I think if it’s a viable choice for housing (especially if it’s your only choice) and you are careful, there should be no problem living with a flatmate of the same sex. The commandment is “don’t have sex outside marriage”, not “don’t ever sleep in the same building as someone of the opposite sex”. Let’s not hedge the fence.

(P.S. has anyone in this discussion ever heard of asexuals? I am asexual and let me tell you, I could live in a house with 20 boys and never be tempted to lay a finger on one of them)

In the Uk all student flats and houses are shared gender. I am not talking shared dorms, they all have their own rooms but the ethos behind mixing the genders in this way is actually to stop rowdiness and silly behaviour which is more likely to happen in single gender households, especially male only house holds. There is clearly private accommodation if there is the money to pay for it. However if you check out the facts you will see that in the Uk the accommodation costs are way above anywhere else in Europe. Even married couples with two incomes often can’t afford it. There is also a deep recession with massive unemployment, the sort of jobs students used to take to see them through university have mostly gone. It is getting to where, as in the past only kids from well off parents can afford to go to University. It is a different country a different culture. It is quite common for young people to share mixed house holds, actually for safety from outside predators. The LDS church was surely born in the USA but it has made converts all over the world. Out respective cultures are not the same as in the USA, the attitudes also are different. We put our youth into mixed gender student accommodation because it is safer for them. I have several daughter and as many granddaughters who lived in shared accommodation at University because that was what was regarded as safer as well as being all we /they could afford. One church, but different countries, cultures have different attitudes. Different needs and options. So please come off your high horse .

I don’t buy the idea of economic necessity for a number of reasons:

1. I payed for my own apartment in college and lived without any roommates to pay the bill; that included going into some debt with school loans to cover the costs.

2. After I was married, my wife became pregnant while I was still a student, so it was only me paying those bills. Period. Once again, no economic necessity to live in an iffy living arrangement.

3. No university can force you live in their shared dorms. We live in a free society. I looked at the dorms when I went to school (and I attended a number of different universities and colleges), and you are always free to live off campus, live with your parents, etc. I hunted around for my apartment and I found one that fit with my budget.

Now I may be wrong here and there may, in fact, be a handful of universities that will force you to live in a co-ed living arrangement like you suggest. However, you DO have the choice NOT to attend, and NOT to invest a cent in any institution of learning that promotes that kind of living arrangement.

One other thing is, I WORKED, STUDIED HARD and SAVED MONEY before going to school. Plus, I had some scholarship money available during my time at the university because of my grades to help offset some of the costs. I also finished my studies later than some of the other students in my classes, but so what? I am not packing around any student debt because of it today.

I think a lot of young people these days want to go to the biggest and best university without thinking about the costs when they really need to have a financial plan before diving into one like Harvard that charges them like $30,000+ a year for tuition alone.

I have a sibling who racked up that kind of debt their first year in school, even with a full-tuition scholarship, and after realizing they couldn’t afford it, went and conned my parents into paying on their debt while they moved on to other things. This is foolishness and my parents were equally foolish to buy into the excuses instead of tell them to get to work and pay for things themselves.

Now you are right about one thing, you ARE 100% the guardian of your own morality. That is your God-given right to be so. Therefore, you should use that same agency with both wisdom and prudence.

On the other hand, know I will not follow the “trends” of others just because they say one thing or another. In the Bible it says this:

Joshua 24:15

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Everyone on the earth died in the flood during Noah’s life with the exception of eight people. Why? Because they refused to listen to good common sense. It’s called the Lord’s commandments.

Now know I’m not here trying to give a sermon saying “I’m better” than anyone else. I have plenty of my own faults and hopefully I am making some headway on them. What I am saying here, though, is this: the world lies. Certain groups of people try to make us “unbelieve” what we inherently know to be good and true. Don’t be fooled, because we can clearly see from the example of Noah’s time, the majority claiming whatever it was they were claiming in those days was wrong, and literally “dead wrong.”

some time economic necessity makes it the only choice for students. many University campuses are set up with mixed flats and there is no choice. My daughter spend 4 years at University in this situation and she told me no one she knew had sexual encounters in their accommodation whatever they may have done elsewhere. In terms of older people who want companionship not marriage, I think it is not fair to place restrictions on lonely people who don’t want a sexual relationship again . I think at 70 + we can be trusted to be guardians of our own morality – if we actually wanted a sexual relationship then marriage would be fine but we don’t want to go through the pretence of getting married just so it ‘ looks respectable ‘ .

While I agree this is becoming more and more common, I absolutely disagree with the “trend.” As an example,this type of behavior is going on all over Europe and has been for a while; they even have co-ed dressing rooms, school dorms, etc…

The problem with it is, sex becomes just sex for a lot of people, respect is lost between them, and they don’t want any responsibility. You go ask any single, handsome European guy in his 30s how many partners he’s had in his mere 30 or so years of life and I think it would probably astound you. You might ask the single women of the same age, because they are going that same route.

Just flat mates, you say? I had a conversation with an English acquaintance of mine some years back who said he upped and had a one night stand with a girl even though he had a girlfriend of his own. I know other people who have done the same. I’m sorry to say this, but it seems pretty obvious that loyalty and fidelity mean nothing to people who have no qualms acting this way.

Due to this blatant irresponsibility of men NOT being the kind of men women can rely on and trust to love them, women have begun to copy that same bad behavior and look at what we have: broken families, single moms, dead beat dads, and a host of other problems in society. In fact,
men love it when women act like they do, because then it almost guarantees them they can continue in their debauched ways without any fear of a woman actually wanting a relationship. Even worse, these days people glamorize this type of behavior. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are 4 billion+ people in our societies suffering due to someone’s selfish behavior in this way.

Now if people want to judge progress in our society by the version of iPhone they’re packing around or the freedom they enjoy because they’re not tied down to any one person of kids, that’s up to them. But as far as I’m concerned, progress in society is based on a few factors:

1. Stable families
2. Self-reliance
3. Peace (Country is not engaged in a
conflict with any country or other radical group)
4. Equal educational opportunity for all
5. Jobs with fair compensation

I put stable families at the top, because that particular one is connected to all the others, but it really doesn’t matter which order you put them in. Now compare “the world” in all its glory against all of those. I guarantee you can’t even get a 50% rating for any of those. In fact, I would say you’ll find it to be far less for most. This tells me we are getting a “failing grade.”

Now people can say “shacking up” or having a “platonic” relationship while living together is harmless, but I beg to differ. Some professors at various universities can also sound their horn and say it’s “okay” all they want, but you see, statistics are a funny thing. And the one thing they cannot deny is that the divorce rate is exponentially higher today than it was a mere 150 years ago when you think how long people have been here on the earth. Have a look:

1867 – 1879 – 3%
1880 – 1886 – 4%
1887 – 1890 – 5%
1891 – 1897 – 6%
1898 – 1900 – 7%
1901 – 1906 – 8%
1907 – 1910 – 9%
1914 – 1915 – 10%
1916 – 1925 – Between 10% to 15%
1925 – 1930 – 16%
1930 – 16%
1931 – 15%
1932 – 13%
1933 – 16%
1934 – 17%
1935 – 17%
1936 – 18%
1937 – 19%
1938 – 19%
1939 – 19%
1940 – 20%
1941 – 22%
1942 – 24%
1943 – 26%
1944 – 29%
1945 – 35%
1946 – 43%
1947 – 34%
1948 – 28%
1949 – 27%
1950 – 26%
1951 – 1953 – 25%
1954 – 24%
1953 – 25%
1954 – 24%
1955 – 1956 – 23%
1957 – 22%
1958 – 21%
1959 – 1963 – 22%
1964 – 24%
1965 – 1966 – 25%
1967 – 26%
1970: 33%
1975: 48%
1980: 52%
1985: 50%

Now I know some people will jump in to claim the divorce rate has gone down, which it has slightly. And because of it society is doing better, right? Wrong. That’s now because people just aren’t getting married, period. Singles now account for over half the adult population.

Now this is my advice to anyone who is even thinking about cohabiting: Don’t. And don’t add fuel to this fire that will engulf our entire society if we allow it.

I have known people who lived together platonic-ly. (is there no past tense for platonic?) Even believe them. won’t say it cannot be done, just that it is unwise and fraught with unnecessary problems.