Some students are trying to get rid of hook-up culture and bring back traditional dating. Good for them.

Sarah Greek of the College Fix reports.

Move over hookup culture: ‘Bring Dating Back’ campaign launches on campuses

University of Pittsburgh student Reed Frey recently hosted a pro-abstinence table at a sex-themed poker game on campus.

The event, organized by university-funded student organizations, used condoms instead of poker chips, ostensibly to promote a message about safe sex.

Frey described asking a group of freshman girls: “Wouldn’t it be great if a guy just took you out on a date instead?”

“The girls’ faces lit up,” Frey remembers.

Romance trumps the hookup culture, and this Valentine’s Day season on more than 30 college campuses nationwide, students are taking to the quad with posters to remind their peers of that in a #BringDatingBack campaign.

“‘Date’ doesn’t have to be a four-letter word,” one poster coaches. Stick figures on the placards urge students not to text, be vague, or mumble when asking for a date. “Leave your date wanting more,” another poster suggests.

Frey is among those hanging up the pro-dating posters on campus, confident that the hookup culture benefits neither gender and harms both.

More than 3,000 posters have been distributed to campuses this Valentine’s Day as part of the #BringDatingBack campaign, sponsored by the Love & Fidelity Network. The network is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 to encourage “authentic dialogue” in support of sexual integrity and marriage on college campuses.

Christian Say, a 21-year-old sophomore and philosophy major at Princeton, is leading a group of fellow students in distributing 250 posters across his campus for Valentine’s.

The bold red placard series, beginning with “How to Ask Someone Out,” offer up once old-fashioned dating norms for contemporary students. “Don’t text. Ask questions. Pay a genuine compliment. Don’t expect to spend the night.”

Say and fellow students are concerned about the lack of a dating culture on campus.