Talking about separation of the sexes

So I was having a chat with one of my fans about where I was going stay in Israel, and that happened to be at a random girls house whom I had never met- but had several good friends in common. The person I was chatting with comes from a more “frum” for lack of better term environment, and asked me if I had felt uncomfortable with staying at single girls houses. Of course not was my answer, I just never felt weird about staying at girls houses, the only problem with staying at women’s houses in my view, is not being able to walk around in your underwear and trying to find normal shampoo amidst a sea of hair care products and razors.

But it did get me thinking about separation of the sexes, you see contrary to what some of you may think- I grew up in the kind of home that felt it okay to have girls sleep over and visa versa- I never did have a girl sleep over until I was 20 years old or something, but still it wasn’t an issue. While my high school was the exact opposite, you couldn’t even talk to girls. In fact we were encouraged to look down and gaze away from Victoria’s Secret billboards- which we never did listen to.

I can remember having the “frum people against coed schools” argument versus the “how will they ever learn to talk to their wives” argument posed by the modern orthodox people, this was talked about at countless shabbos tables- with the same results. Happens to be that I don’t think it makes a huge difference, the can’t concentrate on studies argument posed by frummies who claim that girls distract you (I know they do because in college whenever a girl would sit down in front of me and have her thong sticking out of her little jeans I couldn’t concentrate) seems to go out the window with the fact that kids who go to coed schools almost always do better in school then the kids in single sex schools- thats of course usually based on the subject material.

This argument can go on all day- but basically I have no issues with staying at girls houses, in fact they make better hosts and you aren’t freaked out by their bathrooms and kitchens. SA special thank you to Rivkah Naditch and Chana Leaf for hooking me up with their couches in Nachlaot- it was very appreciated.

I expect some good discussion over this one.