[Editors’ note: Every other week, The Diamondback will publish a column from a member of the faculty that connects a professor’s expertise to an issue important to the university.]

So I’m eavesdropping on a few young women in the Stamp Student Union’s food court. Allison is finishing a burrito when her friend Jackie stops by and asks, “Hey girl, you hook up with Danny last night?” Allison, glancing around to make sure no one is listening and whispers, “We so hooked up. … It was insane!”

The problem is, I’m so confused! Although today’s college students have more communication devices than NASA’s earliest space shuttles, when it comes to talking about sex, meanings aren’t always so obvious. Just as those of us “mature” folks witnessed the social revolution of the 1960s, this current generation has also redefined sexuality to such a great extent that deciphering the behavior and sexual language of our young adult sons and daughters has become an art form.

In my recent research on sexual lexicons, discovering a consensus on the meaning of a universal term such as “hooking up” proved to be impossible. Undergraduate definitions ranged from “hanging out” (another incredibly precise term), to fooling around, to everything but sex, to my favorite response, “random oral sex.”

Some researchers, though, suggest that using an imprecise term such as “hooking up” might actually serve a useful purpose, as it allows males to infer to their testosterone-laden buddies that much more sexual action occurred than actually transpired, and in a sexist world that tends to punish women who exhibit a traditionally “male” enthusiasm for sex, simply saying that you hooked up seems so much more civilized and acceptable than “I had oral sex with a couple of guys I just met.”

Adding to the confusion of communication is the difficulty of defining what I used to think was a straightforward term: sex. About eight years before Monica Lewinsky’s name became synonymous with former President Bill Clinton’s Oval Office and cigars were still for smoking, data were collected and findings published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association clearly establishing that college students did not consider oral sex to be, well, sex. My own more recent research confirms this finding, so an obvious question is, if oral-genital contact isn’t sex, what is it? A metaphorical handshake? A get-to-know-you activity? Also, come to think of it, what is oral sex?

Here’s a hypothetical: What if Jamie performs oral sex on Jess? Which one had oral sex? Both? In my research, 20 percent of students stated that Jamie, the “provider,” had not had oral sex. So despite potentially having provided oral gratification to half the population of the East Coast, when completing a questionnaire on sexual behavior that could even influence public health policy, such an individual might report that he or she has never had oral sex. You see the problem.

Finally, if you want to get a glimpse into some confusing aspects of non-verbal communication, you’ve got to love the style of dancing that’s romantically known as “grinding.” A woman pretty much bends over on the dance floor, rotates her rear end and, before she can even touch her toes, a random male has appeared out of nowhere, attaching his genitalia to her gyrating cheeks. No words are spoken, and without performing a neck-twisting move of Olympic proportions, the woman can’t even identify whether or not the male now firmly attached to her nether regions is worthy of continued contact. Now, when I was in college, we called that sex. Think about it – oral sex isn’t sex; hooking up is random; grinding is dancing; and we haven’t even talked about friends with benefits or booty calls. It’s a confusing, brave new world out there … take me back to Woodstock, please!

Robin G. Sawyer is the associate chair of the public and community health department. He can be reached at sawyer@umd.edu.