Ah yes, times are a changin': "Men, women share U. of C. rooms"

As long as co-ed living arrangements remain optional, and no one is forced to live with someone of the opposite sex, I don't see a problem with that. Students over the age of 18 can easily share an off-campus apartment; if the school wants to attract students to its own housing, it needs to be as flexible and offer comparative options.

Wait wait wait, college students have SEX!?

OH THE HUMANITY!

sidhe said:

Would you, at least, have a beer with a genderqueer?

(The correct answer is "yes", or you lose the standing beer offer.)

You SERIOUSLY need to expand your mind. I recommend hallucinogens and inappropriate contentography. Gender is a social construct. I know in your semi-fascist, collectivist mind, things must be set in stone or the world collapses, but there's more in heaven and earth, JMV, than exists in your philosophy.

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You don't need inappropriate content or drugs to expand ones mind, you just need some philosophy and logic.

lawtonfogle said:

You don't need inappropriate content or drugs to expand ones mind, you just need some philosophy and logic.

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He's got the philosophy. Logic...lacking. His main issue, though, is that of thinking within the box. An alternate notion is pranayama and studying tantra, it leads to the same ecstatic state.

feral said:

As long as co-ed living arrangements remain optional, and no one is forced to live with someone of the opposite sex, I don't see a problem with that. Students over the age of 18 can easily share an off-campus apartment; if the school wants to attract students to its own housing, it needs to be as flexible and offer comparative options.

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(Devil's Advocate time)

So as long as I am only forced to be with other guys, it is fine? I really like that double standard. Why should I be forced to be around other men, some of whom are bound to be gay, if it is not ok for a female to be around me? I 'like' your sexual double standard.


(OK, serious time)

There is something of a gender double standard if we are ok with forcing a gender to stay with the same gender but we are not forcing the opposite. If we see a problem forcing a girl and a guy to live coed, but do not see a problem with the same being true for two guys or girls, there seems to be a double standard. The fact that most of us are ok being paired with someone of the same sex is no consolodation for such a double standard.

FaithLikeARock said:

Wait wait wait, college students have SEX!?

OH THE HUMANITY!

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Did you mean 'inhumanity'?

For some reason, I am not sure the answer is yes...

lawtonfogle said:

Did you mean 'inhumanity'?

For some reason, I am not sure the answer is yes...

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Uuuuuum, pun intended?

lawtonfogle said:

(Devil's Advocate time)

So as long as I am only forced to be with other guys, it is fine? I really like that double standard. Why should I be forced to be around other men, some of whom are bound to be gay, if it is not ok for a female to be around me? I 'like' your sexual double standard.

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Devil's Devil's Advocate:

How do you know Feral didn't have a problem with forcing men to live with men and females with females? All I am able to glean from his post is the following:

1. The option to live with the opposite gender is ok
2. If it were mandatory to live with the opposite gender, it would be bad.

I see nothing at all about living with the same gender.

DeathMagus said:

Devil's Devil's Advocate:

How do you know Feral didn't have a problem with forcing men to live with men and females with females? All I am able to glean from his post is the following:

1. The option to live with the opposite gender is ok
2. If it were mandatory to live with the opposite gender, it would be bad.

I see nothing at all about living with the same gender.

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I was basing it off the fact that there are very few single rooms at college. Yes, this results in a form of induction, not deduction, which, while imperfect, is a valid heuristic.

lawtonfogle said:

I was basing it off the fact that there are very few single rooms at college. Yes, this results in a form of induction, not deduction, which, while imperfect, is a valid heuristic.

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Depends on where you are. The residences at my university were 90% single rooms. And nobody was given a roommate unless they indicated on their application that they were OK with having one. After that, it was just chance who got stuck in a double room.

lawtonfogle said:

(Devil's Advocate time)

So as long as I am only forced to be with other guys, it is fine? I really like that double standard. Why should I be forced to be around other men, some of whom are bound to be gay, if it is not ok for a female to be around me? I 'like' your sexual double standard.


(OK, serious time)

There is something of a gender double standard if we are ok with forcing a gender to stay with the same gender but we are not forcing the opposite. If we see a problem forcing a girl and a guy to live coed, but do not see a problem with the same being true for two guys or girls, there seems to be a double standard. The fact that most of us are ok being paired with someone of the same sex is no consolodation for such a double standard.

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I will also play Devil's Devil's advocate. (Would that be called God's advocate?)

A university cannot be perfect in assuring that everyone is completely satisfied with their roommate.

This comes down to statistics. A strong majority of people are not homosexual. Forcing a guy to live with a girl has a very strong possibility of causing a bad situation, sexually. The preferred strategy is to house only same sexes together unless specifically requested otherwise. This does not negate the possibility of a sexual issue, because of the existence of lesbians and homosexuals, but as a smaller portion of the population, it makes sense statistically.

One could poll all incoming freshmen, and classify gay men as females for living purposes and lesbian females as men for living purposes, but that would still cause the possibility of a sexual issue because the straight roommate could conceivably be attracted to the homosexual roommate, seeing as how they are the normal gender they are attracted to physically.

Furthermore, far more roommate disputes are over matters other than, "My roommate is gay!". Since most universities have means to change roommates when really necessary, this is the approach that should be used in case a homosexual roommate and a heterosexual roommate feel uncomfortable together.

-Lyn

Washington said:

Charlie Barlow plans to room with one of his best friends next semester at the University of Chicago: Lauren "Lulu'' Danzig.

The two are among 50 students who will take advantage of a new policy allowing male and female undergraduates to room together -- something that was forbidden throughout the 117-year history of the Hyde Park school.

Although the policy is not aimed at romantic relationships, boyfriends and girlfriends aren't prohibited from living together because the U. of C. will not ask why students want to be roommates, officials said.

The change in policy was debated for the last couple of years after advocates for transgender students pushed the university to allow "gender neutral'' housing. They said some transgender students feel uncomfortable rooming with students of the same biological sex when they actually identify with the opposite sex.

source
​

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With the cost of colleges what they are, this has to be the most idiotic excuse for an education I ever heard of. And any parent stupid enough to allow their child to attend such a school and pay for such, deserves everything that child becomes.

LittleNipper said:

With the cost of colleges what they are, this has to be the most idiotic excuse for an education I ever heard of. And any parent stupid enough to allow their child to attend such a school and pay for such, deserves everything that child becomes.

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What? Open-minded? Tolerant? And what about parents (like mine) that allowed me to make the decision of where to go to school and also had no part in footing the bill for my education. Do they deserve what I have become, or do I get to take the credit for that?

LittleNipper said:

With the cost of colleges what they are, this has to be the most idiotic excuse for an education I ever heard of. And any parent stupid enough to allow their child to attend such a school and pay for such, deserves everything that child becomes.

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A contributing member of society? How can those parents live with themselves?!?!?!

LittleNipper said:

With the cost of colleges what they are, this has to be the most idiotic excuse for an education I ever heard of. And any parent stupid enough to allow their child to attend such a school and pay for such, deserves everything that child becomes.

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Newsflash: Children don't attend college, adults do (for the most part. I'm aware of the occasional child genius) and their parents don't get to make that decision for them. Of course, if they want to manipulate their kid by threatening to withhold their college fund because the kid wants to room with someone the parent doesn't approve of they are free to do so. They're also free to spend their twilight years alone, unhappy, and in a nursing home because they have alienated their family by forcing them to choose between obedience and either ridiculous debt or having no degree in an environment that requires one for just about everything but retail.

Also, college students don't have to share a room 24/7 in order to boink like little rabbits, so it's not like this is paving the way for anything.

lux et lex said:

What? Open-minded? Tolerant? And what about parents (like mine) that allowed me to make the decision of where to go to school and also had no part in footing the bill for my education. Do they deserve what I have become, or do I get to take the credit for that?

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College is for an education of the mind and not fantasyland. When you live under my roof you will do as I tell you. You live out on your own and hopefully my parenting will count for something, but you would then be free to live as wild as society will allow you to get away with.

You foot the bill, you do as you wish. But you are making your own bed...

Chajara said:

Newsflash: Children don't attend college, adults do (for the most part. I'm aware of the occasional child genius) and their parents don't get to make that decision for them. Of course, if they want to manipulate their kid by threatening to withhold their college fund because the kid wants to room with someone the parent doesn't approve of they are free to do so. They're also free to spend their twilight years alone, unhappy, and in a nursing home because they have alienated their family by forcing them to choose between obedience and either ridiculous debt or having no degree in an environment that requires one for just about everything but retail.

Also, college students don't have to share a room 24/7 in order to boink like little rabbits, so it's not like this is paving the way for anything.

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Adults pay their own way. Children come home to daddy and mommy for a reality check. Frankly, I feel some parents would be far better off in their twilight years without spoil brats around begging for money and living like they earned it.

The real reason college has become so important is because when the kids get out of high school today, they don't have a clue how to reason --- just play.

LittleNipper said:

College is for an education of the mind and not fantasyland. When you live under my roof you will do as I tell you. You live out on your own and hopefully my parenting will count for something, but you would then be free to live as wild as society will allow you to get away with.

You foot the bill, you do as you wish. But you are making your own bed...

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College is an education of the mind, but that expands far beyond the classroom. This is the first time many people have the opportunity to deal with life without a safety net, make their own decisions fully, etc.

If a parent wants to control their child's life past age 18, make them stay at home. If you let them go to college, then you're admitting that you feel they're enough of an adult to make their own decisions, and the second a parent says they'll pay for the child's formal education, then what the child does outside of obtaining the formal education becomes a non-factor. If their grades plummet, then it's their responsibility to pull them up. If they make bad choices outside of class, then that's their responsibility. Cutting off the money for the formal education does nothing but either make a bad situation worse, or make a good student have to leave school due to something totally unrelated.

sidhe said:

College is an education of the mind, but that expands far beyond the classroom. This is the first time many people have the opportunity to deal with life without a safety net, make their own decisions fully, etc.

If a parent wants to control their child's life past age 18, make them stay at home. If you let them go to college, then you're admitting that you feel they're enough of an adult to make their own decisions, and the second a parent says they'll pay for the child's formal education, then what the child does outside of obtaining the formal education becomes a non-factor. If their grades plummet, then it's their responsibility to pull them up. If they make bad choices outside of class, then that's their responsibility. Cutting off the money for the formal education does nothing but either make a bad situation worse, or make a good student have to leave school due to something totally unrelated.

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Some of this is very true, but you fail to provide any logical reasoning as to why suddenly today at this time, would colleges suddenly believe that a child who has had guidance up through grade school suddenly needs none when he/she arrives at college.

Where all the generations past babies, idiots, children? Colleges and universities of the past had rules and standards. Has society proven that it's more mature than our ancestors were?

Or have we simply given up on standards because they are far too difficult for anyone today to follow. Is that why our economy is running so smoothly and children born with both mothers and fathers are running 100%?

LittleNipper said:

Some of this is very true, but you fail to provide any logical reasoning as to why suddenly today at this time, would colleges suddenly believe that a child who has had guidance up through grade school suddenly needs none when he/she arrives at college.

Where all the generations past babies, idiots, children? Colleges and universities of the past had rules and standards. Has society proven that it's more mature than our ancestors were?

Or have we simply given up on standards because they are far too difficult for anyone today to follow. Is that why our economy is running so smoothly and children born with both mothers and fathers are running 100%?

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Maybe you've met the wrong kind of 18 year olds.