I Was Definitely Born Too Soon

[Pirate1974]

BOSTON - Janet Dewar and Matt Danzig met as college freshmen and hit it off so well they now are roommates. They share two on-campus rooms with only one doorway into the hall. That they don't share a gender doesn't give them a second thought.

"At first when I told [my parents]they said, 'We're going to have to talk to you about this,' " says Ms. Dewar, a sophomore at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. "I told them that there were two rooms, that there's nothing sexual going on between us, and that it wasn't really a big deal."

Some 20 universities and colleges have decided to allow undergraduates of the opposite sex to share an on-campus room. Most quietly made the move in the past five years, with Clark University in Worcester, Mass., deciding this month. It's the final frontier in the decades-long march away from gender separation in college dorms, hallways, and even bathrooms.

While sharing a room comes unnervingly close in the minds of many parents to sharing a bed, advocates for the new arrangements say sexual intimacy rarely plays a role with those who sign up. Instead, for a younger generation it is increasingly common for men and women to just be friends. And some gay and transgendered students welcome the chance to avoid same-sex roommates whom they may not be comfortable around, or who may not accept them.

"Men and women are becoming just as good friends as if they were with their same-sex friends. The dynamics have changed. I think the opposite sex is no longer really such a mystery as it was before," says Jeffrey Chang, a sophomore at Clark University, a school of about 2,800 students.

Mr. Chang led the effort to lift Clark's ban on opposite gender roommates for upperclassmen housing after he and his close friend Allison were barred from living together. As freshmen, the two did their homework together and ate together. So when it came time to choose sophomore housing, why shouldn't they live together?

And to think that when I was in college (1970-1974), the question was whether or not males and females should even live in the same building, forget sharing rooms and bathrooms. At East Carolina University, when the first co-ed dorm opened, there were folks who considered that as a sign of the complete breakdown of everything moral in society

This article goes on to say that some parents welcome the arrangement so that siblings could room together, which seems more than just a little bit odd to me.

When I was in high school, I read a book called "The Harrad Experiment" which proposed this idea and the relationships betwen the roommates was anything but platonic. Sounded like a great idea to me at the time. It was made into a really lousy movie starring Don Johnson that left out most of the really good stuff.

Of course, this is mainly your basic Godless liberal colleges in the Northeast and California that are trying this out. I doubt Jerry Falwell will be allowing it at Liberty University any time soon.

As the parent of a kid in the process of deciding where he wants to go to college, it soulds just a little bit strange. Can men and women really "just be friends" enough to share a small dorm room together?

[hiway29]

Not just dorm rooms. I know of one fine upstanding Christian organization that used to send men and women out on recruiting programs living together, and sex was never a probl- uh never mind.

[Tom Strange]

yeah hiway.. with the best intentions... nature takes it's course...

pirate, don't let the boy know about that college!!

..if I was him, that's where I'd be going... when I was that young I still thought it was fun to live with a woman!!!

[krys]

<_< <_< <_<

SHAME ON YOU - - Strange Tom! and BAH HUMBUG too just for good measure!

... when I was that young I still thought it was fun to live with a woman!!!

[Ca_dreaming]

Not just dorm rooms. I know of one fine upstanding Christian organization that used to send men and women out on recruiting programs living together, and sex was never a probl- uh never mind.

Right my thought exactly.........

[Belle]

:unsure: Maybe it's a generational thing, but my favorite and best roomies were men. And we were just that "roomies". (I did date the best friend of one, though). I'd choose a male roommate over a female roommate any day.

Does remind me of a joke though:

Never Lie to your Mother:

John invited his mother over for dinner. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help but noticing how beautiful John's room-mate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between John and his room-mate, and this had only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between John and his room-mate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, John volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you Julie and I are just room-mates."

About a week later, Julie came to John saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you?"

John said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her a letter just to be sure."

So he sat down and wrote: "Dear Mother, I'm not saying that you 'did' take the gravy ladle from my house, I'm not saying that you 'did not' take the gravy ladle but the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner."

Several days later, John received a letter from his mother which read:

"Dear Son, I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Julie, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Julie. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love, Mom."

[Ca_dreaming]

That was great, I did prefer men to woman also.

Although I did have an outstanding roomate in Ca. She was a riot. Toni Z.

Edited December 30, 2006 by Ca_dreaming

[Tom Strange]

<_< <_< <_<

SHAME ON YOU - - Strange Tom! and BAH HUMBUG too just for good measure!

awwwe Krys... why thank you! hugs and kisses

[ChasUFarley]

Well...

If they have rooms for guys and gals to share

then I certainly hope they have rooms for the babies that will come next!

[Mister P-Mosh]

Having female roommates wasn't as fun as I thought it would be at first. Even if you are attracted to a girl, living with her in those conditions often makes her either like a bad wife or a sister.

[Rocky]

Having female roommates wasn't as fun as I thought it would be at first. Even if you are attracted to a girl, living with her in those conditions often makes her either like a bad wife or a sister.

And in that regard, it CAN provide some experience at getting along in such a situation that might be helpful to a person when it comes time to choose a mate (hopefully for life). Not only do you learn about a person of the opposite gender -- who is NOT a relative -- but you learn probably not just a little bit about yourself.

For the guy (unless he is one of those gay or transexual fellows) it's nearly ALWAYS going to be true that he'll want to engage in some intimate interactive exercise, and SOMETIMES it could be that way for the gal... but it certainly can be beneficial (not that it would always be beneficial) for the guy to learn to live with a situation where he must delay such gratification (you know, for the future, when as a married man he wouldn't be getting it whenever HE wanted it anyway) and to get accustomed to a gal who is capable of maintaining appropriate boundaries...

Again, that's just one hypothetical scenario. It could just as easily complicate a lot of issues for both, especially if they don't have what it takes to maintain such boundaries personally.

[RumRunner]

Funny that this comes up in 2006/7. I was in a coed dorm in the early 70's. It was qute amazing how "cordial" things were. Yes there was some sexual activity; but for the most part it was just kids who got along well, did homework togehter, smoked a few things togther and hung out. It was not the scene most parents would expect or fear

[Eagle]

Universities don't have to do this. If students want that, they were always free to move off-campus.

Yes, it often leads to sexual encounters, pregnancies, and abortions. Really doubt the information fed to us on that. I shared a house (different room) with a single female. While we didn't have anything sexual going on, the real reason was...I avoided her.

She was a REAL pain in the a**. How would you like to share a bathroom with the medicine cabinet filled with tampons, hygiene products, stockings handing on the shower, the television used for romantic movies instead of football, and going downstairs seeing her crying during soap operas and she gets mad at me and says, oh you men! (sob), get back upstairs!

The worst thing was when I had two tickets to an Ohio State-Michigan game and the guy going with me was in a traffic accident, so couldn't go, holed up in the hospital watching it on TV. I offered her the ticket, we went together, and she talked through the entire game asking me to describe plays, who the names were matched to the numbers on their jerseys, and asked me a few times if I thought a few guys she knew had a cute butt.

When the lease was up, I was gone, joining a fraternity.

Eagle

Edited December 31, 2006 by Eagle

[herbiejuan]

I too am amazed by our kids living habits...I'm a non traditional student at UWG you should be here in the trenches to see what the other kids are doing, or not. They are not any more out of control than we were at that age and alot more informed but also dumb. as dumb as we were and perhaps in some regards smarter.

A pal of mine who works in student IT sez his biggest customer is the female students who have downloaded porno. Secomd to that is the high std rate on campus which, while high isn't unusual.

Edited December 31, 2006 by herbiejuan

[YIdon'tgotochurch]

I'm 50 years old.

That's all I have to say about that.

[Belle]

Dang, Eagle!

I reckon I had some awesomely rare roommates to have put up with me for years.

[herbiejuan]

I see our kids seperating proximity closeness and sexuality.

Edited January 2, 2007 by herbiejuan

[VeganXTC]

I talked with my two children who are currently both in college, and they both said they knew plenty of people who room with the opposite sex, and they're just housemates, no more, no less. They pick people to live with who can pay the bills and share the same values, and they don't see what's so wrong with it being the same or opposite sex.

My children room with same sex people, though. I'm sure I'd have something to say if they didn't.