<p>Yurtle (and others),</p>
<p>If it is no big deal to you that bathrooms are designated as coed, then would it also be no big deal to you if colleges automatically assigned every dorm room to a male and a female? How would that be any different to those of you? I’m not talking about by request, or between friends; I’m talking about random assignments. Why do you think colleges do not do this now?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because it would make some people more uncomfortable than others. However, you can request it at my chosen College, and Oberlin allows it as well…I’ve read stories about best friends living together and couples living together. I honestly don’t think it would be any more shocking than a girl living with me…I’d end up thinking of them like a brother, like I would any other guy friend.</p>
<p>Frankly, I imagine living with a close male friend would probably get me used to living with a boyfriend or husband. I have to be able to cohabitate with someone of the opposite sex. So…colleges DO do it, and I don’t think it’s nearly the same thing as peeing in a stall next to a boy, but I don’t think I would freak out over it.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to add extra stress into an already stressful freshman year. Students are going from a situation of one person per bathroom at one time at home to a community bathroom. If the student is female she has to be concerned about always covering up, whether it matters if there are several guys in the bathroom and one girl (no matter how wonderful they are), how much her morning routine can be performed in her room, looking away while male students are less modest, etc.</p>
<p>I know that I would object if the bathrooms in my office (no showers included) went co-ed. I’m sure someone would also immediately file a harassment lawsuit.</p>
<p>But MWestMom…that’s an office, not a living facility. </p>
<p>Frankly, I’m surprised so many people are surprised about Co-ed bathrooms. They exist in most places. I’ve only visited my college for a weekend, but I talked with all the fellow propsies and the students there, and it really only took everyone a day to adjust. </p>
<p>As my friend Harris put it: “Oh, I went to the bathroom at night, and there was another persone [a girl] there, and I was weirded out, and then I remembered I didn’t walk into the ‘wrong’ bathroom, and I laughed it off.” And that was that. It took everyone a day, and I’m sure if we stayed longer, we’d still have moments where we went “Uh oh, am I in the wrong place…?” But, its honestly not so horrid you can’t do it.</p>
<hr>
<p>As people were asking about non-gendered housing, my college offers the following options:</p>
<p>Single-sex roommates, with a co-ed floor and bathrooms. (standard)
Single-sex floor and bathroom. (Specialty housing)
And (Specialty housing request):</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I believe this went through: <a href=“http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2006/05/12/commentary/editorial.html[/url]”>http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2006/05/12/commentary/editorial.html</a> because I swear I read a student blog detailing someone living with a roommate of a different gender.</p>
<p>Yurtle, I think that it is all the worst because it is a living facility. You are pretty much stuck. And like the student in the original article, to speak up is to subject yourself to unpleasant comments.</p>
<p>If it is a good idea for male and female students to have to use all the facilities together in a dorm, surely it would be more cost effective to do this in other places too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe in colleges, but they generally don’t exist in public places in the adult world (restaurants, office buildings, airports, sports stadiums, etc.). And, in those public places, the only activities being done are using the toilet and washing hands – not extended grooming regimes, and not getting undressed and showering / bathing.<br>
I’m not a prude, but I don’t see the point to them, or what’s so better about them than just having one designated for boys and one for girls.</p>
<p>Ah, yes, here we go: </p>
<p>[ResLife</a> will allow co-ed rooming in Noah](<a href=“http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2004/3/19/news/article1.html]ResLife”>ResLife will allow co-ed rooming in Noah) Gender- Neutral housing. And Co-ed bathrooms: <a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/whats_that_abou.shtml[/url]”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/whats_that_abou.shtml</a></p>
<p>I didn’t apply to Oberlin, but I love their blogs!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know what is typically done for a trans student, but as for gay / lesbian students, what does that have to do with anything? A male gay student uses the men’s room, same as a male hetero student. A lesbian uses the ladies’ room, same as a female hetero student. Seems to be irrelevant to the discussion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The comment was made along the lines of: Why do we assume there will be problems with only straight co-gender students in a bathroom? Naturally if you assume someone can’t control their sexual urges while brushing their teeth, it would probably mean you couldn’t possibly have gay or lesbian students in the same bathroom as students of the same gender! Because what if they do something?!?! /sarcasm using the faulty implied logic used by people who seem to think that co-ed bathrooms are evil places of hedony.</p>
<p>Oh…right, they probably won’t because they just want to brush their teeth too. </p>
<p>So you mean it’s not a problem at all? Or is it a problem only for straight students that they just can’t contain themselves?</p>
<p>Who said it’s an issue of people being able to “contain” themselves?</p>
<p>YK, my D doesn’t want to use the toilet or take a shower while being in the room with her twin brother because he’s a <em>boy.</em> It wouldn’t matter if he were straight or gay. And vice versa of course.</p>
<p>A coed bathroom wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me, but just curious …<br>
At colleges with coed bathrooms, are the locker rooms in the gyms / sports facilities also coed? Why or why not? How about in the academic buildings? Why is it, do you suppose, that the rest of the adult world has men’s rooms and ladies’ rooms as the norm? Is it a statement or assertion that straight people can’t contain themselves?</p>
<p>At colleges with coed bathrooms, are the locker rooms in the gyms / sports facilities also coed? Why or why not? How about in the academic buildings?</p>
<p>Excellent point. If it’s ok for the dorm bathrooms to be coed, then there’s no reason for any of the campus bathrooms to be single sex.</p>
<p>*Frankly, I’m surprised so many people are surprised about Co-ed bathrooms. They exist in most places. *</p>
<p>I have toured many campuses across the country, but have never come across this situation. Is this more common in the NE? If so, then I can see why I’ve “missed them.” I’ve only toured Catholic colleges in the NE, so I imagine they don’t have them.</p>
<p>And…according to my husband…men’s bathrooms STINK. LOL</p>
<p>I find it telling that the OP said if there are not separate bathrooms the school get’s crossed off HER list. Isn’t it her Daughter who is going to college?</p>
<p>We’ve toured campuses and the bathroom situation was never on our radar. I guess we didn’t think to ask. Some campuses didn’t have the housing available to tour because the dorms were occupied. One UC had a empty dorm room available and it was suite style- so no issue. When D went to her first choice school for admitted student’s weekend, she stayed on a co-ed floor, with a co-ed bathroom. It was 1am and she was standing at the sink washing her face and brushing her teeth and up walks a guy in a towel to brush his teeth. He nodded to her and she to him. She gave a mental shrug and finished up. D went to an all girl high school and only has a sister. She actually said at one point she wished she could room with a guy. Girls have too much drama. </p>
<p>She says that nobody cares what anyone else does. People undress behind the doors. People are always covered- enough to be somewhat modest. She says she’s seen more skin at the water park. </p>
<p>Not every student would be comfortable with sharing some bathroom space with the opposite sex and hopefully they don’t have to. D was given a choice of co-ed or single sex floors. She is happy with her choice.</p>
<p>I am with you OP. Coed bathrooms are just a wrong idea. Societal norms in this country have separate mens and ladies rooms. My D has already told me she will not attend a college that does not have single sex dorm bathrooms for many of the reasons others have stated on this thread. And I am not so sure it is as common as you suggest.</p>
<p>“I find it telling that the OP said if there are not separate bathrooms the school get’s crossed off HER list. Isn’t it her Daughter who is going to college?”</p>
<p>What does it tell you?</p>
<p>I didn’t say HER list. That’s up to her. Because I visit the schools, read about them, etc., I have a list too. The schools on the list are mostly based on her criteria. Some get more weight on my list because they are more affordable. Another would get crossed off because of an undesirable dorm situation such as we’ve been discussing here. What if her top choice were not on my list? It would depend on all the reasons why.</p>
<p>“And I am not so sure it is as common as you suggest.”</p>
<p>That’s a good question. From the original article and the posts, Oberlin and Green Mountain have gender-common dorm bathrooms. Does anyone know of any others?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>As far as I remember, ALL of the schools I visited did (someone can correct me if I’m wrong on one of these): Wes (my school), Brown (definitely did; I stayed overnight), Vassar, Carelton, Grinnell, Kenyon, Pomona, Occidental, Reed, Swarthmore, Haverford, I think Columbia. Even if I’m wrong about one or two, I think you can see the pattern: Liberal schools (esp. LACs, but that might just be because I visited mostly LACs). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but this is pretty insulting to the many people who go to schools with gender neutral bathrooms who don’t have a problem with them (myself included). Of course, at my school people of both genders had enough respect not to walk around naked or stare at each other in the bathroom! </p>
<p>Actually, some of my favorite memories from Freshmen year (the only time I was in a dorm) are from random conversations I started with a mixed gender group of friends in the bathroom while brushing our teeth/waiting for a stall/etc. But I digress. </p>
<p>However, I do think it is perfectly reasonable that this might make someone uncomfortable, and that they might use it as a selection criteria. However, at most schools that do have gender neutral bathrooms, there are still plenty of other options. For instance, at my school, you could elect to live on a single-sex hall, or in one of the dorms where there is a mix of single sex and coed bathrooms, or in one of the dorms that has one-person bathrooms. Only a few dorms don’t inherently have some sort of single-sex option, and I there they have a hall vote where if one person is uncomfortable with gender neutral bathrooms, they make them single sex, or have a sign where you can indicate that it is only for one sex. And they actually enforce it!</p>
<p>However, my school is also pretty clear about this on the tour and stuff. I’m surprised that the school in question was not clearer or more helpful. At least at Wes, the point of gender neutral bathrooms is to make everyone comfortable, which is why there are so many options. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In our campus center, the bathrooms on one floor are gender neutral. Another floor has single sex bathrooms. Same idea: people who don’t identify clearly on gender or sexuality binaries (and people who just don’t care) can use the gender neutral bathroom; people who want single sex bathrooms have that option. So, yeah. There you go. They’d probably do the same with the locker rooms if it weren’t too expensive to build another.</p>
<p>In my son’s dorm at the U. of Chicago, there are co-ed floors, floors with only men, and floors with only women. On the co-ed floors, the bathrooms are co-ed. Nobody forces you to live on a co-ed floor. But if you choose to do so, it kind of makes sense to me that the bathroom on that floor would be co-ed; otherwise, some people who live on the floor would be forced to go to a different floor to use the bathroom. And if anyone living on that floor doesn’t want to use a co-ed bathroom, all they have to do is walk up or down one flight of stairs, since the floors alternate. </p>
<p>It’s a completely different situation from public bathrooms in general. This is a dormitory, not an office building. And if you have a co-ed floor where people choose to live, why shouldn’t you have a co-ed bathroom so that nobody is always inconvenienced?</p>
<p>I’m utterly flabbergasted at the shock and horror being expressed here at the very existence of this phenomenon. Unless I’m imagining things, I recall there being co-ed floors and bathrooms at Yale 35 years ago. What world have you all been living in all this time?</p>
<p>And even in a de jure single-sex bathroom, it wasn’t so uncommon to see people of the (so-called) opposite sex on occasion. When people had boyfriends or girlfriends stay over, and said boyfriend or girlfriend had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, they would usually go ahead and use the bathroom on that floor regardless of how it was designated. </p>
<p>So long as nobody who objects is placed on a floor with a co-ed bathroom, then what’s the big deal?</p>
<p>By the way, my son was on an all-guys floor with an all-guys bathroom last year, and he’s on a co-ed floor with a co-ed bathroom this year. He likes it better this year. Why? The bathroom is cleaner. (A stereotype, of course, but sometimes true nonetheless. On the other hand, based on my own experience with using both kinds of bathrooms, women’s rooms aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be in terms of cleanliness. We’ve had discussions of “hovering” problems in the past! But at least women usually remember to flush the toilet. Something I can’t say is always true of guys. Ugh.)</p>
<p>In terms of public bathrooms in general, by the way, I’ve never really understood the logic of having a gender designation on single-occupancy bathrooms, of the type common in restaurants, etc. Women often use the “men’s” single-occupancy bathroom when the women’s bathroom is occupied, anyway.</p>
<p>PS: Yurtle, Shakesville is one of my favorite places on the Internet; I read it every day.</p>