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Insulting Words

I am writing in regards to John Silber’s degrading and insulting letter to the editor on March 18. I can understand the school’s desire to keep out potentially dangerous strangers by demanding advance notice of overnight visitors. I also agree that students should not have to put up with being put in the position of a “voyeur” to their roommates’ sexual activities. However, does anyone really believe that the current Guest Policy is effective against this? A large number of people dating on this campus live in the same dorm building, and can engage in lovemaking, private or public, anytime they want. What is to say that students won’t sign in a lovemaking partner before the hours of 1 a.m. on weekdays and 2:30 a.m. on weekends? Is this policy really the most effective way to promote respect for one’s roommate? Is this the best way to keep people from making their sexual lives a “public performance”? No.

College is supposed to educate us for ‘real life’ and if your roommate is having sex with you in the room, then you need to talk to your roommate or RA and fix the problem. We need to learn how to confront and solve the issues and conflicts in our lives in order to be independent and functioning people. John Silber didn’t take mothers’ complaints of their daughters having to “entertain” their boyfriends in hotels seriously because he doesn’t feel “Boston University was in the business of providing weekend love nests for our students”. His language shows how little he thinks of the student population at BU. How dare he use the word “entertain,” “love nest” and “business” as if the female students wishing to spend time with their boyfriends are nothing more than prostitutes? Who is he to assume that it’s all about sex?

I have a boyfriend who lives four hours away and he can’t drive down here and be out by midnight. The only reason I want to have the privilege of him spending the night in my room is because it’s the only way I can see him. And contrary to what Mr. Silber thinks, I want to spend time with him, not because I want to “entertain” him, but because he is my best friend; the company that I most enjoy; the person that makes me laugh harder than anyone else. He is the one stimulates and inspires me in all areas of my life. For John Silber to reduce that to sex is insulting to me. What these mothers meant was that it is degrading for them, and for their daughters, to have to visit with their boyfriends in hotels, as if they were prostitutes, because they are NOT. “If students wish to be adults, they can arrange their trysting places on their own?” I want to know if John Silber has to see his wife, girlfriend or significant other at a hotel room? Does anyone permit him from seeing her in the privacy of his own home or bed? Of course not, adults are not treated that way.

Boston University does not treat their students as adults. Silber’s language and BU’s policies show outright that they don’t trust us to be responsible or make responsible decisions. If they want to teach us how to be adults, they need to trust us to make the right decisions and respect us enough to recognize that we have the mental capacity to act appropriately and solve our personal conflicts on our own.

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