On the very Catholic campuses, fewer than 30 percent of students hooked up. As one student put it, their school was “not like going to a state school because we don’t have parties here.” Instead, these schools were more like evangelical colleges, with hardly any hooking up. Even though the schools did not require an abstinence pledge, the Catholicism, to use Mason’s term, “resonated” throughout the campus bound students together in a common opposition to hooking up.On mostly Catholic campuses, 55 percent of students hooked up, a number that is lower than the 70 percent of campuses in general but also higher than 30 percent of very Catholic schools. While the Catholic culture of these campuses was not strong enough to oppose hooking up, it was strong enough to transform it. The “friendly” Catholic culture changed hooking up from something with “no-strings-attached” to “a way into relationships.” A majority of students hooked up because relationships made hooking up seem ok. As one student said, “Hooking up is just a way to get there.” [...]
While one might expect somewhat Catholic campuses to have the highest rates of hooking up, this was not the case. Fewer than half of the students – 45 percent – hooked up. Not quite as low as the 30 percent on very Catholic campuses, but 10 percent lower than on mostly Catholic campuses. [...]
Overall, fewer students hooked up on Catholic campuses than on campuses in general. However, it wasn’t simply that a more Catholic culture meant less hooking up. It was just that a Catholic culture had an impact on the ways in which students thought about hooking up.
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