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Co-Ed Dorm Bathrooms


hippymamato3
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Is this community bathrooms that are co-ed? Or suite style? 
 

I remember reading here years ago about someone‘a student whose college that had coed community baths. In that case, the toilet area (and I guess shower too) were private and self-contained stalls with full doors and walls.

 


 

 

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2 hours ago, NewnameC said:

Is this community bathrooms that are co-ed? Or suite style? 
 

I remember reading here years ago about someone‘a student whose college that had coed community baths. In that case, the toilet area (and I guess shower too) were private and self-contained stalls with full doors and walls.

 


 

 

This is the way the ones I'm aware of are. The sink area is usually communal. This would have been a big issue for me in college, as I had enough of an issue feeling uncomfortable about the communal bathrooms, and worried about showering in there because it was usually empty at the time of day I showered and I worried about someone coming in who shouldn't be there. Mine wasn't co-ed though. I read a good thread somewhere advising college students on co-ed bathroom etiquette. I'll see if I can find it. I expect students figure out what's comfortable after awhile. Seems like he'd want to avoid taking a stall right next to someone else when there is an option, not too much eye contact, definitely not chatting with someone in a stall, being sufficiently clothed on the way in and out of showers?

 

Hmmm, I can't find the list I had found awhile back (when my college student was choosing dorms). This is the best I can find, which isn't that helpful: https://www.hercampus.com/school/conn-coll/how-cope-co-ed-bathrooms

Seems like the main take homes for him would be: clean the sink after you shave, don't chat while using the stalls, and don't have sex in the showers? 😳.

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11 hours ago, NewnameC said:

Is this community bathrooms that are co-ed? Or suite style? 
 

I remember reading here years ago about someone‘a student whose college that had coed community baths. In that case, the toilet area (and I guess shower too) were private and self-contained stalls with full doors and walls.

Our dorm bathrooms were community coed in the '80s. Stalls weren't even full doors,  they were like regular public bathroom stalls.  We had two sets of two showers each with a curtain and a curtain for the set. We'd hang a sign saying who was currently on that side. It was a nothingburger. Everyone was respectful, no one cared what your sleepy grubby self looked like. These were people you lived with.

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My eldest wasn't even a fan of community same-sex bathrooms. Her college pick has same sex suites and she only has to share a bathroom with one other female.

Dd#2 doesn't want to deal with any of that & is living at home.

I would assume the kids who live there deal with it. I'm assuming it is less of a worry for the males in terms of shower safety.

Have you toured? Knowing the setup (shower curtains vs latching doors) is helpful.

Same advice for co-ed as same-sex: robe, flip-flops, shower caddy.

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1 hour ago, RootAnn said:

My eldest wasn't even a fan of community same-sex bathrooms. Her college pick has same sex suites and she only has to share a bathroom with one other female.

Dd#2 doesn't want to deal with any of that & is living at home.

I would assume the kids who live there deal with it. I'm assuming it is less of a worry for the males in terms of shower safety.

Have you toured? Knowing the setup (shower curtains vs latching doors) is helpful.

Same advice for co-ed as same-sex: robe, flip-flops, shower caddy.

I still figure it's a sign that L really, really loves the college picked when the private room in a suite lost to the bathroom shared with 24 other people. Although choosing a women's college side steps the "coed" question!

 

 

Erma Bombeck has a great piece on co-ed dorms. I found it on Google books https://books.google.com/books?id=_e4ewzb5sw4C&pg=PT74&lpg=PT74&dq=erma+bombeck+co-ed+dorms&source=bl&ots=3zeT5XWBC5&sig=ACfU3U1C5l6g48dF4_gY-FWLF720lSfL-w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj239XInOXxAhXNop4KHURWA7wQ6AEwEHoECBUQAw#v=onepage&q=erma bombeck co-ed dorms&f=false

 

 

Edited by Dmmetler
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10 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

I'm just going to say that for both of my teen girls, this would be a deal breaker.  Community bathroom with all girls is bad enough.  If this was the only option,  I know one of mine would pick another college.  

It is a sad truth that I would not want this situation for my daughter. 

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Dd's dorm has coed bathrooms.  It did not occur to me to think this was an issue and dd is not bothered.  They still have individual stalls for toilets and showers.  I wonder what people think colleges should do?  We all know there are many more trans students attending college now.  Coed bathrooms eliminates the bathroom wars, which I think is a good thing.  I would much rather see that than jacked up housing costs so that everyone can have their own individual bathroom.  

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15 minutes ago, skimomma said:

Dd's dorm has coed bathrooms.  It did not occur to me to think this was an issue and dd is not bothered.  They still have individual stalls for toilets and showers.  I wonder what people think colleges should do?  We all know there are many more trans students attending college now.  Coed bathrooms eliminates the bathroom wars, which I think is a good thing.  I would much rather see that than jacked up housing costs so that everyone can have their own individual bathroom.  

My dc’s university has a mix to handle those issues. Some dorms have suites with a bathroom per suite, come have single sex floors and some have co-Ed floors and bathrooms. Then there are many dorms with specific gender-inclusive floors for people that want an environment specific to that. I am glad my (trans) dc was able to get a suite with a private bathroom, because bathrooms are an issue for them. I do not think it’s a good thing for the issue of bathrooms for trans students to lead to the result that no women have the option to have a women-only bathroom. It’s great that it’s not an issue for many, but it is for many others, and they should have the right to accommodation as well. 
 

Eta: I don’t think all co-Ed bathrooms eliminates the bathrooms wars. It just shifts the problem to a different group, which I expect will/would have the effect of just inflaming the bathroom wars. If that can be avoided, it should be. 

Edited by KSera
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I guess I am failing to see what goes on in a bathroom that has anything to do with gender outside of the individual locking toilet and shower stalls.  Looking at dd's university, the dorms are old.  There are a handful of suites with bathrooms that are shared by four students (these are typically reserved for upperclassmen anyway) but otherwise, without major renovation, communal bathrooms it is.  If that is the default, I cannot imagine how one would police different rules for different bathrooms.  And once there are "rules" someone has to enforce them....putting trans people in the awkward position of trying to determine how to offend the least number of people with their bathroom choice.  Can a trans man use the men's room?  Or should they use the women's room?  Do they have to hike to another building that has a coed bathroom?  Should we have bathrooms just for trans people?  Coed bathrooms eliminates this.  

Even if you perhaps have the choice of living in a room with the bathroom arrangement of your choice, what happens when you are in a different part of the building?  Do you go to a different floor so you can pee in the "right" bathroom.  When I was a student in the early 90s, we frequently used the opposite bathroom to avoid hiking to a different part of the building when meeting with a study group or visiting a friend.  It was not uncommon at all to see men in our women's only bathrooms.  Having them constructed to specifically accommodate this seems like the easiest way for everyone to get what they need.

My ideal would be a bank of full individual bathrooms for each house so no one was in a communal situation ever.  And maybe that will happen someday. But meanwhile, universities are grappling with a rapidly changing culture around gender while still having to deal with existing buildings.

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I had coed communal bathrooms in my dorm in 1997.  All showers and toilets had stalls.  Turns out when you brush your teeth next to the guys on your floor they quickly feel like your brothers.  The whole thing was completely fine for me. I know we had a girl move out after two weeks, so it isn’t for everyone, but after experiencing it firsthand, it’s hard for me to understand what was uncomfortable for her.

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I lived one year in an all-women dorm, and we had several Muslim girls on our floor.  This was what was agreed on — we kept a chalkboard a few feet away from the elevator, which opened into our common area.  If a boy was coming up (had to be escorted), they would stand behind the chalkboard if there was a Muslim girl who wanted to cover her hair.

It was a really cool living experience for me.

That said — I think it’s pretty popular and many people do prefer it.

But there are also people I think it really doesn’t work for and they (at my school) clustered into apartments together when the all-women dorm closed.  
 

We also had exchange students from Africa who were more on the more conservative side and wanted the all-women dorm.  
 

Definitely they were people I never met any other way while I was going to college.  
 

Edit:  I do think there were also girls who might have just gone to a different college.  

Edited by Lecka
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16 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

The non-suite style coed dorms at my university have facilities like bathrooms in a home--A small room with a lockable door will have a shower, sink, and toilet.  

Were there a row of these on the hall?

Sorry, Im having trouble picturing this for some reason.

I think it is fine to eliminate a school/dorm from a student’s list if this kind of arrangement isn’t what your student wants. Different strokes for different folks.

Edited by NewnameC
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56 minutes ago, NewnameC said:

Were there a row of these on the hall?

Sorry, Im having trouble picturing this for some reason.

I think it is fine to eliminate a school/dorm from a student’s list if this kind of arrangement isn’t what your student wants. Different strokes for different folks.

Most of the ones that i have seen have had a pod of four or six bathrooms.  So there might be a long hallway which the dorm rooms open off of and then an alcove (somewhat like a bank of elevators) which is perependicular which would have two of these bathrooms on either side of that short alcove-like  hallway,  

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Almost all the dorms at my dd#1's school are suite style where there are two bathrooms for four rooms, one bathroom for two rooms, or singles. There are apartment style dorms & hotel style rooms, too, but no communal bathrooms for even a single gender/sex.

4 hours ago, skimomma said:

Do you go to a different floor so you can pee in the "right" bathroom.

Yes. DH's floor was all male. So was the floor below me where most of my friends lived. I could go up or down a floor to use the restroom on the co-ed floors. I would not have even considered using the bathrooms on the all-male floors. The co-ed floors had two single-sex communal bathrooms - a women's on the women's side & a men's on the men's side.

The biggest inconvenience was visiting the single-sex dorms. One was all male & one was all female. There were a limited number of individual bathrooms on the lowest floor that the opposite gender could use.

[I can never remember gender vs sex for what the PC usage is, so I use them to mean the same thing because when I went to college, that's what they meant.]

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I lived in a co-Ed dorm that had 3 hallways on each floor.  There was one central area on each floor.

Each floor had either 1 male and 2 female hallways, or vice versa.  
 

To go to the bathroom just meant going down the hall.  No need to go to another floor.

I lived in a co-Ed dorm, an all-women dorm, and then two years in a co-op that had 3 or 4 bathrooms for about 30 people total.  We all had single rooms there.  There were no separate male/female bathrooms or rooms or hallways there, but nobody would be in the bathroom at the same time as anyone else, with the way it was set up.

 

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I went to a women’s college and even I experienced co-ed bathrooms. Most dorms had two bathrooms per floor, one designated co-ed. But some just had one, so it was co-ed by default except on one floor. Men were supposed to be announced, but realistically if a guy was showering or something already when you walked in, you didn’t always know. And there were invariably at least a couple of guys around, at least on the weekends. It was never a big deal. Of course, there were always some women who always used the all women bathroom so there was an “out.”

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