Everybody knows there’s no dating at Stanford.

“People either act like they’re married or they hook up,” said Navin Kadaba ‘08. “There’s no in-between.”

The story usually goes something like this: harried undergrads are too busy with school to go on formal dinner or movie dates, so they either have casual one-night stands as time allows, or they quickly move into joined-at-the-hip relationships, where they sleep, eat and study together.

While the lack of dating at Stanford may be lamentable, recent research from Sociology Prof. Paula England, who teaches the popular class “Sex and Love in Modern Society,” suggests it’s hardly unique. England has given an extensive online sex survey to over 4,300 students at seven universities, and she reports that formal dating has fallen by the wayside everywhere.

“At every other school where I go to give a talk, the students say, ‘There’s something really weird here. People don’t date,’” she said. “And then they have some idiosyncratic explanation about their college. This guy at Northwestern thought it was because historically the male and female dorms were on opposite sides of the campus. Trust me on this: that is not the explanation.”

Lack of dating is a national trend, England explained. All over the country, the formal date is being pushed out by the new college hookup.

“Hooking up” is loosely defined, but it generally refers to a situation where two people wind up doing something sexual after meeting up at a party or other social event.

The particular sexual activity can be anything from kissing to intercourse. Of the 2,900 heterosexual students who shared information about their last hookup, about a third had simply made out, another third had had intercourse and the remaining third had had either oral or manual sex.

The participants did not necessarily know each other before the hookups, nor did they necessarily have any interest in a relationship. Sometimes, however, hookups do lead to relationships if a couple hits it off.

By senior year, the students in England’s survey had averaged 6.9 hookups. In addition, 71 percent of seniors reported having been in a relationship that lasted at least six months.

“Hookups have not replaced relationships,” England said. “But they have altered the pathways into relationships and may have largely replaced casual dating.”

While Stanford may not be unique in terms of its lackluster dating scene, students at the Farm can boast about leading the pack in one arena.

“Stanford students are more virginal than students at other schools,” England said.

More than 30 percent of Stanford upperclassmen self-identify as virgins, compared to about 15 percent of upperclassmen at the other six schools in the online survey.

One group driving the Stanford virginity gap is Asian men. A full 50 percent of male Asian upperclassmen at Stanford self-identify as virgins, compared to 27 percent of male non-Asian upperclassmen. Interestingly, there is no statistically significant difference in the self-reported virginity of Asian versus non-Asian females.

However, the high level of chastity at Stanford cannot be attributed to Asian males alone. Non-Asian upperclassmen at Stanford report being virgins twice as often as non-Asian upperclassmen at other universities.

England speculates the virginity gap may be due to the type of people who wind up at Stanford. Research with high school students has shown that having highly educated parents, high socioeconomic status and a high GPA all predict that an individual will delay losing his or her virginity.

Still, any late bloomers can be reassured.

“Stanford kids are probably ultimately going to do the same stuff,” England said, “it’s just that they’re starting later.”