Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Ethan Safron ·
November 2, 2011 at 1:44am
From the Huffington Post:
"If people want to have sex they are going to have sex," said Melissa Reid, a freshman living in the all-female Ryan Hall. Reid, who goes to Mass nearly every other day, said she talked about the policy in one of her psychology classes recently. Nearly all the students, including Reid, agreed that this housing change will not stop students from having sex or drinking. "If you have to separate people to prevent that then what are you saying about those people?" she said.
Perhaps I shouldn't excpect better from the Huffington Post's comment section, but this was the second comment when sorting by popularity: "Maybe keeping priests outta the boys' dorm would help!"
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Some naive questions:
- How common are co-ed dorms -- and by thet, I mean co-ed dorm floors?
- To what extent does the mixed-sex ethos extend to bathrooms or dorm rooms?
Edited on November 2, 2011 at 4:46pmRe: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
I'll just answer to the extent I know- aka, my school.
We don't have girls on our floor, and girls aren't allowed to go into our bathroom. But they are allowed to go into rooms, no problem.
The floors in my dorm building have boys on every even numbered floor and girls on every odd numbered floor.
May '10
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Thank you for the clarification, Ethan. I guess I look at this as a continuum that goes from co-ed schools at one end and co-ed rooms at the other. (The latter was proposed by UCLA to address, they say, difficulty in placing transgender students.) In between you've got co-ed dorms and co-ed dorm floors.
I'm actually surprised -- and somewhat happy -- that co-ed dorms are considered controversial.
May '10
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Yes, people usually find a way to have sex if they really want to.
But do we want to encourage it to the point where it's in everyone's face? To make it as drop-dead easy as possible? To send a message, by the entire arrangement of living quarters, that you can have sex all you want?
We don't need to encourage these things. Yes, in college, one of my suite-mates brought in his girlfriend and probably had sex in his dorm room. But this was definitely against the rules and not encouraged. I don't think very many people did it openly.
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Honestly, I have always lived in co-ed dorms. With the experience of two different colleges and knowing the types of housing in both, co-ed dorms are numerous. There are some strictly girls-only and boys-only, but generally these are the very old dorms with hall bathrooms. I lived in a suite with 8 girls, and honestly there was probably always a guy "sleeping" over in our suite. And our suite had the R.A. living there too. While it isn't encouraged, and technically members of the opposite sex are not allowed to "sleep" over, the R.A.s generally turn a blind eye, and of course being on a big public university, free condoms are everywhere for those who are so inclined.
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Oh and I forgot to add, next year my university will be offering transgender housing to students, so people of the opposite sex may move in with each other, or those who are "transitioning".
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Co-ed floors are universal here. That status does not extend to bathrooms, though, with the exception of a very-limited number of "gender-neutral" suites (additionally, women are allowed to enter men's bathrooms in dorms, but men may not enter women's bathrooms). As far as I know, Dartmouth doesn't have any policy preventing anyone from sleeping over. If we do, it is not enforced in any way.
A more interesting case is Vassar College. A friend of mine there has told me all about the College's efforts to end "heteronormativity," which according to Wikipedia "involves alignment of biological sex, sexuality, gender-identity, and gender roles." All housing at Vassar is "gender-neutral" and (I believe) all bathrooms are coed. I don't know if those specific policies are in the future for colleges across the country, but in my intro anthropology class last year, while discussing sex versus gender, a majority of students agreed with the professor that the alignment of biological sex with social gender was outmoded and oppressive.
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
Our dorms are almost all coed, except that I do know of at least one all female building. Bathroom access is left to the discretion of individual hallways, but in my experience tend to be coed. Incidentally, there has been a movement here to start gender neutral housing to accommodate LGBT students, but it has yet to gain significant traction to the best of my knowledge.
May '10
Re: Same-Sex Dorm Referendum
In my fraternity (well back in the last millennium), everyone slept in large cold air dorms -- 40 guys in one room, 20 guys in each three other ones. There were no lights and the windows were permanently open a few inches (this is in the upper midwest, which meant some people had to dust snow off themselves in the morning). In others words: it was cold, almost completely dark, and very quiet.
It was not unknown for someone to sneak a girl into the racks (as the long rows of three-level bunks were called), but it was rare and, in retrospect, must have amounted either to aural exhibitionism or thrill-seeking.
The rooms themselves -- ostensibly for studying and keeping your things -- were completely unregulated. We were adults, after all, and we had to decide these matters for ourselves.
By extension, we could also legally drink alcohol, except for the unfortunate 18 year olds who had to wait a year until turning 19.