<p>Carleton started doing this a couple of years ago for upperclassmen. The world hasn’t ended.</p>
<p>“The world hasn’t ended.”</p>
<p>Excuse me, but Obama is in the White House, and Scorsese still has his man-crush on DiCaprio. How much worse can it get? And don’t get me started on the cause-effect relationship between Carlton’s dorm rooms going co-ed and the recent East Coast blizzards.</p>
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<p>Hahahah.</p>
<p>10char.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with it if everyone is in agreement, and I don’t think it leads to sex-crazed orgies. :-)</p>
<p>However, the practical, middle-aged mom part of me wonders whether some roommates realize too late that they don’t really want to be in the same small room all year long with the “sights-sounds-and smells” of a person of the opposite gender. lol</p>
<p>It works just fine at Harvey Mudd. Platonic friends stay that way. The kids I think are much more mature than their parents on this front.</p>
<p>I think this is another step in the blurring or lines between the sexes. Men shaving their chests, female models with flat chests, men with earrings, co-ed wrestling teams, etc. Let’s get male-female contact back to the strip clubs and back alleys before it loses the scant excitement it has left.</p>
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<p>Agreed. It’s good from that standpoint.</p>
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<p>Scant excitement? You must be a lot older than I am!</p>
<p>Yeah, when the Kardashian sisters are considered “hot,” and Johnny Depp is the sexiest man alive, it’s safe to say that sexual excitement is running on fumes.</p>
<p>Au contraire! I don’t actually know anyone, young or old, who considers the Kardashian sisters remotely attractive, but I have to interpret the fact that some people do as indicating that sexual excitement is on a hair trigger. As for Johnny Depp . . . again, I don’t know who considers him the sexiest man alive, but even I can tell that he’s pretty cute for an older guy, and he fills a nice market niche between George Clooney and Russell Brand.</p>
<p>::Yawn:: No news here…</p>
<p>Back to my Oberlin Alumni Magazine :)</p>
<p>And to be fair: if a reader here finds it hard to understand, here’s a walkthrough: </p>
<p>Imagine if you were gay and attracted to people of the same gender, and required to live only with same gender as upperclassmen. That could be the same daily tension experienced if all double housing required a straight male and straight female to room together and provided the straight folks no alternative except to room with the opposite gender. </p>
<p>Mostly kids – straight, gay, lesbian or transgender-- all want relief from the drama and pressure of high-stakes socializing when they get back to their own rooms. As a parent, I’d want same for any student, regardless of their orientation. </p>
<p>Also, if someone is transgender, or in process towards that, wouldn’t they prefer to live with the same gender with which they now identify as young adults. Then they might experience the same ease that might be there in any other girl-girl or boy-boy rooming situation across the campus.</p>
<p>I’m a live and let live kinda person, but I don’t really get why this is framed as a “human rights issue” for gay people by some quoted in the article.</p>
<p>Transgendered, I can see it, since you may not have legally changed your sex but would still want to live with and present as your sex. A transgendered person who for all intents and purposes looks like a dude, well, what a surprise for the female roommate expecting a f-f rooming situation haha. Potentially fairly humiliating and/or awkward for both.</p>
<p>But in terms of there being “tension” or whatnot between heterosexual and homosexual roommates, how absurd, haha.</p>
<p>As a lesbian I’m still 10x more comfortable changing in front of a female/having a female change in front of me (yes, tensionless-ly), than changing in front of a man. I do believe this is the case for all of the lesbians I know.</p>
<p>But again, you should be free to choose whatever living situation you want, and indeed, many upperclassmen already do (in off campus apartments, houses, etc.)</p>
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<p>I think that has more to do with the fear of sexual harassment and rape that women experience. That fear doesn’t go away if you’re a lesbian, and in some cases may become worse. </p>
<p>So I think the situation may be slightly different in that case. </p>
<p>That being said, I don’t see why you don’t see it as a human rights issue. It clearly affects peoples lives enough that students want living situations that are comfortable to them, or better for them, or where they personally won’t feel harassed for their gender/sexual orientation. </p>
<p>Connecticut College does non-gendered housing as well. It wasn’t even mentioned while I was there, but clearly students take advantage of it.</p>
<p>I think its fine to let students choose whom they room with, but I would not like to see it become a “human rights” issue. Do we really want the government mandating housing situations in private colleges? Students who don’t like the housing arrangements offered are free to go elsewhere, and sometimes they do now because they do not want co-ed housing arrangements.</p>
<p>But how do you prevent a heterosexual guy from rooming with a girl for reasons that are, shall we say, <em>not</em> what the college intended?</p>
<p>(I’m being only half-serious here, but the thought popped into my mind nonetheless.)</p>
<p>At the end of the day, you probably can’t if someone is willing to say they are following the rules but aren’t. But you can rely on common sense, peer pressure, parental pressure, etc. That seems to work in all the schools where such housing is an option. After all, these are adults. And they don’t want a miserable housing situation. It is a pretty big commitment to a relationship to say I want to live with you next year and if it doesn’t work out, one of us is without housing.</p>
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<p>What do you mean by this? Once again, this policy is only for people who CHOSE to live together. So if a girl is living with a heterosexual guy…well, that’s her choice, and one would hope she would have the sense to only chose a guy she knows and trusts. </p>
<p>Obviously, as I said, sometimes couples do live together. But most people know that’s a really bad idea, and the ones who do tend to have backup plans (friends with extra space that they could crash with if a break up does happen, etc).</p>
<p>Willamette U has had co-ed housing for a couple of years. It is available to Sophs and older and I believe only to those in the GLBT community, though have no idea if/how they verify such things. Regardless it was created in response to students who requested and insisted that being forced into same-sex housing made them uncomfortable. WU has a three year residency requirement.</p>
<p>I know other schools have introduced the idea over the last couple of years too and for the same reasons.</p>
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<p>Does it work both ways? It sounds like you are saying that if a gay guy/lesbian girl is uncomfortable being roomed with other guys/girls, s/he will be provided with alternative housing. If a straight guy/girl is uncomfortable rooming with gay guys/lesbians, can they also request alternative housing?</p>
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<p>Hunh? This post seems to be yet another example of how the LGB is often every bit as clueless about the T as people outside the so-called community. I don’t get it. Someone really thinks that a trans-identified person who hasn’t transitioned and “looks like a dude” for all intents and purposes (whatever that means) is going to be classified as “F” for housing purposes and foisted upon some poor unsuspecting female roommate? I shudder to think what this poster believes this entirely imaginary trans person looks like.</p>
<p>Bay I truly do not know. The subject came up at an accepted student’s event last year and I don’t remember anyone asking or answering that question. I tend to think that it was the GLBT student’s prerogative to request the co-ed living situation but it does seem like it would/should be handled on a case by case basis. The vast majority of students did not avail themselves of the opportunity and continued to live in more traditional college residency conditions.</p>