| Here’s the thing: Hunt is right, occasionally students probably do go into these arrangements thinking it will be platonic, and then end up hooking up. It must happen sometimes. But not that often, at least in my experience. Sometimes people will go into it KNOWING they are going to hook up (I know a couple living together at Wes, despite the university not encouraging it), but that’s a different story. All of the people I’ve known living in a co-ed room/two room double* (including the two in the article, actually) have remained platonic if they meant to. Same with the people who went into apartment and house living situations intending to stay platonic (there you do have more people intending not to).
I mean, when trying to figure out where to live for sophomore year, at one point I actually encouraged my boyfriend to consider a two-room double with a different girl (who is close friends with both of us) — although our housing ended up completely different for unrelated reasons, I still think that would have ended up being a good living situation for everyone involved if it had happened. I think you underestimate the ability of undergrads to control themselves — for example, although people do break the “no hallcest” rule, LOTS of people stick to it because they know the problems that come with it. If people can do that, I’m pretty sure they can avoid roomcest...and if they think they can't, they are normally smart enough not to room with someone of the opposite gender.
* At Wesleyan, at least, it is actually a lot more common for people of the opposite sex to share a two room double than a true single, a fact the article overlooks, because except for in program houses sophomores and up rarely get stuck in one room singles anyway. But still, there is a lot of sharing going on in a two room double. |