Parietals, Morals, Monro

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I see by the papers that the Dean is disturibed by the fact that undergraduates are having sexual relations with women in their rooms. Apparently, this is still considered immoral. I am not sure from the quoted statements whether the Dean's objections are to the fact that such relations occur or to the place in which they occur. If the former, he is unrealistic. Sexual urges are strong in young men and women between the ages of 16 and 21. In all human history neither legal nor religious authority has been successful in stopping late adolescents from using their genltalla, either naturally or unnaturally as the case may be. If the latter, he speaks as a landlord rather than a collegiate official with wisdom and insight into the conduct of young men and women. In our society the bedroom is the normal place for such relations to occur. Surely, the Dean would not put himself in the uneasy position of sanctioning sexual intercourse between undergraduates in automobiles, motels, and the like merely because they were off-campus and not within his jurisdiction.

In my youth as well as that of the current crop of undergraduates we were brought up to believe that sexual urges were normal and healthy, that there was nothing convert or shameful about them. We were further taught that sexual relations were natural and pleasureable. Puritanism and Victorianism in this area are as outmoded in the 1960's as they were in the 1940's. Indeed, historical research and socilogic study of peoples' mores in those eras has shown that official attitudes said one thing but human beings did other things, as they pleased.

In one of his lectures in anthropology, the late Professor Hotton accounted for the admixture of racial strains by saying that when two groups lived in propiquity they might have friendly relations, they might have cultural relations, but you could bet your bottom dollar that they were sure to have sexual relations.

Since leaving Cambridge in 1941 I have devoted myself to the study and practice of medicine with particular emphasis on gynecological and obstetrical pathology. It has been my experience that public officials tend to make a great deal of fuss about what is, after all, the exfoliation of a very modest amount of stratified, squamous epithellum. I trust that I am not so scleroic that I cannot side with hot-blooded undergradu ates on this issue. Each man and woman should be guided by his or her individual conscience, nothing more.  William B. Ober '41