<p>Well, the bigger colleges will give her more choices.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any way to find out how the student body at any particular campus feels about “hooking up” or “friends with benefits.” </p>
<p>Remember, too, that even if an article says “1 in 5” hook up, that means that 4 out of 5 don’t (80%). That’s not too shabby.</p>
<p>If you were to look up the student papers of colleges around the country and search “sex” or something along those lines in the search form, I am sure you’d find “unsettling” archived articles in most college papers, except perhaps where they might not be allowed to print such articles. That would be an interesting experiment,for you, tikib. Try it with, say, Harvard, WashU, Williams, Duke, Brown, Colgate, Bowdoin, any number of top colleges, and my bet is that you’ll learn more than you wanted to know! ;)</p>
<p>And I’ll bet even the University of Washington has sexually active young adults! In a very large school, 20,000+, one is more anonymous, and in some ways less intimate, less personal, and more private ( may not be the topic of the day.) But it’s happening, I am quite sure, as 3 of my nephews attended UDub.</p>
<p>Maybe a larger school is the way to avoid too much contact with those who differ - one can just hang out with those like oneself.</p>
<p>I know students at both University Washington and Pomona, and I’d say if you’re looking for a casual hookup, your odds are better of finding someone of that type in Washington’s (hell, they’re bigger, they’ve got more of every type)</p>
<p>anyhoo, have you considered MIT, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, or other medium to small elite science, math, and engineering schools? They’ll have great Bio programs and relatively small student bodies.</p>
<p>Oh that’s hot. Pomona is just hot.</p>
<p>Uh, Berkeley (probably among others) has had a sexual advice column at its student newspaper for several years. And it gets reasonably graphic. It didn’t seem to get a lot of attention as a phenomenon, but then Yale established a sex advice column at its student newspaper and the New York Timies covered it like it was invented there…It’s everywhere. Every one of the 5+ billion people on the planet represents it – i.e. sex and a male orgasm. It happens.</p>
<p>thekid - Mudd is too close to Pomona - may get corrupted! :)</p>
<p>Back in the day, at least, casual sex was a LOT more prevalent at state universities than at places like Pomona. At least that was my experience compared with that of my siblings and friends. At the end of the day, high academic achievement and a real commitment to casual sex as a lifestyle conflict with each other, and the Pomona types tend to resolve it in favor of academics more often than not (and more often than average). But that absolutely, positively DOESN’T mean that casual sex is unknown at Pomona – clearly, it isn’t. At the same time, I am morally certain that there are lots and lots of people at Pomona (and everywhere else, except maybe Harrad University) who aren’t engaging in casual sex all the time.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the following, either: Pomona is a small private college with no journalism major. UW is a giant public university. The Pomona newspaper is going to be hard up for material, is going to have little or no faculty supervision, and is going to tend towards the sophomoric. The UW newspaper is likely to be populated by careerists who take themselves seriously and to be subject to significant administration control. So you are going to see a story like this at Pomona, not UW, and that doesn’t mean anything about student behavior at either school. </p>
<p>Finally: tikib, I suspect you know this. Whether she goes to Pomona, UW, or Bob Jones, there is a pretty high likelihood – not a certainty, surely, but a pretty high likelihood – that sometime between now and her college graduation your daughter will at least dip a toe in the waters of casual sex. As far as I can tell, many, maybe most, women do. For most, they don’t like it, and they change their behavior again sooner or later. But you probably shouldn’t invest too much in your vision of your daughter as she is now, or make too many decisions only on that basis, because she is likely to wind up a little different no matter what, and her true character will ultimately come through no matter what, too.</p>
<p>Oh, it’s ridiculous. Nobody wants to hear it. It’s boring, boring, boring. These kids think they invented sex or something? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>A little mystery goes a long way.</p>
<p>Lots want to hear it. Thread is 5 pages.</p>
<p>You might want to look into some of the Catholic schools for a more conservative environment. NOT that sexual relationships don’t happen there either, but if you have a larger student population that is conservative in their upbringing your daughter might feel more in her element. I have several friends who went to Notre Dame and were very comfortable with the living arrangements…only single sex dorms (and the kids stay in the same dorm for the length of their stay at the university)…becomes their family…and a religious adult (read nun/sister) lives in the building as well. </p>
<p>This does not hold true for all Catholic schools…Georgetown is known to be very liberal. Do your research. Check out the student newspapers usually readily accessible via the internet.</p>
<p>Most conservative of the Catholic schools appears to be Ave Maria University outside of Naples, Florida. Conservative dress code (much like BYU), strict visitation rules, even music that is deemed offensive in nature is banned from dorm rooms. Their “Chastity Club” is very popular from what I can ascertain.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>How does your daughter feel about all of this?</p>
<p>According to a recent Harvard study, over 1/3 of college freshmen engage in sex during their first year. So, it isn’t just Pomona.</p>
<p>What bothered me about this article was the guy who said it was better if it was just a casual hookup. Now if they were developing an “actual relationship” he would be worried. Am I the only one who sees something backwards here?</p>
<p>I KNOW college kids have sex, but really… couldn’t they try to limit it to people with whom they are having an “actual relationship”? I’m not saying they have to be married, but at least in some sort of steady relationship? I hate to see that sex has become so de-valued that it’s something that can be done with a casual acquaintance with no strings and have that seen as NORMAL. What’s going to happen to these kids when they do have an “actual relationship?” Or, someday, get married? When you’ve done all there is to do with half the people you’ve ever met, how does sex become a bonding experience with someone you really love? </p>
<p>I know this casual sex is common these days, even in high school. I wish there were a way to explain it to these kids… someday, when they’re older, they’re going to wish they were more selective of who they shared their bodies with. They’ve devalued something that should be very special, and they will be the poorer for it.</p>
<p>How DOES your daughter feel about all of this?</p>
<p>Perhaps she should live at home and commute to college. I find it so hard to continue to discuss this because I feel you are trying to get the world to bend to your perceptions and it just won’t happen.</p>
<p>tikib - I am afraid that you will find the intersection of your three sets of schools to be perilously close to zero:</p>
<p>Set 1: academically strong liberal arts colleges (or any top academic institutions)
Set 2: colleges without a prevalence of casual hookups (if you consider the article on Pomona indicates too much of a prevalence, then I think you would feel that - as other posters have said - about almost all institutions of higher learning in this country)
Set 3: exclude any religious college with religious courses</p>
<p>Personally, I agree with numerous others. She can go to virtually any strong LAC which appeals to her and find herself a set of peers with her values, as well as have a reasonable likelihood of not having casual hook-ups be “in her face.”</p>
<p>Unless she has come to you to help her eliminate Pomona and other similar schools, I would hope you will let her make choices based on academics and an atmosphere that <em>she</em> finds comfortable and trust her to find compatible peers and handle the occasional sideswip with folks who think and act differently from her preferences.</p>
<p>
They often do have a steady relationship. The basis of that relationship is, generally, casual friendship and casual, NSA sex. “Actual relationships” require commitment, time, effort, and work. A lot of college students–and people in general–have times when they don’t want commitment or don’t want to work hard at a relationship, so if they want sex, they look for sex that doesn’t require an “actual relationship.” If both people are happy and healthy, what’s the issue? </p>
<p>OP, your daughter can easily abstain except for in a steady relationship at college without much or any peer pressure to do otherwise, especially if she makes her desires clear to her friends. At the same schools, your daughter could engage in casual sex without facing much or any negative social judgment as a result. College students have different beliefs, pasts, and desires, and at most of the schools you will probably be looking at, students will be accepting of the sexually conservative and the sexually promiscuous. She will see both behaviors, and she will likely (hopefully) be friends with people with each attitude. If that’s “in your face” to you, then it will be very difficult to find a non-religious college that meets your requirements.</p>
<p>A residential college is a community of young adults, old enough to vote or serve in Iraq. The range of behaviors is not different than among working adults in any city, suburb or town. In any U.S. community this evening, there are unmarried adults who are:</p>
<p>uninvolved
in casual relationships choosing celibacy or intimacy
in longterm, committed relationships choosing celibacy or intimacy
having one-night stands and unsure of the partner’s last name</p>
<p>College has the same range of behaviors, but the apartments are much closer together. Just as you don’t exactly know what your neighbor is doing tonight and vice-versa, the college kids manage to stay out of each others’ faces. Otherwise it would be unbearable for them.</p>
<p>OP - I’m at what you could consider a ‘rigorous’ university, which also has a reputation for taking students from somewhat conservative backgrounds. And as I said in my first post, despite that, casual sex is everywhere. Do you have to get involved in casual sex yourself? Nope. I haven’t done. (That said, I do live with my boyfriend, and we’re SHOCK HORROR - not married!) But at the same time, I’m not ‘shocked’ that other people have had casual sex. We’re adults, what do you expect? </p>
<p>Anyway, this should be up to your daughter to decide. If she decides she wants casual sex, she’ll be able to get it anywhere she goes.</p>
<p>I want to respond to what Lafalum said before. As I understood it, the reason (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) why the people interviewed preferred that “sponcest” be casual rather than relationship-oriented is that the strong feelings at play in relationships, and the exclusivity of relationships, can make things uncomfortable for people who are forced to be in the same space with the couple all the time. Even if the relationship is successful and stable, it may not be a good deal for the roommates, etc. And most relationships between college freshmen are not successful or stable, at least not consistently during the first few months. Strong “relationship” feelings followed by a breakup, or jealousy, or cheating . . . that’s really a bad deal for the people sharing the same bathroom and parties with the unhappy couple.</p>
<p>So it’s not like they were saying “casual sex is better than committed sex.” They were saying, “if people in this small, family-like group I’m part of are going to have sex with each other, I really hope it doesn’t turn into a nuclear meltdown and irradiate all of us.” I can understand that perfectly. Having been the friend in the next room on several occasions.</p>
<p>One more thing: I remember this from my youth, and nothing I see in my children’s lives convinces me that anything is really different now. “Casual sex” exists more as an ideal than as a reality. People may want to have casual sex, may think it’s a good idea, nothing wrong with it, etc., but that’s more ideology than reality. Reality is that people have much more complicated feelings about sex than they are comfortable sharing with their new college friends, or even with themselves. They have dreams, fantasies, insecurities, fears, disappointments . . . “Casual” is a way of protecting yourself against all kinds of hurts, including disappointment with yourself and rejection by others. By mutual agreement, things are “casual” until there’s enough trust to let yourself be vulnerable, and then it’s not casual at all. Or sometimes it really may be casual, but that doesn’t necessarily feel right, or you realize that the casualness wasn’t as reciprocal as you thought, etc.</p>
<p>Everyone I knew talked about casual sex, but not so many people ever had it, and if they did it wasn’t very often, and wasn’t the way they chose to live for long. At most, it was a phase, but it wasn’t even that for most people, if it was anything at all other than something other people supposedly did. But what casual sex there was happened in college (and graduate school), because that’s where people had the combination of time, opportunity, hormones, and immaturity that made it possible.</p>
<p>I will be happy (not really) to withdraw my romantic views if the actual students think they’re wrong.</p>
<p>I feel old. I remember when Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying was considered oh, so daring. Although she did not have the term at her disposal, she sang the praise of what we would now call hooking up, i.e, casual, responsibility-free sex. The book came out in 1973–34 years ago. Plus ca change…</p>