There is a mystical place in every residence hall – a place where lovers rendez-vous, a place where friends are lost and made, a place where lives are forever changed. That special place: the bathroom.

The bathroom can be crazy when 40 people share six showers, but life gets even wilder when members of the opposite sex join the fray. Although a coed bathroom seems like a party, there’s bad news. Like many other college festivities, it’s illegal.

No bathroom on campus can be officially labeled coed – it’s a violation of both Syracuse University policy and New York state building codes. But since the bathrooms are rarely monitored, this rule is difficult to enforce.

‘My understanding is that single-gender bathrooms have always been a policy at SU,’ Office of Residence Life Assistant Director Dave Rosch said. ‘While mixed-gender bathrooms may sound like a good idea to some, not all students are comfortable with it.’

Since guarding the bathroom isn’t one of the resident advisers’ top priorities, Rosch added, violations of the rule aren’t surprising.

‘There will most likely be times when a male will use a female bathroom (or vice versa),’ he said. ‘It is not SU’s policy to officially allow this.’

Even so, the shared bathroom has long been a cornerstone of dorm lore. Whether it’s a matter of convenience, indifference or just drunkenness, students have no shortage of excuses for using the wrong bathroom. And on the surface, it can seem like a good idea.

‘If you don’t know the people, it’s a little uncomfortable,’ sophomore public relations major Meghan Chrisner said. ‘But if they’re people you know and are comfortable with, then it doesn’t bother me.’

‘It doesn’t bother me either way,’ said Pat Bowles, a sophomore aerospace engineering major. ‘As long as there are still shower curtains, I guess it’s cool.’

Close Encounters

Even if it saves a walk to the opposite end of the dorm, most agree it would be hard to adapt to a full-time coed bathroom. It’s easy to be polite and friendly while freshening up or brushing your teeth, but not all bathroom chores are so innocent. And few things are worse than accidentally getting intimate with an unsuspecting floormate.

‘I wouldn’t want to be in a coed bathroom,’ sophomore mechanical engineering major Chad Vest said. There’s something unattractive, he added, about performing bodily functions with girls in the room.

At least one student had a stronger stomach. David Weinberg, a sophomore engineering major, transferred to Syracuse from Union College in Schenectady. He said his residence hall floor there had a coed bathroom and two single-sex bathrooms. The coed bathroom, he said, didn’t cause much trouble.

‘There was no problem having them (at Union),’ he said. ‘We had stalls and everything, so it’s not like you could see anything. Not many people minded. I think out of 50 people on our floor only one person had a problem with it.’

Under closer examination, however, Weinberg did reveal a small problem with the coed setup. When students get a little too intoxicated, they tend to pull some embarrassing stunts, and such accidents are only magnified when they happen in the bathroom. One drunken evening, Weinberg was using the bathroom when his body decided to change gears. He spun around to throw up, and realized that in his inebriated state he’d forgotten a very important part of bathroom etiquette.

‘I was really messed up,’ he said. ‘So messed up, I couldn’t even close the stall door. And there were girls … in the bathroom. That was pretty embarrassing.’

Not every wasted trip the bathroom ends so catastrophically, but the prospect still worries partiers.

‘More accidents could probably happen from a coed bathroom than anything else,’ Bowles said. ‘If you’re drunk, and you’re stumbling into the bathroom, and you don’t know what’s going on, that could be pretty bad.’

The Shower Scene

Drunken humiliation notwithstanding, some creative residents have come up with a more stimulating use for a coed bathroom – hooking up.

‘Having sex in the shower is just funner than having sex in a normal bed,’ said Derek Hanna, a sophomore speech communication major. Hanna went on to describe the erotic details of such an encounter, all the way down to his favorite stall.

‘It was the one closest to the window,’ he said. His floormates have vowed never to use that shower again.

Shower sex seems to be a hot topic, and some floors have optimistically voted on policies governing such activities. At a recent floor meeting, Hanna’s floor established guidelines allowing shower action, he said. Other floors have outlawed the practice.

‘That’s one good reason to not have coed,’ Weinberg said. ‘I think that’s kind of gross.’

‘How do you have sex in the bathroom without using the wall?’ Chrisner asked. ‘I mean, who wants to touch the dorm bathroom walls? That’s disgusting.’

Like it or not, at least some residents will continue their quest for bathroom booty. And for those with a distaste for authority, knowing it’s against the rules only makes it more fun.

Although most students like the idea of spending quality time with their floor’s hotties, they agree that the bathroom is probably not the best place to make a good impression. And though it’s convenient to have a bathroom across the hall, most residents would sacrifice distance to avoid potential embarrassment. Even so, they don’t think the rule should be set in stone.

‘It’s more of a question of choice,’ said Bowles, ‘so maybe it should be left up to the floor.’

Even Weinberg’s traumatizing bathroom experience hasn’t deterred him from the coed crusade.

‘I don’t think it should be illegal,’ he said. ‘It’s really no big deal. We’re mature enough to handle it.’

Published on September 7, 2003 at 12:00 pm