke students aren't as promiscuous as they think they are.
The 2006 edition of the annual National College Health Assessment, the ACHA found that 33 percent of Duke students said they have not been sexually active in the last 12 months. Furthermore, the study found that 47 percent of the student body said they had just one sexual partner, and only 10 percent said they had two.
Yet when asked in the same study to predict what they thought the actual statistics would be, Duke students said they believed only 2.5 percent of the student body was not sexually active, 19 percent had one partner and 33 percent had two.
The difference between the statistics reflects the misconception among students that "everyone 'hooks up'" and that everyone has multiple sexual partners, Franca Alphin, director of health promotions at the Duke Student Health Center, wrote in an e-mail.
Sophomore Sarah Doyle, however, said Duke's hook-up culture thrives at the expense of its dating culture.
"Nobody that I know of actually goes out on dates, and if they do, it's very unusual," she said. "More people just kind of meet up with people when they're already out, like at bars, or restaurants or parties. It's usually very flattering as a girl to be asked out on a date because it usually doesn't happen very often."
In an effort to promote dating among the student body, freshman Lucy McKinstry helped create the Facebook group "We're bringing the date back!" that currently boasts 377 members.
"People want to date," McKinstry said. "I've been really surprised at how many people have joined and how many different kinds of people. I feel like it's really crossed all sorts of social lines. It's something that everyone can kind of agree on."
Doyle said she believes relationships are hard to find on campus because of the drive and independence some female students exhibit.
"In other schools, some girls may come to college looking for a husband, but at Duke females are coming to college to get a career and a future," Doyle said.
Health education specialist Lindsey Bickers Bock said this phenomenon is not unique to Duke, adding that Duke's social culture layers on top of hometown culture and American culture.
Yet Duke's campus culture still places an unbalanced amount of social pressure on its female students, Doyle said.
"I wouldn't necessarily say that Duke is any different than any other college campus," she said. "But in general, I feel like it's usually expected that more than just making out is part of hooking up. As a woman, it can be kind of degrading on Duke's campus because you're expected to put out so much, and if you don't, then it's almost like the interest is lost."
Social expectations differ among classes, Doyle added.
"All the freshmen are getting all sorts of attention and everything," she said. "I feel like the guys are trying to see how much they can push these girls."
Of those sexually active, the NCHA survey found that 40 percent of students said they have never used a condom during oral sex. Alphin said that this statistic is a cause for concern, especially since less than 1 percent said they always used a condom during oral sex.
But Doyle said most students generally consider their sexual health important. She added that the responsibility for getting condoms normally falls on men, while the responsibility of taking birth control pills rests on women.
Sophomore Daniel Harvey, a member of Duke Educational Leaders in Sexual Health, said he wished students were more aware of all the services Duke provides for sexual health, such as free condoms, contraceptives and STD testing.
Still, protection itself could lead to misconceptions, Bickers Bock said.
"I think, not just at Duke, that in American culture, how prepared and educated someone is about their sexual health, people extrapolate that to what their experiences have been," she said. "So, if somebody knows a lot about sexual health, is that because they've been sexually active with a lot of people? Because somebody is carrying condoms, does that mean that they assume that they're going to be sexually active tonight?"
Doyle said it is more demeaning for a woman to have a sexually transmitted disease than for a man to have one.
"Girls should respect themselves and their bodies, and in order to do that, I feel like they definitely have to be careful with who they may decide to hook up with, or make sure that they really care about that person," she said.
Bickers Bock added that the overall culture has created different gender characterizations for men and women.
"That's where you get terms like 'slut' and 'pimp,'" she said. "Those having different connotations is part of a larger culture."
Bickers Bock said for sexually active students, sexual health is a personal responsibility. "It's not like people make a one-time decision, and they're going to say, 'I'm going to be sexually healthy or not,'" she said. "Instead, it's a lot of individual decisions and people figuring out what's right for them."
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