<p>I can say the following:
- She owns a bathrobe, and she took it, and bath towels, up with her, each year.
- She has graduated now, and in all this time never once mentioned any of this as an issue fior her;
- I trust her judgement</p>
<p>re: Plainsman</p>
<p>Yep, I’m a lady. A lady who has lived in first-year dorms and mixed year dorms and spent time in co-ops. And I like boys, and some boys have occasionally professed to like me.</p>
<p>I’ve never had the weird toothbrushing scenario you describe happen (though it would be <em>hilarious!</em>). That wouldn’t happen for a few reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Oberlin boys are respectful. They’d probably be very weirded out if I brushed <em>my</em> teeth in my underwear. </p></li>
<li><p>Oberlin boys are smart. If said Dumb Naked Boy was interested in me, he’d be more liable at turning me off and making me destroy his life (because I live with him), rather than exciting me into a passionate haze of lust. If Smart Oberlin Boy wants to get laid, he’s not going to harass/beguile me by brushing his teeth with his little friend hanging on out there. </p></li>
<li><p>If he did that, things would get awkward. Obie aim to avoid awkwardness.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At times, gents do use the bathroom, late at night, in their boxers. This occurs. But… it’s platonic and desexualized. Co-ed bathrooms do not create a new site of hooking up, they’re for … your business. Sexy time does not happen in the toilets.</p>
<p>Thanks quibbler. :)</p>
<p>My D is in her second year at Oberlin. She was raised in an all female household, so the coed bathroom thing was of some concern to me, maybe not as much to her. She was a little weirded out the first time she was using the bathroom, and she heard a male using the stall right next to her. She got over it pretty quickly. This year her floor voted to make the bathrooms gender specific, her floor was designated as a male bathroom, so she had to go up or down a floor, she hated that. Partway through the semester they held a meeting, and voted to make all the bathrooms all gender. I think you are more apt to see naked people outside of dorms, than in. I’ve visited quite often, and have even spent the night, and everyone is covered in at least a towel. She is in Fairchild where it is a locker room type shower, and wasn’t feeling that at first, she kept saying she would just go shower at South, but it seems the students are very respectful of others privacy, and we have had no problems so far.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I’m keeping my daughter out of Fairchild. :)</p>
<p>College bathrooms will no doubt cause your child to appreciate the comforts of home!</p>
<p>i just spent three nights at Oberlin with my sister and the bathroom on her floor is all-gender. The way she explained it to me was this: if a person identifies as female or male, the seperate bathrooms are all fine and dandy, but what about those who don’t identify as either? which restroom are they supposed to use? Oberlin prides itself on its accepting attitude toward all types of people; the opportunity to vote a restroom as all-gender ensures that all students are comfortable with themselves and think of their school and their community as their family. students need a safe environment in order to grow, prosper, and suceed.
Also, if even one person is uncomfortable with sharing a restroom with other genders, they can talk to an RA and change it.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>It’s the showers not the toilet facilities that concern me</p>
<p>Lilsnwbrdr, all that is very true, and I generally do agree with you. And you’re absolutely right; if someone feels uncomfortable, they can change it. </p>
<p>But is it okay to make one person uncomfortable to make another comfortable? Just a rhetorical question. I don’t know if the transgender issue is good enough to support gender-neutral bathrooms all by itself.</p>
<p>Can we please stop talking about bathrooms and focus on more important things or anything else?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>When halls vote on bathrooms, they do have the option of making the toilets/sinks all-gender, but gendering the showers. It’s not done often, but it is possible. More common is the “E system” - a giant cardbord E is hung on the wall, and it can be rotated according to the preference of the person going into the shower:</p>
<p>E=Everyone
M=Male-bodied people only
W=Female-bodied people only
3=Me, myself, and I</p>
<p>We do this in my co-op (it’s one of two buildings on campus that have locker-room-style showers); but I’ve also seen it done for stalled showers in other buildings, and for entire bathrooms. People are incredibly respectful about it. It’s a good compromise between people who are really uncomfortable in mixed bathrooms, people who are really uncomfortable in same-sex bathrooms, and people who don’t really care. That said, a solid majority of students here are in the latter category.</p>
<p>Re your nightmare scenario, I’ll just say: there’s just plain nothing sexy about tooth-brushing, or anything else anyone does in the bathroom…</p>
<p>Moving on to more substantive topics ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It sounds like your daughter definitely has the measure of the place 
I get the concerns about distance. Oberlin is 11 hours from home for me, and I have had to adjust to flying home every few months, etc. While it seemed like a big deal at first, it’s been an okay adjustment. I think even if I were closer, I’d “feel” just as far away, because life at college is so different from home regardless of where you are. I’ve also gotten a lot more independent since I got to college… while it’s still important to me to go home regularly, it’s less of a big deal than it was when I first got here. YMMV… but while it is worth thinking seriously about, realize that your perspective and your daughter’s perspective will probably change a lot, even after only a semester.</p>