Fathers should demand changes in coed dorms

The Detroit News ^ | 11/2/01 | Elizabeth Marquardt

[Willie Green]

In the movie What Women Want, the father played by Mel Gibson angrily confronts an 18-year-old guy who wants to take his 15-year-old daughter to the prom, exclaiming "She's 15! Five years ago, she was 10! Got it?"

The scene shows that, while mothers and fathers worry greatly about the emergence of their daughters into womanhood, there is something unique about the reaction of fathers.

[The Shootist]

Men and women either hook up and engage in some kind of physical activity that can (but does not always) include intercourse or oral sex -- and then avoid eye contact when they see each other at the library the next day. Or they "join at the hip," meaning that within days or weeks of meeting one another they become a committed couple, sleeping together at each other's dorm room every night, eating, studying, and doing laundry together, but rarely if ever going out on dates.

Ahhh. Florida State University at the end of the sexual revolution (or life before herpes). Easily some of the best years of my life.

[billybudd]

Not a realistic solution. If your children are corruptible, they will be corrupted one way or the other.

[elbucko]

They'll get out! The only protection you have is that they value what you think of them more than some boy (like I was). I couldn't get to the "Daddy's Girls". So when I had a daughter, I made sure she was "My Girl" until she found Mr. Right.

[ThreeOfSeven]

A University of Washington student, like many, said hooking up "[happens] in the dorms. That's pretty obvious, because everybody lives together, and everybody's drunk all the time."

Buddha was right to identify abstaining from intoxicants as a precept of moral conduct.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I'm with you.

[rellimpank]

--there may be other ways to get corrupted, but the only change necessary to co-ed dorms is to eliminate them. They weren't necessary forty years ago and aren't now.

[Eva]

The problem is, it is the girls who are chasing the boys and putting the pressure on for sex. My son is sick of the girls on campus, he says that they are all sluts. One, even went around telling people that he was gay because he wouldn't let her into his bedroom when she offered sex.

[NativeNewYorker]

I was joined at the hip with the girl who lived across the hall from me in my coed dorm freshman year.

We loved each other very much, and were major pillars of support for each other all through college.

Neither of us suffered long-term damage when we broke up years later, and we're both happily married-with-children to spouses met after college.

It's easy to get hysterical about this stuff.

Raise 'em right, cause if the fellas are down the hall or across the street, they'll be hittin' on your little girls.

I am steeling myself for when MY toddler girl goes off....

[AnalogReigns]

Since the "revolution" of the '60s and '70s the sexual scene on college campuses really is disgusting. No wonder more traditional societies are scandalized when our young women routinely live like hookers.

There was a time when "co-education" was seen as suspect...but sensible guidelines and separate dorms kept things in line. Now one must be careful of who your roomate is, or else you may walk in on them mating...

The only current solution is evangelical Christian colleges, most of which don't tolerate this stuff, or maybe Hillsdale College, which I'm sure doesn't either. I went to the former, and enjoyed it immensely.

[drew]

The dorm I lived in in college was coed. However, there was an all-girls dorm nearby. Believe me, the segregation didn't help things there.

[thefactor]

Here's one for the bang list. I know we are removed from college, but it is always fun to reminise, no? I remember my freshman year co-ed dorm. It was the coolest thing ever. But hooking up with girls who lived right next to you lost its luster after a few weeks. I went out with some "Daddy's girls" freshman year and they were very good and innocent. When they graduated they were anything but. College is the transformation. It ain't JUST the dorms.

[Lazamataz]

Fathers should demand changes in coed dorms

I demand to change in coed's dorm rooms too!

I plan to change into my skivvies! Will she be changing too....?

[thefactor]

Here you go. Hoo-ray college! Although my little sisters will take all of their classes online from home, of course.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

So how do you make sure they are Daddy's girls?

I home school my 2 girls(8&6). I am also trying to make sure that they expect a lot from a man. I open doors for mom(and them), hold hands, etc. Open to suggestions...

[LaBradford22]

At the University of Kansas, they have single sex dorms. In the female dorm, they prohibit alcoholic beverages, but they allow the women to have men sleep over with them, as long as the men check-in at the front desk and check-out when they leave in the morning.

Now I don't know about the other fathers in here, but I'd rather have my daughter in her room with a six-pack of Natural Light (or whatever the cheap college beer of choice is these days) than have her in her room with a sleezeball guy that just wants to get in her pants...