Another potential form of harassment can be seen in professor–student relationships; even though the student may be of the age to consent, they might be coerced into sexual encounters due to the hope of boosting their grades or receiving a recommendation from the professor.
Compared with the possibilities offered by modern communications technology and the relative freedom of young adults, today's dating scene is vastly different.
These meetings were all strictly surveyed, typically by the woman's family, in order to protect the reputations of all involved and limit such possibilities as pregnancy.
Specifically, the advent of the telephone and the automobile and their subsequent integration into the mainstream culture are often identified as key factors in the rise of modern dating.
[2] With the shift of courtship from the private to the public sphere, it took on a new goal; dating became a means to and indicator of popularity, especially in the collegiate environment.
For instance, at Howard University, the majority of students see hooking up as meeting friends or simply exchanging phone numbers without any sexual connotation to it.
The most prominent among these technological advances is the rise in popularity of social networking and matchmaking sites such as DateMySchool, a website dedicated to college dating (established in 2010).
Participants in these services who are looking for a face-to-face relationship still tend to impose geographical and group-based limitations on the pool of potential mates.
Participants use the services in order to meet others who are outside their social circles, but still attempt to impose some limitations to maintain the possibility of a physical relationship.
[16][17] While the current literature on the specific effects of the advent of the internet on university-age dating is somewhat lacking and contradictory, there is agreement that it follows the trends of the general population.
[2][17] However, when this proposition was recently explicitly tested by Stevens and Morris, they found that the difference was not in the type of relationship sought, but in the methods used to seek it.
They found that there is no significant difference in between those ranking high and low in risk for social or dating anxiety in the types of relationships that are formed through the internet.
The difference lies in the fact that those with high anxiety indexes used webcams to communicate with people they had met and maintain their relationships.
Stevens and Morris speculated that webcams allow for some of the benefits of face-to-face communication while retaining some of the buffering effects of cyber-communication, alleviating the social anxiety of the user.
[17] Dating violence occurs in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, and is defined as verbal, physical, psychological or sexual abuse to either gender.
[18] Approximately 35% of college students have been subjected to dating violence in a relationship, and the victims are often faced with self-blame, embarrassment, and fear of their perpetrator.
[20][21][22][23] Date rape is most likely to occur in a student's first ten weeks of school, when they are more likely to trust others and may be engaging in social encounters outside of the mediating influence of their parents.
[27] Sexual harassment on campus can occur from authority figures, such as faculty members, or from the victim's peers in the college setting.
[22] The phenomenon of student-teacher romantic and sexual relationships is one that is found across many types of school systems, age groups, and demographics.
While the consequences and social problems of these relationships are relatively clear in elementary and secondary settings, the issue becomes more complicated in a university.