<p>I too have been thinking alot about this thread since yesterday; actually discussed it with a couple of friends last night…our conclusions:</p>
<p>Drugs, alcohol: same (if not worse) back then…</p>
<p>Sex, relationships, etc: casual sex and hooking up was almost non-existent. (and from the parent of two girls who prefer relationships, the current state of affairs is very, very sad…)</p>
<p>Wonder if there is a college guidebook that ranks schools for the ones where relationships trump hook-ups?</p>
<p>D1 likes to tell me that things have changed, hooking up in her generation really doesn’t mean that much, just because you have sex with someone it doesn’t mean you are in a relationship. At the same time, a few times when she’s found out a potential boyfriend (not quite there just, just still a lot of texting and meeting up) has hooked out with another girl, she has quietly ended their relationship. She would never say it’s because of hookup, it’s always due to something else. I don’t think she could be as casual about sex as her generation would like to be, and she doesn’t want to admit to it. I can’t help to think there are probably many girls (maybe guys too) also feel the same. It’s hard to change how we naturally feel about sex for so long, just because culturally we are told differently now.</p>
<p>oldfort, a psychiatrist from UCLA wrote a book about how she feels the friends with benefits thing harms girls. She wrote based on her experiences counseling students. I think she is dead on.</p>
<p>I drove down the Drag in Austin a couple of weeks ago. UT-Austin in 1970 offered everything that is happening now, except the damn cell phones. It was more drug obvious back then with the street musicians, those of us selling flowers on the street and street protests, etc. </p>
<p>The chem labs meant there was a huge amount of LSD available even after it became illegal. Pot was everywhere. Hash was around. Opium less so, but not impossible to get. Peyote/shrooms/mescaline–yep. I don’t remember a lot of speed (that came more in the 1970s). I recall there seemed to be more coke and herion available in Dallas around SMU.</p>
<p>I had been at Emory in Atlanta for 1968 and 69. The dean of men told us (at Manuel’s Beer Garden) that they were not there to monitor what we did. Making sufficient grades to stay in school was “the brake.” Drinking was about on the level of what I see reported on CC. The availability of drugs was less and therefore the cost was higher.</p>
<p>Sex at Emory was still pretty much “on the sly.” Sex at UT depended on what group you were with at the moment. There probably was more group and public sex then than now.</p>
<p>The most important difference I’ve noticed involves the phenomenon of “pre-gaming.” </p>
<p>Because most of today’s students cannot drink legally, they often do their drinking in private before going to an event. In our time, when the drinking age was 18, this was unnecessary, and people didn’t do it.</p>
<p>Another difference involves security. Basically, once curfews and restrictive visiting policies disappeared (which happened in about 1970 or maybe a bit earlier), there was no security whatsoever in college dorms. People who did not live in a building could get in easily and wander the halls at any hour of the day or night. Now, there are security measures in place, although students often thwart them. And the only blue lights in our era were on the tops of police cars.</p>
<p>The only sexual difference I’ve noticed is that more gay and lesbian students are open about their sexuality. As far as I can tell, the situation among straight students is pretty much the same as it was 35 years ago. Some have many sexual partners (what we called “casual sex” and today’s generation calls “hook-ups”). Others find partners and settle into comfortable relationships that last for months or years. Still others stay “single” for most of college. The differences probably reflect students’ basic personalities and their luck in finding compatible partners.</p>