Science has officially recognized the booty call.

In a study from the University of West Florida, researchers surveyed 300 college students who had engaged in sexual relationships of varying intensity over the past year. They then divided these arrangements into three distinct categories: committed relationships, one-night stands and, now with lab-coat approval, the booty call.

“Booty call was a hybrid,” said Peter Jonason, the psychologist who conducted the study. “We positioned it in the middle (of sexual and romantic relationships), but we positioned it mostly on the side of sex.”

According to the study, the booty call involves less emotional attachment than committed relationships and more sexual variety and experimentation than a one-night stand. Booty calls are also defined by their ad hoc nature; while they happen between two people over an extended period of time, they are usually arranged last minute by late-night phone call or text.

“Booty calls” have probably been around since at least the advent of the go-between or carrier pigeon, but they have clearly become more popular over the last decade or so.

Is their increased frequency a good thing for society? We debate the pros and cons of the booty call after the jump.

Go Forth With the Calling of Booty
The University of West Florida study really drives home the point that sex in the context of a booty-call relationship is crazy and experimental. And that’s probably what’s needed to compete with all the wild stuff the kids are going to see on the Internet.

Let’s be frank: If you do the booty-call thing right, you are drinking beer and playing video games with your friends until around midnight; and then a chick comes over and has sex with you. If that doesn’t have any appeal, somebody needs to take away your guy card — and then smack you with it.

At least American college kids are figuring out new ways to have sex with each other. Over in Japan, the young folks are having sex with body pillows.

Separating the Booty From the Emotion Is a Dangerous Game
The longer you engage in a booty-call relationship, the better the chance your partner in this no-strings-attached crime is also doing the booty-call thing with one of the 16 percent of Americans who has genital herpes.

Because of the booty call, now college students and young adults are able to get all sorts of wild sex without any emotional attachment. In other words, it’s the exact opposite of what is going to happen when they get married. The booty call may well leave a generation of people woefully unprepared for the sacred institution.

The word “booty”: It just sort of makes us uncomfortable.

In short:  Booty calls lead to healthier marriages because the wild, crazy sex has been ravaged out of their system by the time they are ready to settle down.

Sweet.