<p>Tradition has it that there was a "Sexual Revolution" in the sixties, when I was pup. However, something is happening now in college society that has me kinda gap-jawed in amazement. I guess I haven't been paying attention.</p>
<p>Son lives in a suite at a good college, and casually mentioned the other day that one of his suite mates has a girlfriend who "stays over a lot." In my son's world, this is no more unusual than if he had said his suite mate rides a bike to class. Girls and guys in the dorms go anywhere, anytime, and sleep over if they feel like it.</p>
<p>When I was in college, back during the Ice Age, guys were not allowed to set foot (beyond the parlor) in the girls' dorm. Now colleges turn a blind eye to sex in the dorms, and students think nothing of it.</p>
<p>Don’t know what college you went to but that sounds much more like the '50s than most college dorms from the early '70s on. Most college dorms since the early '70s were co-ed with no restrictions (other than those between roommates) as to who stayed overnight where.</p>
<p>One thing that I find new is the co-ed bathrooms but overnight guests, common place for the last 40 years or so from my experience.</p>
<p>“Staying over a lot” was quite common at my college in the early/mid 80’s. It seemed to be a long-standing rountine by the time I arrived in '82.</p>
<p>From what I hear, this is extremely common unless you attend a religious-based college. In Loco Parentis went out in the early 70’s around the time the 26th amendment lowering the voting age was passed, drinking ages lowered etc. As much as it might shock some parents, an 18 year old is legally an adult. As long as they are not “doing it” out on the quad, a public university is not going to do much of anything. Some schools have recommended visiting hours, but most likely won’t get involved unless a roommate gets locked out of his/her room.</p>
<p>Private colleges of course are free to be as loose or draconian as they want. Notre Dame is an interesting case - get caught having sex and you risk expulsion; get caught drinking - its not so big a deal. (Get the death penalty for what’s legal for you to do, but a parking ticket for what’s illegal) </p>
<p>If you want to get really upset, do search about coed bathrooms! (Cross posted with AMTC)</p>
<p>“Son lives in a suite at a good college, and casually mentioned the other day that one of his suite mates has a girlfriend who “stays over a lot.” In my son’s world, this is no more unusual than if he had said his suite mate rides a bike to class. Girls and guys in the dorms go anywhere, anytime, and sleep over if they feel like it.”</p>
<p>This was the norm at my college starting second semester of my freshman year, when dorms became co-ed and parietals (hours when the opposite sex wasn’t allowed in one’s room) ended. </p>
<p>I think of it as a normal part of the college experience.</p>
<p>All colleges and universities will have their mission statements on their websites. If you check them out, you’ll find that only religious and military institutions will have missions which address lifestyle issues such as sexuality, profanity or grooming. It’s just not what most modern colleges and universities are in existence to address. BTW, about 60% of American 18-year-olds are sexually active.</p>
<p>When did it happen? 1970s. When I was a freshman (1974) I knew one grad student who remembered the days of having to leave doors open it you were entertaining the opposite sex. There was lots of cohabiting and coed bathrooms everywhere in my day. </p>
<p>ChicagoBear is wrong about one thing - drinking ages were raised not lowered in that time period. When I started college (in Massachusetts) the drinking age was 18, the next year it was 19 and at some point it was raised some more to 21.</p>
<p>I am surprise that you are surprised. We are probably around the same age but I cant fathom anyone in our generation having a jaw drop around this. Isn’t that weird?</p>
<p>Mathmom, it may have been different by state. Florida lowered the drinking age to 18 in 1973 (I remember it clearly: it happened 6 days before I became 21!) then put it back up to 21 a few years later. I’m from the time when boys had to be escorted into the girl dorms and doors had to be left open (and the girls had to actually yell “man in hall” as you were escorted in).</p>
<p>I don’t know the age of the OP. Everything he/she describes as happening currently with college students was also the case when I went to college. I went to undergrad from 1975-1979 and the dorms, hallway, and bathrooms were coed and members of the opposite sex spent the night in one another’s rooms and there were no rules about any of that. Also the drinking age was 18.</p>
<p>Stay-overs by members of the opposite sex were certainly common at the University of Michigan by September 1970 when I started college, and probably well before that as the RAs didn’t think anything of it. That was 40 years ago, dude, where have you been?</p>
<p>Drinking age was lowered in Michigan while I was in college: Jan 1, 1972. It was all tied up with the Vietnam War and the draft. The argument was, if you’re old enough to get drafted and sent to 'Nam to get your a** shot off, you’re old enough to vote. And if you’re old enough to vote and old enough to fight, you’re surely old enough to have a beer before you go, or when you get home. Of course, college students took advantage of it, too. But as I recall there wasn’t a lot of wild drinking on campus in those days as pot was the mood-enhancing substance of choice for most people and that tends to make you more . . . well, mellow. And hungry. Or so they say.</p>
<p>Right around 1968-1970 most places. I saw the change amnd it was night and day. Just like when I went back to work as a sub at my old HS just 4 years after graduating and seeing all the kids in jeans and Tshirts. Neither was allowed when I went there and girls had to wear dresses. That was not a bad thing as skirts got very short in the mid 60’s…</p>
<p>I graduated from college in 1976, and my experience was the same as what the OP describes for today’s students. Overnight guests of the opposite sex were common in the dorms, and some people lived in mixed-gender apartments off campus. </p>
<p>However, I think I was just on the cusp of the change. At my college, there were co-ed dorms for the first time in my freshman year (1972-73), and a variety of rules were relaxed only a few years earlier. Alumni from only a few years before me say that there was a time when women had curfews and were not permitted to live off-campus and when overnight guests of the opposite sex were prohibited. I find such a lifestyle as hard to imagine as my kids do.</p>
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<p>Fun for you, not for the girls. Do you have any idea how unpleasant it was to wait at bus stops in those short skirts in the winter?</p>
<p>Color me embarrassed at my naivete. Or unconsciousness. But I’m still surprised. Thanks for the update, people. I’ll try not to be such a dinosaur.</p>
<p>^^^You know, barrons (post #14), I think the relaxation of college rules concerning sex may have been indirectly tied up with the Vietnam War, too. I recall hearing stories at Michigan that it was part of the University administration’s student pacification campaign: ease up on grading and graduation requirements, let 'em have sex and alcohol and even quietly tolerate a little pot use, and maybe the students will stop demonstrating and rioting and taking over the administration building. It sort of worked, too. By the time I left in 1974 the campus was pretty quiescent, even though the war was still going on. Of course, the end of the draft in 1973 may have had something to do with it, too.</p>
<p>Skyhook, I am with you. I am just too conservative to be comfortable with being okay that my kids might be sleeping around. People did it back when I was in college but it was a bit more private. Today, teens wear it like a badge of courage.</p>