No Sex Please, You Live In A Dorm
Seriously? The President of Catholic University thinks that going back to single-sex dorms is going to cut down on the number of undergraduates having sex, and therefore improve academic performance. (Via.) A few thoughts on this (admittedly fueled by a rather strong preblogging G&T)…
1. News flash: people of the same sex can and do have sex together. That’s been going on for, um, quite some time now, which ought not to be news to the faculty and administration of Catholic University.
2. People who want to have sex with opposite-sex partners are not going to to be deterred by gender segregation in the dorms. In fact, sneaking in to the opposite-sex dorm to get together with your lover is probably going to be a lot more fun and a lot more sexy when it becomes against the rules.
3. How “against the rules” is this really going to be, anyway? What is the school going to do if they catch you having sex in your dorm room? Kick you out of the dorms? Expel you and forego all that tuition? Really? I don’t think so.
4. These are adults. Young adults, perhaps, but of legal age to consent to sex and young enough to be doing it with enthusiasm and a low degree of selectivity. Catholic University is not their parents no matter how Catholic it is.
5. I had a co-ed dorm my first year in college. Four wings of the dorm, two stories, men on one floor in one wing, women on the other, alternating. My romantic success rate with women in my own dorm was much lower than with women in other dorm buildings or who lived off campus. My sexualsuccess rate was embarassingly low until I moved off campus, which was partly the fault of my social ineptness and partly the fault of the fact that my would-have-been-partners and I never had any privacy at all because it was a dorm.
1. If you decide to add a picture to this post, I’d go with this one about the moral dangers of sex on campus:
http://vintagesleazepaperbacks.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/re-issue-campus-tramp-by-lawrence-block/
2. When I was that age, I used to fish a girl at Trinity, the Catholic girls’ university in DC, and it was, indeed, very easy to sneak me in. Incidentally, her hall was apparently a hotbed of lesbian sexual experimentation, which isn’t terribly surprising, but is a hitch with same-sex living arrangements that one might think the Catholic Church would be familiar with.Report
That’s an awesome website, Rufus.Report
Thanks. I’ve started collecting those pulp paperbacks recently (along with movies, records, posters, typewriters, and other junk) and just remembered that title, which brought me to that site.Report
Maybe the easier joke would be, “Because isolating the priests from any legitimate sexual outlets has done wonders for improving their performance…”Report
All of your points are valid, and true. But am I the only one to think that this is not a huge surprise from an institution named Catholic University? When NYU starts making similar decisions, I’ll start feeling a little nervous.Report
I think this rule is stupid, but I think it’s a little too easy to say that such rules will have no impact on the rate at which the students have sex. The inconvenience and whatever punishment is meted out would seem to be increasing the “price” of these trysts, and as price increases…
I am an avid drug legalizer, and I think that people on my side make the same misguided arguments about legalization. “Kids can get drugs now, so the laws not stopping anybody,” they say. And, “by making pot illegal, you increase the allure for kids inclined to rebel.”
Meh. Fewer rules make things easier to get. And when you make things easier to get, people get more of them. That’s not an argument for making pot or sex against the rules, at least in my book. But I think it’s important to face up to the consequences of your policy preferences.Report
Well, I’m certainly not going to back off from the “more fun becasue it’s against the rules” angle. Sex is more fun when it’s naughty.Report
I’m pretty sure the barrier to getting laid, for your average bloke, is the same one it has been for time immemorial: finding a woman who thinks that your dumb ass is funny or sexy instead of offensive or pathetic.
Sexual liberation is out there, of course, but the social antics of college age men are generally inept, fumbling, and stupid (at least, they were when I was there and when my older cousins were there and when my younger cousins were there, and I’m okay with generalizing this 20 years just fine with just a little handwaving).
Rules don’t win out, generally. But hey, I was something of a nerd, maybe everyone else had a different experience.Report
Rules may not win out, but they can minimize stuff. Heck, just having a roommate made things more difficult. Being in a dorm hall uniformly populated by guys, where a girl stands out, and where having sex is against the rules, would have killed it entirely. In part because it was on the meager side to begin with…Report
Okay, well the argument I’m guessing nobody’s gonna make is that, at that age, the only time they can concentrate is when they’re either a little hung over or got laid recently.Report
The return to single-sex dorms may also be about avoiding the appearance of encouraging what’s considered sinful behavior. A Catholic university may not be the parent, but Catholic parents often have expectations about the kind of environment a Catholic university should promote.Report
Kyle Cupp gets it right. It’s a pitch to the parents as much as anything else. I also agree with Sam that it might make the rebellious sex more fun, it does make it logistically more difficult if even moderate amounts of supervision are imposed.
Ultimately, though, it’s going to come down to the student body. If you have a student body like those at BYU, where people are likely to report other people and where supervision is imposed, you can probably cut down on the vast majority of college funny business*. I doubt too much funny business happens at Pensacola Christian College, for instance.
With both PCC and BYU, self-selection also plays a significant factor. In addition to signaling the parents, Catholic U may be signalling the kids. If you have a problem with this rule, urge your parents to let you go somewhere else.
* – Not all. An old acquaintance was kicked out of BYU for having sex with the local bishop’s daughter.Report
“How “against the rules” is this really going to be, anyway? What is the school going to do if they catch you having sex in your dorm room? Kick you out of the dorms? Expel you and forego all that tuition? Really? I don’t think so.”
A friend of mine who frequently visited friends at Notre Dame back when he was in college said that *every* weekend there’s be some guy sitting on the curb with all of his stuff, waiting to get picked up by his parents. For having sex – or just having a woman over in the dorm.Report
Trumwill “I doubt too much funny business happens at Pensacola Christian College, for instance. ”
I agree with the idea that it’s a signal to both parents and children.
In terms of funny business happening at PCC, I’d like to see the stats on gestational duration after marriage; I’ll bet that the distribution of times shifts down quite a bit, that there are many eager young brides who do things in seven months which others usually take nine to do.
[yes, cribbed from RAH]Report
Many of my Catholic friends have observed that the second baby pretty much always takes nine months.Report
At PCC itself, I really doubt there’s much of any funny business happening at all. If you’re not familiar with it, google it. The place has to be seen to be believed. It makes BYU practically LSU. It’s an extreme example. You probably get more of the “early deliveries” at BYU, though I would guess considerably less pregnancies on the balance than at Utah State (even though USU tilts very heavily Mormon even in comparison to U of U).Report