When and Why Women Regret Sex in Hookups More Than Men Do: An Analysis of the Online College Social Life Survey

ABSTRACT

Using data from the Online College Social Life Survey, we examine the contexts in which there is a gender gap in regretting hookups, as well as the mechanisms that explain these gender gaps. Results suggest that gender differences in regret are larger following (and in the case of most recent hookups, limited to) hookups that involve vaginal intercourse. The gender gap in hookup regret is mostly a function of gender differences in sexual initiation, sexual agency, sexual enjoyment, loss of respect from one’s partner, and loss of self-respect. These findings suggest that the gendered norms and power imbalance created by the sexual double standard explain why women regret hookups involving vaginal intercourse more often than men do.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender differences
• hookups
• sexual double standard
• sexual strategies
• vaginal intercourse

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Paula England for data access.

Notes

1. It is worth noting that though men are more likely than women to desire casual sex, both men and women prefer long-term relationships to hookups (Bradshaw, Kahn, and Saville 2010; Kuperberg and Padgett 2015b).

2. One of these schools was a community college; analyses conducted without respondents from this school produced substantively similar results.

3. More detailed information about bootstrapping can be found in Hayes (2009:411–13).

4. The results are the same using percentile confidence intervals.

5. These percentages do not sum to 100 because of the small contributions of the nonsignificant mediators in the model.

6. These percentages do not sum to 100 because of the small contributions of the nonsignificant mediators in the model and the fact that the gender effect in the final model, though not statistically significant, is greater than 0.

7. Survey analysis is probably not needed to serve as evidence that people regret being raped or the victim of attempted rape, and we risk being offensive in even noting it. But the inclusion of these variables here is to point out that the gender difference in experiencing rape or attempted rape contributes to the gender gap in regret.

8. We explored the possibility in ancillary models that our mediators function differently across gender by adding multiplicative interaction terms (one per model) between gender and each mediator to the full model. In the sample of hookups involving vaginal sex, only the interaction for respecting same-gender others less was statistically significant, and it was such that it was a positive predictor of regret for both men and women, but stronger for men. None of the interactions were significant in the sample of hookups involving intercourse that were the first hookup with that partner. In the sample of ever regretting the sexual activity in a hookup among those who had had intercourse outside of an exclusive relationship, the gender interactions with force/pressure and perceived loss of partner respect were positive predictors of regret for both men and women, but stronger for men. The interaction for respecting same-gender others less was statistically significant and positive for women but smaller and not statistically significant for men.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy E. Uecker

Jeremy E. Uecker is assistant professor of sociology at Baylor University. His research focuses on religion, family, sexual behavior, stratification, mental health, and the transition to adulthood. His current projects include a study of the effects of religion and science perspectives on socioeconomic and religious outcomes, as well as a study of the changing role of religion in the family formation of young adults in the United States over the last several decades.

Brandon C. Martinez

Brandon C. Martinez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Providence College. His primary interests include the sociology of religion, racial and ethnic relations, and stratification. His recent research has been published in journals such as Social Psychology Quarterly, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Deviant Behavior.