<p>I think there is a tendency to want to wrap things up with a neat bow and ascribe behaviors to a particular group and I don’t think that works very well. If there was a way to say “that’s a girl that likely to get herself in a bad situation” or "that’s a boy that will abuse a girl’ or fraternities and sororities are breeding grounds for this particular type of activity being discussed… it would have been figured out long ago.</p>
<p>Here’s a case where the campus police appeared to actively search for the attacker. Naturally the headline says sexual abuse rather than rape. And they caught a suspect:</p>
<p>[Portland</a> State University student arrested in alleged attempted sex abuse | OregonLive.com](<a href=“Portland State University student arrested in alleged attempted sex abuse - oregonlive.com”>Portland State University student arrested in alleged attempted sex abuse - oregonlive.com)</p>
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<p>Colleges used to have single-sex dorms and parietal rules to keep men out of women’s rooms. Googling “parietal rules” brings up </p>
<p>[Parietal</a> Rules | News | The Harvard Crimson | October 1, 1963](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/10/1/parietal-rules-pdean-monro-and-watson/]Parietal”>Parietal Rules | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Now we have universities offering a “gender-neutral” housing option, putting men and women in the same dorm room.</p>
<p>*Colleges used to have single-sex dorms and parietal rules to keep men out of women’s rooms. Googling “parietal rules” brings up *</p>
<p>lol…just the concept of “keeping men out” reinforces the stereotype that men are the ones who are more likely to be trying to get into a girls pants (no argument here…lol).</p>
<p>I remember one of my brother’s dorms had a girl elevator and a boy elevator. the girls’ elevator stopped at all floors. The boys’ elevator only stopped on boys’ floors. lol</p>
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I think it’s hard to say how much worry about this situation is statistically deserved. How many false positives can you tolerate in order to increase your rate of convictions for true positives? This becomes relevant when we start talking about things like relaxing the standard of proof for punishment for sexual assault (which the Justice Department has instructed colleges to do). Perhaps there are approaches that could make convictions more likely without significantly increasing this risk–encouraging reporting, doing better investigations, looking for multiple complaints against the same person, all of which I would support.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, men and women are not being put together as roommates in the same way that freshman roommates are assigned. They are choosing to live with one another as upperclassmen, same as two women or two men might choose one another as roommates. Red herring.</p>
<p>In a way I agree with Beliavsky and as I wrote upthread someplace think students need singles. I already had a sense there were criminals in college before reading all mini and poetgrl’s links. On the other hand, college students are pretty much adults and will be living in situations with the opposite sex. They need to learn how to handle it. imho. Also, I think coed dorms may decrease opportunities for violence against women but don’t really have time to explain my thoughts on that this morning. It has to do with the bystander intervention.</p>
<p>I would think that singles are MORE likely to provide a setting for assault. No roommate to walk in on you.</p>
<p>The idea that coed dorms leads to assault is probably bogus, IMHO. When I lived in coed dorms and apartments, it was more likely that people thought of each other in a siblingish way. Sex with an apartment mate was generally Not Done, especially casual sex.</p>
<p>Wow. I really went through and read many of the research studies concerning these issues. It seems that most surveys have decided to ask questions as to specific actions rather than inquire as to rape. It appears that the researchers have found that when females and males are asked about involvement in rape the incidence of affirmative answers is very much lower than when asked about conduct and the researcher decides if there was rape. It appears that for females and males there is a disconnect between what they perceive as rape and what is determined to be rape by the researcher. That would account for all the detail on many colleges website as to what constitutes rape, consent, etc.</p>
<p>Using the current research techniques, 75% of women do not encounter rape or attempted rape while in college. According to some stats asserted on this thread, 90% of rapes of college women are perpetrated by 4% of the campus males who were juvenile sexual predators before college and continue to serially rape while in college. It has been asserted that alcohol is a tool used by these 4%.</p>
<p>Of the 25% of the females who do encounter rape/attempted rape, approximately 40% have been the subject of sexual victimization prior to college. One study concluded that the single best predictor of being a rape/attempted rape victim while in college is sexual victimization prior to college. It seems to me that colleges could attempt to make this fact known to incoming females and direct them to counseling since the primary source of juvenile and childhood sexual victimization is by family members so the female freshman may not even know she is at high risk in college or how to break the cycle of victimization.</p>
<p>The living arrangement the female chooses seems to be factor into rapes/attempted rapes. If she lives in a on-campus dorm she is 1.4 times as likely as a female who lives in an off-campus non-sorority location. The college may require the freshmen to live on campus. Consolation raises an interesting question. Does solo living provide a greater risk to the female college student? If Lisaks findings that poetgrl provided are accurate, the undetected serial college rapist tries to isolate the female physically and separate her from her friends in order to groom her for an attack so single living would facilitate that.</p>
<p>If the attack occurs on campus, 60% of the time it will be in her dorm room, 30% in some other dorm room and 10% in a fraternity house. It appears that for a female who lives on campus, socializing in public places on campus, not in residence rooms is a good idea.</p>
<p>My niece comes into town later this month to start college so I appreciate all the suggestions and advice.</p>
<p>07DAD, is it clear that something like the on-campus dorm is 1.4 x more likely than an off-campus apartment is independent of the conclusion elsewhere that younger students are more vulnerable than older students? If (as is often the case) freshmen are required to live on campus, and freshmen are subject to rape more often than any other group of students, unless you control for that it’s going to distort the comparison between living on campus and living off campus pretty significantly.</p>
<p>I imagine the barrier to taking someone back to a dorm room versus an off-campus apartment which may be a significant walk, bus, train, or car ride away would allow individuals to sober up and be a little more aware of what’s going on. When do you think students are more likely to drink heavily or engage in more risky behaviors, when they’re within a short walk of where they plan to crash for the night, or when they need some facilities in order to get home?</p>
<p>(That said, I do agree that it seems likely freshman are the most likely group to be raped, and having easily accessible dorms makes them a better target. I also agree with the thought singles would increase the risk. I wonder if any studies have been done that look at rape rates in students in singles vs doubles vs triples vs suites.</p>
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<p>But doesn’t that depend on where the partying is taking place in the first place? Where is it more likely that there is unbridled, free flowing alcohol – in a dorm, or in an off-campus apartment? I would say the latter, but that’s me based on my my experiences.</p>
<p>JHS–All of this is unclear from the research. </p>
<p>It probably depends in large part on the campus. At the college my son attended over 90% lived in campus housing all 4 years. At the University of Texas at Austin over approximately 85% of the student body does not live on campus and that includes freshmen. There are only approximately 7000 on-campus spaces. The 2012 freshman class was just under 8,100. So, even freshmen are not required to live on campus.</p>
<p>[Co-ed</a> dorms linked to more drinking, sex | Reuters | November 24, 2009](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/24/us-co-ed-dorms-idUSTRE5AN4DS20091124]Co-ed”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/24/us-co-ed-dorms-idUSTRE5AN4DS20091124)</p>
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<p>In a co-ed dorm with more frequent binge drinking, there will be more sexual assaults than in a single sex dorm with less frequent binge drinking.</p>
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<p>There’s a difference between having consensual sex and being sexually assaulted.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen stats on coed dorms vs. single sex dorms? </p>
<p>07Dad: Has you niece ever taken any self defense courses? Now would be a good time.
Predators are unlikely to choose a victim who he knows can and will defend herself. </p>
<p>I think I’ve mentioned this before, but a ninja teammate of Spygirl’s had some fairly interesting experiences with men in college. She is a very attractive and sweet young woman who appears to be demur and passive. However she was the top ranked fighter in her sport for several years, and has won gold medals internationally. She also fights men and wins. Every time. </p>
<p>One young man was always asking her out but she repeatedly brushed him off (I’m busy, I have homework etc) because she had a bad feeling about him. He never gave up, until one day she mentioned she was a black belt. That was the last she saw of him.</p>
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<p>My son was one test away from a 2nd degree black belt in TQD before his freshman year in college. My BIL and my niece both have taken Krav Maga. I’ll see what level she has attained, but alcohol/drugs can trump training. </p>
<p>She looks imposing since she is already slightly over 6’ (her older bro is 6’6", dad is 6’3" and mom is 6’1/2")</p>
<p>07DAD, I’m getting ready to send my daughter all the way across the country to college in a few short weeks, and have spoken to her extensively about this issue (and will continue to do so). I plan to share with her your words from post #466; I appreciate how you’ve distilled identifiable, concrete behaviors to watch out for, which I believe will help her be more aware. Thank you.</p>
<p>We’ve also discussed her taking some self-defense classes while at college, and she’s excited about doing so. Does anyone know if they tend to be offered free of charge?</p>
<p>(I’ve enjoyed wrestling with her since she was little, and have been strategically gauging her strength the past few years, pushing her further and further. I’m thrilled that finally, last year, she pretty much surpassed me in physical strength, and has developed some rather refined reflexes. When I revealed to her a few months ago that these (sometimes annoying to her) matches have been my own sort of self-defense training for her, she was surprised and pleased.)</p>
<p>When looking at the data about co-ed dorms vs. single-sex dorms, you probably have to take into account that comparatively few colleges that are not heavily religious or single-sex themselves even offer single-sex dorms anymore. And even where a mainstream college has a single-sex dorm option, it is likely to represent a self-selected choice for students who resemble the students at the religious colleges as much or more than other students at their own college. So differences in partying and sex behavior may have nothing to do with the dorm set-up and everything to do with the people who choose to live in single-sex dorms.</p>
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What were the five universities? Did they all have the same breakdown of coed and single-sex housing? It seems to me that you could get very different results in a study like this depending on what colleges you choose. Are, say, the University of Minnesota and the University of Alabama interchangeable in a study like that? I’m pretty sure Brigham Young and Tulane would not be. This is one reason I always reserve judgment when positions are based on surveys.</p>
<p>cross-posted with JHS</p>