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THURSDAY, APRIL 9,1964 NIGHT EDITOR: ANDREW ORLIN
THE SEX DILEMMA, PART I:
Premarital Sex on
Today's Campus:
The Fraternity: Private Club
Or University Organization?
REGENT SORENSON is absolutely right.
In a characteristically forthright and
conscientious statement, he recently im-
plored fraternity and sorority leaders to
cut the system's ties with the University.
His solution not only resolves the prob-
lem of racial discrimination in University-
associated organizations, it promises to
re-orient the affiliate system toward its
original-and really worthwhile-reason
for existing.
Pare away, for a moment, the Greek
letters, the pins, the ceremonies and the
other superficialities, and you have the
essence of the fraternity: a group of
people who want to live together. If it
ceases to be this, it is nothing but a fancy
residence hall.
CAMPAIGNERS against "bias clauses" in
Greek organizations, in working to-
ward -the humanitarian goal of racial
equality, have lost sight of the human
importance of free association. All of
us to some extent need people we can
feel close to, with whom we can commu-
nicate and feel intimate. And the selec-
tion of such friends, a very personal mat-
iter, inevitably will be swayed by all
the irrationalities and prejudices each of
us holds. But in an impersonal place such
as the University, we'd be lost without
such close relationships. Just as the "in-
dependent" prizes his right to pick his
apartment-mates (generally by criteria
even more capricious than the fraterni-
ty's), the fraternity member sees any reg-
ulations on membership selection as un-
dercutting the whole system.
All of which is fine-until the affili-
ate tries to have his cake and eat it too.
UNSATISFIED with merely being a
large, private living unit, the affiliate
chapter demands a status enjoyed by no
other private housing: recognition as a
University organization. Yet its demand
is lopsided. It wants the benefits of Uni-
versity association without the responsi-
bilities.
I see no way to justify this. The fra-
ternity should have to choose: either be a
private club or be an open University or-
ganization. The answer to "Which one?"
cannot be "Both."
Of the two alternatives, the former is
infinitely more worthwhile. If, as frater-
nities constantly claim, and as it should
be, the fraternity's basic purpose really is
brotherhood, the latter alternative is ir-
relevant. It's hard to see how a seat on
SGC and an office in the SAB binds real
friends any closer together. If, on the
other hand, the fraternity really would
fall apart without these outside props,
can it, with a straight face, really claim
that its foundation is "brotherhood?"
THUSSETTING the affiliate system out
on its own, as Regent Sorenson advo-
cates, would be the real acid test of its
value. It would force the system to sur-
vive on its real merits-not on the false
front of snobbish glamor that has so far
been its lifeblood.
As with any change from an entrenched
status quo to a more just system, there
will be numerous obstacles to surmount.
For example, the sorority system now
stands as the major escape from the dor-
mitory for women prohibited from liv-
ing in private housing by University rules.
Such women are allowed to move into sor-
orities only because they are University
organizations. So the transition to more
lenient residence rules-to giving junior
and sophomores apartment permission--
must be speeded up and occur simultan-
eously with the abandonment of sorority
recognition.
ANOTHER PROBLEM is the likely op-
position from fraternity nationals,
whose leaders remember the days when
fraternities were privileged elites and no
one (except outsiders, who were just
jealous) protested the fact. But if-as
they would unanimously claim - their
dedication is to the fraternity existing
today, rather than to their archaic nos-
talgia, they should act to lead this change
before someone does it for them.
Regent Sorenson deserves applause,
first, merely for speaking out at a Uni-
versity whose leaders seldom have the
guts to advocate anything more specifie
than "educational excellence." More im-
portant, he has shown the University a
way out of the discrimination thicket-
and has proposed a sounder and more
legitimate foundation on which the fra-
ternity system may re-establish itself.
-KENNETH WINTER
Acting Managing Editor
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first
in a four-part series on the causes,
characteristics, consequences and
future of the sex dilemma on the
college campus today.
By JEFFREY GOODMAN
THE MEDIAN female will allow
sexual intercourse with en-
gagement, according to at least
one sample on sexual attitudes at
the University.
And the median male is on the
borderline between allowing inter-
course with engagement and with
affection only, according to statis-
tics compiled by Prof. Robert O.
Blood of the sociology department.
Prof. Blood's sample is by his
own admission probably biased,
since it is taken in his course in
"Marriage and Family Relations
in American Society." A better in-
dication might be the 1953 Kinsey
report on "Sexual Behavior in the
Human Female" or any of a num-
ber of others examining actual
premarital sexual practice.
* * *
WITH MINOR variations, all
show that at the very least, 25
per cent of college females have
had sexual intercourse before they
graduate and between 40 and 50
per cent by the time of their first
marriage.
Interviews with University men
and women, cited by Gael Greene,
ex-University journalist, in her
recent book "Sex and the College
Girl," put the former figure be-
tween 50 and 80 per cent. For
males more scientific studies put
the incidence of premarital ex-
perience closer to 70 per cent.
* * *
WHATEVER the current figures
are on actual premarital coitus-
all data reflect, of course, only
reported activity and few of them
from beyond the middle 50's-
there can be no doubt that it is on
the upswing and has been since
the 1920's at the latest.
The trend has stimulated in-
numerable studies, evaluations,
exhortations, worries and forecasts
among adults, which in turn have
stimulated equally fervent .de-
fenses of freedom among youth.
It is a significant trend, a mani-
festation of larger and more gen-
eral social forces in our time, hav-
ing far-reaching social and psy-
chological implications for mental
health, the question of individual
freedom, marital happiness, fam-
ily -stability and the whole moral
tenor of society.
* * *
JUST WHAT DOES it all mean?
What kinds of forces are impelling
this trend? What practices and
attitudes characterize this liberal-
ization? What are its effects, pres-
ent and future? What do evidence
and intuition tell us about the
desirability of the present situa-
tion and of possible changes for
the future?
Many of these questions are an-
swered in statistical data; many
other answers are more a matter
of individual feelings and impres-
sions. The discussion that follows
will be a mixture of both. Some
of the ideas have been or can be
tested; others are personal evalu-
ations.
The series will concentrate pri-
marily on females, for the primary
reason that male attitudes and
practices seem to be far less in
question. One assumption is that
to the extent that the double
standard still flourishes, society is
much less worried about its men
than its women, who have tradi-
tionally been responsible for ab-
stinence.
This assumption in turn is based
on the fact that in general males
are far more willing and far less
troubled by sex than women. On
the average, if a man finds a
woman who is willing, who will
take proper precautions, for whom
he has at least some feeling and
who he ,believes will not be ad-
versely affected by the experience,
he will go ahead.
* * *
A FABULOUS wealth of empiri-
cal information exists on sexual
practices and attitudes-on the
incidence of premarital inter-
course, whom it is with, subject
evaluations after the act, tech-
niques, correlations with age, edu-
cation, religion and social class
and effects upon engagement and
marriage.
A good deal of this evidence is
from Kinsey, and some will claim
that it is therefore invalid. But
despite all the controversy-main-
ly based on sampling techniques-
over the Kinsey figures, a good.
many experts are willing to ac-
cept them as at least a good ap-
proximation. In any case, there
have been no other surveys which
approached Kinsey's in compre-
sensiveness or size. And even if his
figures are too high, they are at
least 10 years old, which may well
make them even more realistic
today.
* * *
BEHIND ALL of the empirical
evidence, however, one fact seems
to stand out boldly: sex for the
college student is less and less a
moralistic matter. If anything, it
is increasinginly a matter of emo-
tional preferences, which are
moral preferences only in that
they are based on perceptions of
desirable kinds of interpersonal
relations. Such a humanistic basis
is to be distinguished froth 'a
moralistic one which looks to a
traditional code handed to the
individual and accepted by him on
faith.
This aspect of the trend is a
direct function of the tremendous
expansion in modern times of the
collective and individual mind
into vast new realms of thought,
doubt and consideration. Our age
is one of skepticism and question-
ing, and if we are not yet dis-
believers in the modes of thinking
that we have inherited then we
are at least a-believers.
* * *
SCIENCE, worldwide communi-
cation, greater literacy, political
and sociological involvement with
new peoples and the chaotic un-
predictability with which modern
life seems to confront us all nur-
ture this critical expansion of the
mind. Old answers to old questions
either fall by the wayside or must
be reinterpreted by each genera-
tion.
Not only with respect to sex but
in virtually all areas, man has
pushed his mind deeper into more
areas of his life than ever before.
The theme is doubt, and the re-
sult is unavoidably a vigorous at-
tempt to be free of inherited pat-
terns.
And the inherited pattern that
has suffered as much as any is,
unthinking abstinence from sexual
intercourse before marriage, as
well as a tendency to pass judg-
ment on others who might violate
the moral prescription.
* * *.
OTHER FORCES are more pe-
culiarly urban - industrial-Ameri-
can, having to do with the break-
up of integrative social institu-
tions. Thus the present era is
seeing fewer and fewer people able
to find meaningful relations with
their family, church, school, work
and peer groups. To the sociologist
this alienation is a function of size
itself, of impersonalization, of a
growing automation-in its widest
sense-of many phases of life and
of multiplying demands on the in-
dividual for time, energy and
knowledge.
At the same time that mass
society puts the individual more
on his own, the rapid chariges
which characterizes the age sep-
arate whole generations from each
other. The socialization of the
home remains- but is more and
more challenged by the re-ac-
culturation' of individuals into the
sub-civilization of their peers.
Eventually, both segments end up
speaking different languages, un-
able to communicate even their
similarities.
* * *
AND EVEN without such socie-
tal change, college has always
meant the final separation of
child and parent, the time when
the young adult takes stock of
what he believes and of the in-
adequacy or incorrectness of those
beliefs with respect to his designs
and environment.
And of course the bomb must
The Tragedy in Cleveland
THE CIVIL RIGHTS situation has come
to a ridiculous pass when matters de-
generate to the situation which arose
Tuesday in the great city of Cleveland.
. There, a Presbyterian minister was
crushed to death when a tractor backed
over him. He was lying on the ground in
the tractor's path.
The minister was a participant in a
civil rights demonstration at the site of
a construction project in Cleveland, and
the protest included, among other tactics,
assuming a prone position in the path of
construction equipment, an attempt-and
a clearly illegal one-to obstruct the pro-
gress of the job.
In this case, the young minister lay on
the ground, unseen by the tractor opera-
tor, who, in spite of illegal demonstra-
tions, had an obligation to continue with
his job. The driver unknowingly backed
his machine over the poor man, and the
demonstrators nearly murdered him in
their understandable rage. It was only
police intervention that saved his life.
MY COMPASSION is with the young
minister and his cause, and yet, at the
risk of seeming indescribably cruel and
bigoted to those who do not wish to un-
derstand, I can only feel that he got, trag-
ically and unintentionally, just what he
asked for.
He deliberately has made life a hell on
earth for the tragic driver of that trac-
tor-a man whom he did not know and
upon whom he had no right to heap
suffering and anguish. The young min-
ister is dead, but his unwilling assassin
must live for years and years with the
spectre of his deed over his head.
3 iRAR tTAD ( 'OT n rt othat nnnr
both sides will only be satisfied when the
other is exterminated.
There is no sense in it. This is not the
Congo or Angola or Communist China.
No matter how grave our disputes we
supposedly do not settle them by killing
each other, and no matter how great our
cause we certainly are not justified in
ruining the lives of innocent bystanders.
I can only agree with Sen. John Stennis
of Mississippi who seeks a halt to the
Senate's civil rights debate until the
street violence subsides. Any group who
seek their rights, which justly they should
have, certainly must not be allowed to
ruin the lives of others in the process.
Until civil rights advocates demonstrate
they understand and respect the rights of
all people - like the tractor driver in
CSleveland-I can see no hurry to enact
the legislation they seek so violently.
THE VIOLENCE must be stopped, by
whatever means is necessary. In Cleve-
land, the organizers of the demonstration
should be prosecuted as willing accessor-
ies to murder or manslaughter. In Birm-
ingham, the federal courts must step in
and justly prosecute the church bombers.
For violence never really settled or ac-
complished anything, least of all peace-
ful co-existence, which is what the Ne-
groes want.
IT IS QUITE ALL RIGHT for the segre-
gationists and the integrationists to
abuse, harass and even kill each other.
Collectively and individually they are
asking for it. They must certainly be pre-
pared to take the consequences.
But the millions of Negroes and whites
in this country who do not look upon civil
rights as a burning issue in their lives
must be allowed to exist in peace.
'LETTERS':
Other Side
Of Boycott
To the Editor:
THE RECENT problems that
have plagued the Interquad-
rangle Council have arisen through
the complaints of its members
from East Quad. Certainly there
are two sides to every discussion,
and we are interested in present-
ing some of the facts that the
East Quad representatives have
neglected to mention.
Mr. Koza and Mr. Steinitz have
vehemently asserted that Mr.
Eadie, the president of Interquad-
rangle Council, and several of the
voting members of the council
wish to censor literature distribu-
tion to the residents of the quad-
rangle system. We would like to
point out some things that East
Quad has failed to mention that
snow that there is in effect no
censorship at all.
One is that the IQC Newsletter
which goes to every resident of the
quadrangle system will print any-
thing submitted to it without re-
vision or change, and further-
more, if this is not enough, house
presidents have distributed and
still do distribute literature to
their respective constituents with-
out mailbox use.
Another interesting point is that
East Quad Council voted against
a recent motion to allow un-
restric d literature distribution to
all house and quadrangle presi-
dents through the mailboxes.
EAST QUAD has contended that
the president of IQC has misused
and misailocated funds for the
purchase of pizzas and a type-
writer. In fact, however, the en-
tire council was aware that money
was to be spent for a pizza break
on this one occasion, \and no ob-
jections were raised at that time.
The break came after four hours
of a six hour meeting, and the
money, $5.86, came from a fund
established for such purposes. The
typewriter was purchased with the
knowledge of council members
when both IQC typewriters became
unusable. A typewriter was needed,
and the cost of the new machine
was nearly equal to the cost of re-
pairing the better of the two
broken ones.
East Quadrangle has issued a
statement to SGC that IQC has
done nothing about the laundry
problem and asked SGC to take
action. (An interesting side light
is that East Quad, by their own
request, has no laundry service.)
The point is that IQC has been
working on this issue. This is in-
dicated by Mr. Leonard A. Schaadt,
business manager of residence
halls, in the following statement:
"Acknowledging the fact that fra-
ternities and sororities are pres-
ently receiving lower rates than
residence halls for laundry serv-
ices and with the information that
IQC has provided me, I will ne-
gotiate with the laundries for
lower rates in residence halls for
next semester's contracts."
, * k
IQC IS providing many more
services for its constituents, in-
cluding chess and bridge tourna-
A
POTENTIAL CANDIDATE SPURNED:
Rockefeller Wins Cool Detroit Reception
By ROBERT SELWA
Daily Guest Writer
DETROIT-The rally for Presi-
dential hopeful Nelson Rocke-
feller here Monday was, in a word,
uninspiring.
For some reason, the Republican
who has the most to offer in
combined terms of energy, ini-
tiative, experience, knowledge,
vigor, drive and folksiness just is
not catching on with Republicans.
The polls show lessening support
in spite of continuous effort. The
people show lessening enthusiasm
despite Rockfiefeller's unfaltering
enthusiasm. The Rockefeller cam-
naien ha: thorough organization
door than to this Presidential fair.
What was supposed to he a rally
had a large band, several indi-
vidual entertainers, a folk singing
group and countless cute Rocke-
feller girls. Neither this para-
phernalia nor Rockefeller's well
delivered speech got anyone work-
ed up.
* * *
THE PROGRAM began at 7:50
p.m. with an entertainer who told
political jokes to an audience
whose best response was mild
chuckling. The group of folksing-
ers invited the audience to join
in a sing-along and they didn't. Al
Navarro's band either sat reserved
listened quietly and attentively to
the Governor's speech; no one
chatted while he talked-but then,
hardly anyone was chatting before
that anyway.
THE SPEECH did not include
anything that Rockefeller had not
said before; like most campaign
speeches it was a collection:of the
candidate's favorite themes, facts,
opinions and phrases. The speech
covered, usually only in general
terms, the role of the. Republican.
Party, civil rights, job opportunity
and atheistic Communism. Rocke-
feller spoke emphatically, extem-
poraneously, looking intently at
The only applause was moderately
loud clapping that lasted for about
ten seconds after the speech was
over.
Rockefeller left the stage quickly
during the ten seconds = of clap-
ping and the folksingers came out
again. Most of the people sat
back down and listened to these
singers. Significantly, there was
hardly anyone discussing anything.
The speech and the appearance
had stirred few tongues.
SOME PEOPLE went backstage
after the speech and surrounded
Rockefeller, trailing along with
him as he signed, autographs and
i
: .