In my experience (Merrill college in UCSC- I was a Kresge student but everyone I knew lived there) co-ed bathrooms weren’t a big deal. It was wierd the first time I used them, but I got over that pretty fast. In fact, now single-sex bathrooms seem a little forced to me. I’ve never heard of anyone having any serious problems with them.
Since all my friends there were guys, it was nice to be able to brush my teeth and talk across shower stalls with them instead of having to go do that stuff in a seperate room full of strangers. And from what I saw it promoted a kind of closeness and cohesion in the halls. It was like they were all part of the same team.
Perhaps people wouldn’t be so freaked out over things like women in the military if they got some first hand experience with the fact that men and women can and do live normal lives together in tight quarters without all hell breaking loose.
Major pro- I dunno which bathroom to use if there is a choice of male/female. I usually end up using the only unisex bathroom available, which is the disabled one.
Unisex bathrooms would solve this problem for me- unfortunatley, they’re very uncommon in this part of the world.
During my freshman year in college (i.e. last year) my dorm had a co-ed bathroom. Three stalls and three showers, plus an unusable bathtub. Each of them were in separate areas. I usually waited until it was empty before partaking in the various intestinal/urological rituals.
I almost pissed myself when I read this. Carry on.
In one dorm I lived in there were no bathrooms marked men or women. Since it was an all female dorm with strict visiting hours theoretically the bathrooms were supposed to be men free except during visiting hours. I wish. Since the bathrooms were not officially coed, the college did not care that there were no shower curtains in any of the shower stalls. Unfortunately, in practice there were guys there at all hours and some creeps even lurked around to try to see the women shower.
I was not fond of showering in front of anyone back then, not even women. Since my figure was unusual, 42-27-38, I got lots of stares and comments from rude women when they saw me naked. The thought of a guy walking in on me was disturbing as well for that and the usual reasons. I coped by getting up early. Most peeping toms and most mouthy women sleep in, or at least are not at the top of their game before 7 am.
As for using a bathroom stall next to someone of the opposite gender, that never bothered me. I do think hoverers and others that don’t clean up after themselves and leave messes on the seat deserve special torture involving unclean bodily excretia and lots of pain. If they clean up well, I don’t care. How can anyone with opposite sex siblings have any illusions?
Lack of privacy can really affect you though. I was used to having privacy in my bedroom and in the bathroom at home. Having a room mate that was in the room a lot and bathrooms that afforded no privacy did affect me badly. The damn RA would let herself into my room if I did not open the door when she knocked. She took my being alone in my room as evidence I might be suicidal and so, if I did manage a few moments alone, they were not safe, I knew someone would come knocking and I had to let them in. Somehow even trying to read alone was suspicious behavior at this college. A few months without the opportunity to masturbate also started to drive me batty.
Does your advisee have any opportunity for privacy? Do the showers offer any? What about in her room? The bathroom issue could be the aspect she can talk about, there may be others. I certainly could not have told my advisor that I was going nuts because I had not orgasmed in over a month when I was used to 3 a day minimum.
In my first year college dorm the ground floor co-ed bathroom had five or six stalls and four bathtubs. All the bathtubs were in big stalls with an Actual Door What Locked and a stool to put your clothes on. No danger of being seen naked. There was a separate toilet stall for women, which was the only one with a tampon/pad disposal unit. The second floor bathroom had a few stalls and three showers.
Bathroom privacy was quite sufficient. Thank Pete the bedrooms were singles, mind you - I’d have gone completely nutty froot loops if I’d been sharing with someone. I’m stuck-up, stand-offish and anti-social, and that’s the way I damn well like it.
I loved the co-ed bathrooms in my dorm. It was a bit weird at first, but after living that way for a year, I don’t really remember why I found it strange, and now find it much stranger that we have segregated bathrooms at all.
One guest, however, refused to use the co-ed bathrooms stating that he was certain that girls poop vanilla ice cream and he did not want to find out differently.
Glad to see the phenomenon is not centered around this one girl.
CadburyAngel - Yes it is a little late in the year, but I think she was trying to explain to me what was affecting her on campus. And going outside the dorm to the gym to utilize the facilities at odd hours is most likely what was making this girl so distressed.
I would love to have her read this thread, but for fear of being found out by a student, I think I’ll keep my anonymity. (Notice I always say small liberal arts college or small private college - because there are so many in New England the chances of being discovered are not so rare…)
Thank you all, this is an interesting thread…
Just to clarify one thing, the bathrooms are all stalls, and there are showers as but they have locking non-see through doors.
Phlosphr, you’re talking about Oberlin aren’t you?
My friend went there for college. It was an interesting situation, I’ll grant you that. His year, no one had a problem with the co-ed situation and, at least to my knowledge, there weren’t any incidences of a, well, prurient nature.
If she’s worried about the men there looking at her, I don’t think the problem is going to be changed through single sex bathrooms. Women are just a tad more sexually diverse there than your normal campus and she’s going to run into the same type of situation.
Which is to say, she may run into NO situation. The bathroom is the bathroom and people use it for bathroom things. I think she needs to realize that. At the very least, she needs to work up the ability to actually talk to her roommates about this problem as others have said.
I’ve never had to deal with a coed bathroom, except where Marcie is concerned. I don’t think I would be comfortable in one, though. Hell, in my day, dormitories were strictly segregated—a man caught anywhere other than the lobby of a women’s dorm would have been lynched. A woman in a man’s dorm was simply unthinkable.
Out of curiosity: Are bathrooms in the military services coed?
My college had them, and they had rotating signs on the door that said, “Empty, Men, Women, Both (Caution Please!).” I’ve never encountered any others, so I’ve always assumed that all co-ed bathrooms had such signs. Info?
IMO, the good parts:
It was cheaper and probably helped the college go co-ed earlier (it had been all-men until the early 70’s).
It helped demystify the opposite sex (fill in your own examples, but mainly I’m remembering casual conversations while brushing my teeth. It’s hard to be intimidated by a pretty girl when she’s got a mouth full of toothpaste.)
It motivated many discussions that inevitably concluded with, “There are so many better things to worry about than this.”
It got me accustomed to peeing at a urinal while women walked past, which is a useful skill when women get fed up and storm the men’s room at concerts. (Yeah, we had urinals in the co-ed bathrooms).
Helped me hone my skills at farting silently.
Good source of funny anecdotes.
Cons:
Some people avoided them like the plague. However, the co-ed dorms always had at least one dedicated men’s room and one dedicated women’s room on each floor, so these people could find some relief.
It seems to me that that last bit (having somewhere nearby for people with inhibitions about this) could help alleviate the OP-referenced girl’s problems.
I have to agree. I lived in residence last year where everyone on two floors (20 students Male and Female) shared one bathroom. I think she has deeper issues than with the co-ed bathroom. If she had such a difficulty with it, why doesn’t she asked to be transferred to a girl’s only residence?
Heck, our showers were in a room with a single door, and with shower curtains dividing the shower stalls. What’s the big deal? (Yes we had a special system for entering and exiting the showers.)
I recall reading that the reason why women’s public restrooms had a higher fecal bacteria count than men’s is because of baby diapers. Although a lot of men’s public restrooms have diaper changing facilities now, I would venture to say that the majority of children’s diapers are changed in women’s public restrooms. That’s not even considering the imperfectly potty-trained toddlers who come in to the bathroom with mommy and perhaps make a mess.
Ugh, now I’m going to be thinking about how many poopy underpants have been rinsed out in the sink of the public restroom where I’m washing my hands.
I’ve been tossing around the idea of a unisex bathroom in a bar I’m renovating. Mainly just to be trendy - but also to ease up on queues. Still haven’t figured it out, but I think the local bylaws will prevent me doing so anyway.
I’d be surprised if Allie McBeal hasn’t done any good with this whole issue. Their unisex toilets were so cutting edge at the time, but I guess it will take a while to sink ALL the way into public consciousness. If ever.
When I was in Europe a long time ago, I went to a public bathroom that was multi-stalled, for both men and women. It was accepted by everyone, and I saw no abuse of the situtation.
I think it might be different than a college co-ed bathroom, since the people in this country were used to co-ed and had no reason to question it.
But something about a girl from a liberal arts (quite liberal) school being traumatized by having to share a bathroom with boys…GASP! just strikes me as amusing.
I apologize for laughing, but sheesh. She is expanding her horizons in ways she never dreamed of!
I’m currently living in co-ed dorms (at Merril, UCSC) and our hall seems really close. Maybe it’s just because we live together, but sharing bathrooms might contribute. We’re not just a bunch of strangers living together, we’re like a family now, under one roof, sharing a bathroom. There’s still some bashfulness, but it isn’t so prevalent anymore. So sharing a bathroom brings people together, or something.
I could and I did (Earlham College “Ag Hall”). The people on my hall ended up being more quasi-siblings than anything else to me. Yup, there were a few “shower surprises”, but it was no big deal for most of us. However, the Indiana Yearly Meeting was terrified at the prospect and forced the college to build separate bathrooms.
We then designated both of them “co-ed” on the premise of “When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.”.
“Unacceptable” behavior was not a problem. Indeed, the general attitude was that such shenanigans were simply too tacky. Oddly enough, it was the single-sex living arrangements on campus that tended to have the worst problems with inter-gender interaction.
Whoa whoa whoa… People are having sex in your co-ed bathrooms?
What do they do when people come in to shower, etc? Stop? Keep going quietly?
What do YOU do when they’re done? Applaud? Raise scorecards?
Man, I’ll admit that the novelty would probably pale fairly quickly, but the idea of getting surprised in the shower with a fully naked female would pretty much leave me confined to my room (wherein a large supply of lube and soft towels would be awaiting…).
