The Person of Honor at my wedding was my male friend, PE. PE in have been close friends for a long time now. At no point in our long friendship; a friendship that has included sleeping over at one another’s house, sharing hotel beds, walking around in the moonlight and getting really drunk, has there been anything that could be construed as sexual or romantic. Not a kiss, not a hug that wasn’t platonic, not a lingering look that has set either of our hearts beating. Yes, my friend PE is straight.*
So, when people write articles describing a gender-neutral housing policy for dorm rooms, all I can think is “about damn time”. I know it would have been easier for me to find a male roommate that I knew in college rather than a female one**, not to mention a lot easier for Hubby and I get to get an apartment together earlier. But, of course, an article like this has to bring out the people who apparently think the relationships I have with my male friends are fictitious, whom the only reason that a male and a female would room together would be because they wanted to have sex with each other.
Where does this belief come from, exactly? Nobody I know my age lacks for mix-gendered friends. Heck, as near as I can tell, even my parents and my in-laws have mixed-gendered friends. We are not leopards, whom only come in contact with each other for sex. We are social creatures that mingle all the time. If you don’t have that urge before you move in together, I’m telling you snoring, bad breath, bed-head and uncapped toothpaste tubes are not going to generate a deep and abiding lust.
Will some boyfriends/ girlfriends room together? Absolutely***. Will there be relationships where there is underlying sexual tension that will be released? Again, absolutely, but not near as much as the comments seem to think. The dire predictions of uncontrollable fucking, destroyed grades, et cetera are based in fairy tale land****. I also think that the number of romantic couples that will want to move into together are actually much smaller than people think. Most college students are not ready to live with their significant other, and the ones that are already do.
College students are adults. I realize that people seem to dispute this all the time, but they are. If they want to have a roommate who’s of the opposite gender- let them. In one’s life, we have to navigate all sorts of different relationships. Fear-mongering about how “men can’t help it” and “women are helpless” are wrong, stupid, and damaging cliches.
*I’ve also had former boyfriends whom I’m good friends with and our contact is now non-sexual. I have also had friends where there WAS sexual tension, and for a variety of reasons, we never acted on it and still stay good friends. I also have had friends where we do occasionally fuck on top of the things that make us friends. There are a wide variety of relationships that I have, and have had, that forcing me to room with females did not get rid of. Heck, one of the sexual tension ones was because my female roommate was straight and I really liked her body.
**Though playing roommate-roulette actually worked with me. I had studious, neat, and mostly gone female roommates.
*** And good for them. This would definitely cut-out all of the negotiation and scheduling with roommates that having sex on college takes right now.
****The same place where the ’50s was a golden era filled with upright, moral people.
Caltech’s been doing this since the 80s, as far as I know. It’s a boon for everyone there, not just making life simpler for trans* students but also just taking an arbitrary obstacle out of dorm room allocation for everyone. The bathrooms are nongendered as well, in half the houses at least, and there’s just no problem with it.