DON’T READ A PUNCHLINE AS A TREATISE, would be my immediate reply to BDFAR’s dismissal of the mixed-sex-dorms question. It’s really not the point I was making; in fact I purposely chose a ridiculously trivial situation to link because the situation in the previous link (torture) was so obviously untrivial.

My less-immediate reply would be, read the article. And then tell me that it wasn’t a shopworn paste-up of reasons no one should care about sex difference. “I live in a house ruled by pure reason!”

I get why undergraduates would say that stuff; but what’s the adults’ excuse?

…fwiw, I can think of benefits to this situation, which should also suggest that I don’t view it as a huge horrific problem. Guys should have some sense of girls’ use of “feminine protection” (LOL, I want a pink Derringer) and that having a uterus is not some kind of bizarre sci-fi complication sprung upon them by gods unknown. On the other hand, come on, I challenge anyone above the age of 22 to deny that the Boston Globe article normalizes naivete. Not because it defends chicks rooming with guys, but because of the way in which it does so.