Too Sexy For the Dorm Room

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

October 20, 2009

Common sense is not so common any longer, it hasn't been for ages. Do college students really need instruction that enjoying connubial relations in front of their roommates just isn’t kosher? Apparently so, as the recent spate of articles demonstrates.

Unfortunately, this issue isn’t fresh, but for too long, has been ignored for fear of being traduced by ones peers. Yet, this matter has intensified in its importance and as a moral imperative in an era of “thou shalt not pass judgment.” It begs the question, why should anyone acquiesce to someone else’s lascivious behavior?

One’s home is his or her proverbial castle – even if that castle is but an 18 by 18 foot dormitory room on a college campus. It should be a sanctuary from which one can escape the realities of the world and feel safe and secure.

This safe haven, this home, should not be the place where residents feel uncomfortable, and certainly not where cohabitants' sexual mores or peccadilloes are rendered de riguer. This does not make one a prude or sexually repressed. In fact, as roommates go, it’s none of their business what their fellow cohabitants' predilections are, unless offered in confidential conversation.

And what of the shame factor? Why would someone willingly parade that with whom they are enjoying sexual congress before their roommate? Does that person have no respect for his or her partner? Or for themselves, for that matter?

It’s bad enough we are subjected to sex in places we are unable to avoid, after all, sex sells – and it’s profitable. I do not begrudge anyone a profit – this is, for the time being anyway, a free market society.  But is it really necessary to have cheerleaders writhing to sexually explicit lyrics that should require parental warnings? Must  fashion leave so little to the imagination at shops such as Abercrombie & Fitch? And where were the loud objections to the pornographic film aired at my alma mater, the University of Maryland.