Whether you are swiping right, going out every weekend, or consciously avoiding the dating scene, Tulane’s hookup culture is uniquely shaping all of our college experiences. For Spring 2026, Tulane is offering a class that turns those experiences into academia. This course will be one of the most relevant and memorable courses you take in your college career.
What are you doing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 2 pm next semester? You should be talking about sex in Dr. Lisa Wade’s exciting new sociology class open to all undergraduates. Author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, Dr. Wade is teaching SOC1902: Sex in College, a class about sexuality, pleasure, sexual violence, and sexual health in college.
Whether you love hookup culture, hate it, or ignore it altogether, every Tulane student is embedded in it. Even if you opt out, you still have to navigate the sexual culture on campus, and that experience is extremely valuable to think and learn about.
What to Expect:
Dr. Wade’s class fulfills the Social and Behavioral Sciences core requirement and is a mix of lectures and TA-led discussions. There are three papers and no tests. You will have the opportunity to interview an adult in your life about their experience with hookup culture and dating, conduct an ethnography of The Boot, and dream up what an alternative sex and dating culture could look like for young people.
When I spoke to Dr. Wade about her class, she told me the driving questions for the course are: “How would you create more of a menu of sex and dating options for students on campus?” and “How can we use an academic framework to unpack hookup culture and make things a bit more enjoyable for all Tulane students?”
Hot Topics:
This class is fun, sassy, honest, and promises to give you the tools to navigate and reshape Tulane’s sexual economy. It is dedicated to discussing straight and queer cultures, critiquing them to better understand how various sexual cultures work in tandem with each other. You will learn about closing the orgasm gap in heterosexual relationships, analyze hookup culture’s intersection with disability, and discover how cultural status impacts dating. Other class topics will include:
- The history of youth sexual cultures
- Theorizing sexual liberation
- The hookup script
- Race and class disparities in dating
Hookup culture is free to participate in, but that does not guarantee all students feel safe or confident exploring what they desire. Bring your experiences to class, hear other students’ perspectives, and learn from an expert to predict the next youth sexual culture. Dr. Wade suggests hookup culture will eventually be replaced, and it is up to us to figure out what will come next.
This is your chance to turn weekend debriefs into academic analysis and address your mixed feelings about hookup culture in a new way. There are 60 spots available — grab your seat while you still can
About Hannah Levy
Hannah is a senior, studying Philosophy of Law and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is from Los Angeles, CA, and couldn't help but wonder... what would happen if she collected stories from her and her friends' lives to share here with you? In her free time, you can find her at hot yoga, listening to podcasts, enjoying happy hour, and searching for treasure on depop.
Hannah is a senior, studying Philosophy of Law and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is from Los Angeles, CA, and couldn't help but wonder... what would happen if she collected stories from her and her friends' lives to share here with you? In her free time, you can find her at hot yoga, listening to podcasts, enjoying happy hour, and searching for treasure on depop.
