Freshmen twice likelier to indulge in 'hookups' without protection

A new study has found that undergraduates were 2 times more likely to have unprotected sex during "hookups."

Jonathan Marc Bearak from New York University explored the changes in undergraduate uncommitted sexual behavior during years 1-4 of college. The article provides reasoning for the decline in the use of condoms, and explains how changes in the odds of coitus and condom use depend on family background, school gender imbalance, and whether the partners attended the same college.

The results showed that the odds of unprotected intercourse in hookups doubled between freshman and senior year. Among the factors which contributed to this, freshmen from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds more frequently protect themselves with a condom when they have intercourse in a hookup than freshmen from more advantaged backgrounds, but by sophomore year, they adopt the same lower condom use rate of their peers from more advantaged backgrounds.

The results were consistent with the view that college was perceived as a safer environment. An interpretation equally consistent with the data was that it might take longer for lower socioeconomic status students to integrate into the social activities on their campus, which, conceivably, might not encourage condom use.

The research also highlights an oft-overlooked issue in sexual research: the probability of intercourse within the normative contexts in which adolescents and young adults sexually interact contributes to cumulative risks over and above their contraceptive practices.