Faith with Benefits extends recent discussions on college hookup culture (such as Donna Freitas’ Sex and the Soul [New York: Oxford, 2015]). Although previous studies found that students at Catholic universities participate in hooking up at rates similar to, or even exceeding, the rates on secular campuses, Jason King suspected there was more to learn. King hopes his book will be a practical book: students and university faculty and staff alike will find some concrete suggestions here for helping students navigate hookup cultures on campuses as well as strengthen their relationships.
This book offers a nuanced, largely sociological, account of the Catholic landscape. Using survey data, King suggests that there are four distinct hookup cultures that students name. In addition, King identifies multiple Catholic cultures that exist at Catholic colleges. He focuses on the three main “types” of Catholic college that students identify, which he terms “Very Catholic,” “Mostly Catholic,” and “Somewhat Catholic.” Each of the Catholic campus types are similar in that they typically offer a range of Catholic liturgies and Catholic ministries, as well as courses that focus on Catholicism. The differences between the campuses exist in institutional structures (such as residential life) and the ways students themselves support the Catholic cultures on their campuses (21–23). King uses surveys and follow-up interviews as part of his research.
By intersecting the three Catholic identities with the four hookup cultures, King discovers interesting variations in how students engage hooking up, as well as how Catholic campuses might respond to hooking up. For example, King suggests that students on Mostly Catholic campuses (which have the highest hookup rate at 55 percent) foster a communio Catholicism, which emphasizes that “Catholics should be nice” (90). King argues that such niceness may in fact may heighten students’ participation in hookup cultures, though in ways that are different from secular hooking up. Students on Mostly Catholic campuses use hookups to seek relationships; by contrast, students on secular campuses more often see hookups in terms of attachment-free sexual encounters. One practical idea for Mostly Catholic campuses, therefore, is to help students navigate and foster healthy relationships.
Very Catholic campuses (with a bit over a 20 percent hookup rate) assert an “evangelical” Catholicism (42–43), with a strong theological narrative about humans being made to love God, which in turn means that human relationships are about loving God as well. In addition, those who have participated in hookup cultures on Very Catholic campuses strongly emphasize conversion toward God's love. Very Catholic campuses can support students via strong residential life programs, as well as by enabling students to speak often with one another about their faith.
Somewhat Catholic campuses had a lower hookup rate than Mostly Catholic campuses (45 percent) and emphasize an accompaniment Catholicism in which “Catholicism is present, available if you need it, but it is not ‘in your face’” (140). A Somewhat Catholic campus could support students by fostering students’ own alternatives to hookup cultures.
The book is primarily sociological, though King's narratives about the different Catholic cultures does offer some theological arguments. Theologians will likely find themselves wanting more of a theological discussion; for example, there are several ecclesiological questions that might arise about the intersections between evangelical, communio, and accompaniment Catholicism.
The book will be engaging for undergraduates taking marriage and sexual ethics courses, in part because King's language is readable and the topic very much engages their own interests. That said, I think that King's work should be of interest beyond the field of “sexual ethics” because of his careful discussions about the nuances of Catholic higher education.
King's research suggests that the church's educational institutions operate in ways that are quite different from our dichotomized “culture wars” language and may be of interest for thinking about Catholic life beyond university walls.
