The Culture of Hooking Up

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

All the grey tables are turned in to create a half circle. The last three weeks, it's been a different kind of makeshift circle with crooked tables and missing chairs. But today everything seems like it's finally solidified. Every table is straight with two chairs, and all the legs seem like they're glued to the floor. The large gap between the tables and the white erase board is large and round to fit a small orchestra.

     "What is social order?" my professor effortlessly projects across the distance. "How do we maintain social order? What's keeping you sitting here in these seats? Why don't you just get up and walk out?"

     There's only ten of us in the class, and some of us snicker, but none of us move. A few weeks into Social Theory, and we're all already adapted to all the typical classroom norms. No talking, just note-taking, or at least pretending to take notes, pretending to care even if you do, or even if you really don't. I do care for the most part, but I also have to care because I'm required to take this course for my sociology major. Not everyone in this room is.

But I still have the pretending to care part down pat. Especially, since I'm more entranced by the light shining through the windows on the top left side of the room. It's scattered and dancing across the worn, white lament floor, all pure and untainted, unlike the filtered lights in the nightclub.

    "Okay, so how about this? You're walking down the street and happen to see someone you find incredibly attractive," my professor continues. "What keeps you from jumping them?"

     The laughter is a little louder this time, but no one makes a move to respond. Two girls who are both friends trade smiles and a look, while the guy on my right won't stop bouncing his left leg. The girl sitting beside me continues to type away on her laptop. It's definitely another assignment from another class. The girl next to her slurps down some of her iced coffee but gets more air in between the ice cubes than any liquid. I'm jealous. I wish I had some more caffeine pumping through my veins right now.

     "Seriously." My Professor prods as he pushes up his thick, square, SpongeBob-like glasses. It's not a question but a statement. I've had him for two other classes before this, so I know he's not a rhetorical kind of guy. He scans his eyes around the room as he drums his fingers along the side of the small wooden podium perched on his desk. The grey table at the front of the room is the same as the grey tables sitting in front of us. It wouldn't even be claimed as his if it didn't have the podium on it.  He gives us one final moment to respond, but it's futile because of another very important classroom social cue, avoid eye contact at all costs.

"It's because you inhibit your pleasure," he finally says with an elegant wave of his hand.

     "Who finds pleasure in that?" the girl mumbles from the left corner of the half circle. She has now swapped her coffee for gum.

     My professor sticks his neck out. "What was that?"

     "That's messed up." The girl lifts her own chin as she clicks a bubble against her teeth. "If someone finds pleasure in assault then . . ." She trails off as more snickers ensue.

     "That's not—" my professor starts.

     "Wait, are we talking about jumping, as in beating someone up, or—" the girl beside me chimes in, her acrylic nails freezing against her laptop keys.

     "No—well, both." My professor shrugs as a ghost of a smile traces his lips. "All I'm trying to say is that people don't just go around jumping each other because we are socialized to maintain social order."

     There are a few more quiet chuckles, but they are more at him and his salt and pepper hair than with him. Especially, since the two girls who are friends are laughing way harder than they should be, at least for classroom social norm standards. Or maybe they are all just have private conversations on their phones or laptops. I don't know.

     I do know that the muscles in my face are frozen solid. My lips don't even quiver at the awkward silence, or even general awkwardness. The room feels smaller. I can no longer see anyone else.

     All I hear are the screams muffled behind hands, closed doors, loud music, or all the above. The bruises on the outside. Black, blue, purple, and yellow. Easily treated and fade. The bruises on the inside, permanently etched into brains, hearts, and bones.

     Some people can no longer wear necklaces or scarfs. No ponytails or buns. Some people can't wear dresses or pants or tank tops or whatever because it doesn't even matter what they were wearing.

     It doesn't matter.

     They all screamed. They all kicked, punched, scratched, fought.

     No one heard.

     He didn't stop.

Though it's never happened to me, it doesn't mean I don't feel it every time a guy looks me up and down or even looks at me the wrong way, with or without a bloodthirsty gleam. When I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because it was only a dream, but it's not just a dream when I'm walking across campus after a night class, and the sun has already set, or when I'm leaving the club at two a.m. Every brush of wind on my face only feels like a deliberate distraction—the perfect two-second distraction—for someone to sneak up from behind or jump in front of me. It's a deep dark rabbit hole, and when the light shines in through the windows, pure and untainted, it's easy to ignore, but I never ever forget.

     "People don't just go around jumping each other."

     Are you sure about that?