Hoping to get a little more info on how different schools handle these issues. Some members of the Exeter student body are upset at the new visitation policies announced in the handbook (namely, the policy forbidding sleepovers by friends from different dorms - only day student affiliates of a dorm will be allowed to spend the night), as well as the policy that forbids what some are referring to as “dormcest” - “relationships among dormitory residents and/or day student affiliates may not be intimate, sexual, or exclusive in nature.” Members of the student community had long complained that the visitation policies were too heteronormative; it now seems the school has responded with a big swing in the opposite direction, and some kids are upset that the school is forbidding relationships.
Seems the easiest way to minimize legal complications and claims of harassment, rape, etc.
I hadn’t seen this. Is the new policy really suggesting that kids who live in the same dorm can’t date? They stay in the same dorms for all four years, right? If I’m reading it correctly, this seems outlandish.
So at first I read that as basically no sex of any kind, as in just because it’s not hetero doesn’t mean it isn’t covered by this rule. But when I re read it the “exclusive” relationships suggests no dating within a dorm. That seems insane. I mean how can that be a thing that’s regulated? I get regulating sex but dating?
That policy seems odd and extreme to me. I do think sex should be against the rules at boarding school, but “exclusive” relationships?? How do they intend to regulate the human heart? (Or even the teenage heart LOL…)
I don’t know how it is these days, but in my day, for most, exclusive relationships were what… a week? 2 weeks? LOL
But @skieurope , why penalize serial monogamists?!
I’m not saying that the policy (at least the “exclusive” part as reported here) isn’t stupid - it is. It’s just that the potential “intimate/sexual” component is probably exponentially larger than the “exclusive” component, although the first can be a subsection of the second.
I meant it as a joke, @skieurope. As in, “I am not promiscuous. I just am in a different exclusive relationship every day.” (I am funnier in person. Really!)
@gardenstategal I hope I have the opportunity to someday verify whether or not you are funnier in person, perhaps over drinks when one of us is visiting the opposite coast. I promise to report back.
@momof3nyc well the Exeter students don’t seem to be planning to stay quiet; I recently got emailed a survey regarding the V policy. I’m fairly sure that this isn’t the end of change to the policy.
School has barely started and I’ve already been informed that there’s plenty of sex. Apparently, the seniors on the team freely chatted about what goes on with the new kids. When I asked how, weren’t there rules about different genders in the room? I got a shrug and was told, “well they’re all having sex so I guess it’s not that well regulated.”
Sure, there are rules. Teenagers often don’t follow rules, at home or away. This isn’t new. i went to boarding school in the 80s and this stuff went on back then , too. Not everyone engages, of course, but a decent percentage of older students do.
I have heard rumors that in some schools it is a thing to use Harkness tables for something other than riveting class discussions. Eeeeew.
Teens will find a way.
@CateCAParent I can’t unsee this.
@goatmama, I’m sorry! I have been walking around with that little nugget of trauma in my head for a year.
I hovered over the post button a bit, knowing I would be inflicting pain. But this board is for support, right? 
I appreciate you all being there for me.
At least we know it isn’t any of OUR kids. Right? Please?
Hell no, MY 18-year-old would never ever hook up! Ever. The picnic blanket that she purchased recently is strictly for studying in the woods. I am sure of it.
And the rumors about the creativity in the Ceramics building at Choate are just that.
That’s why these kids like ceramics so much! It’s all starting to make sense.