Instead a 'hook-up,' consider 'taking back the date'

Houseparties is simultaneously the closest to and the furthest from traditional dating that most Princetonians ever get.

This year, Houseparties comes on the heels of Take Back the Night, in which 75 students marched to support victims of sexual violence and to protest the unhealthy sexual atmosphere at Princeton that fosters sexual assault.

The motives of the marchers are commendable; their means, however, are largely misdirected. Chants like "Yes means yes, no means no, whatever we wear, wherever we go" illustrate the fatal flaw of the Take Back the Night agenda: the lack of a coherent plan to change the sexual status quo.

While rape is certainly never justified, it is simply naive to assert that one's clothes and choices have no effect on the sexual atmosphere. If women want respect for their sexuality as well as for their minds and bodies, they should themselves treat their sexuality with respect rather than cheaply flaunting it at the 'Street.'

Real change in the sexual climate will require, above all, serious personal initiative. And it won't be easy. Men need to let women know that when they strike up a conversation at the 'Street,' they are interested in more than the implicit suggestion of her tight black pants. And women need to clearly send out that message of respect, not only through marches and purple ribbons but also through their attire and demeanor. Men and women alike need to refuse to settle for superficial "hooking up" when what we need is true intimacy — a fact that our raging hormones would like our rational minds and souls to ignore.

We also need to reinstate respectful social norms, and a good place to start is to "take back the date." The average Princeton student goes on just 1.5 "first dates" per year, and nearly half of that number can be attributed to Houseparties and other date-required social events. This is particularly lame because 95 percent of Princeton students plan to get married someday, and a majority of that number hope to meet their future spouse at Princeton.

Traditional dating provides a badly needed set of established rules, boundaries and norms for social interactions, in contrast to the now-prevalent "hookup" culture. The virtue of "hooking up" is in its loose definition, which encompasses all forms of casual sexual contact from kissing to intercourse. "Hooking up" is thus dissociated from overt sexual promiscuity, which, despite the predominant moral ambivalence of our sexual culture, still gets a bad rap.

The prevalence of hooking up as opposed to traditional courtship is also caused by a particularly Princetonian intensity of social competition and fear of failure. The very notion of hooking up is based on an alcohol-induced reduction of inhibitions to initiate sexual contact; most of us, it seems, lack the intestinal fortitude to ask someone out on a real date and the courage to really get to know another person.

Changing the sexual status quo will certainly take guts, as the only way to take back the date is to start asking. Princeton students, notoriously assertive and competitive, are more amenable to a passive dating role: 5 out of 6 women said the man would initiate their ideal date, and 1 in 4 men said the woman would initiate their ideal date.

Houseparties does represent a step in the right direction for those who took the risk of asking someone to be their date. The vast majority of partygoers, though, fall into one of two low-risk categories: established couples and uninterested, "safe" friends. Only for a small minority does Houseparties represent a conventional, getting-to-know-you dating experience, and when it does, the pressure to hook up and the dominating influence of alcohol transform a traditional date into a sexually high-risk event.

Have a good time at Houseparties, and then take a long, hard look at the Princeton social scene. If we're unhappy with it, we have no one to blame but ourselves and our reluctance to replace instant gratification with more meaningful, healthier and safer interactions and relationships.

Jennifer Carter is a Spanish and Italian major from Tracy, Calif.