Evangelical college students chaster than Catholics

This in from National Catholic Reporter:

Sexual Ethics: Even on Catholic campuses, hookup sex prevails
By KRIS BERGGREN
Kris Berggren, a freelance writer, lives in Minneapolis.
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/1072

...What Freitas discovered is that except for some evangelical colleges where a cult of purity exists, there is little difference between public, private and Catholic colleges and universities in the “hookup culture” that prevails on campus -- one in which students seek sexual experiences with a variety of partners outside of relationships.

Such casual sex is the norm at secular and Catholic institutions alike, even including “theme parties” where women dress up as sex objects, Freitas writes in her new book, Sex & the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses.

Freitas, a Catholic theologian and assistant professor of religion at Boston University, based her book on research involving students at seven colleges. Her research grew out of a class she taught on dating at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt., in which students opened up with her and with each other about their dissatisfaction with the predominant “hookup culture” on campus. It eventually led her and five research assistants to survey 2,500 students online, read 500 journals, and individually interview 111 students.

Erin Spranger, a sophomore at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., not included in Freitas’s study, has declined invitations to parties with sexual themes, which are typically hosted by male students off campus, she said.