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Hookup Culture

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Casual sex

Definition

A culture that involves and supports hooking up or uncommitted, short-term sexual acts between two people who are not involved in a long-term relationship with each other.

Introduction

One of the most primal human desires is the want to engage in sexual behaviors. Traditionally, the most important goal of sexual intercourse was mating for reproduction and the continuation of genes, which has favored long-term relationships. However, reproduction is not the only goal for people to have sex. There are also other goals like physical gratification and fulfillment of emotional needs (Birnbaum and Gillath 2006). Over the past 60 years, many societies have become more sexually liberated, and the use of birth control (e.g., condoms, oral contraceptives) has increased (Garcia et al. 2012). With these changes, the sexual goals of physical gratification and emotion fulfillment have increased their prominence. Unlike reproductive goals, which tend to favor long-term...

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Correspondence to Barış Sevi .

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Sevi, B. (2018). Hookup Culture. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_217-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_217-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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