The girls thought they were \u201chooking up\u201d with some fraternity brothers. <\/p>\n\n
But the guys called it \u201cShowtime at the Apollo.\u201d The game went like this, said one of Vigen Guroian\u2019s students, describing in a class assignment what went on at her boyfriend\u2019s fraternity at another college. A boy would bring a girl home, then leave the curtain parted on the glass door onto the dual-access balcony. Then his fraternity brothers in the next room could sit outside and watch. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cNow my boyfriend\u2019s defense of his brothers is that any girl who will allow you to sleep with her on the first night, and doesn\u2019t leave after you begin to do such degrading sexual acts, deserves it,\u201d wrote the student. The bottom line: \u201cYou only treat a girl like a slut, if she is a slut.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
What did the girls think they were doing, auditioning for suburban siren roles in American Pie 3? It\u2019s even more sobering to ponder the roles played by the colleges, said Guroian, professor of theology at Loyola College in Baltimore. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe failure of America\u2019s institutions of higher education \u2014 especially that of Christian schools \u2014 is not merely administrative. It is a failure of vision and religious and educational mission,\u201d he wrote, at www.Wilberforce.org. \u201cWhen students are learning all the wrong habits in their daily college life, how can a truly humanistic higher learning occur? <\/p>\n\n
\u201cHow can I teach Christian ethics with force and effect in the classroom when my college will not address or remedy the degrading living conditions my students have described?\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Every fall, millions of students go to college. Every fall, faculty, administrators and the parents who pay the bills have another chance to ask: \u201cDo we really want to know what\u2019s going on?\u201d <\/p>\n\n
The feisty Independent Women\u2019s Forum recently offered an unnerving glimpse into the moral and sexual challenges facing co-eds in a report called \u201cHooking Up, Hanging Out and Hoping for Mr. Right.\u201d It was based on interviews with 62 women on 11 campuses, backed with follow-up telephone work with 1,000 young women. <\/p>\n\n
Courtship is dead and dating is on life support. What has emerged is \u201chooking up,\u201d which most defined as \u201cwhen a girl and guy get together for a sexual encounter and don\u2019t necessarily expect anything further.\u201d For young women, this intentionally vague term can refer to anything from kissing to heavy foreplay, from oral sex to intercourse. <\/p>\n\n
More than 90 percent of the women said \u201chooking up\u201d was common and 40 percent said they had experienced this phenomenon. Some said this made them feel desirable and helped them compete for males in today\u2019s overwhelmingly female campus scene. Others said \u201chooking up\u201d made them feel awkward, ashamed and used. Yet 83 percent said, \u201cBeing married is very important to me\u201d and 63 percent expected to meet their mate at college. <\/p>\n\n
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry\u2019s reaction was blunt: \u201cThese women are out of their minds, and the adults who should be teaching them better \u2026 have pretty much walked away from the job.\u201d <\/p>\n\n