Sleeping porch vs. Bedroom

[Erik P Conard]

If we had some girl who tried to shack in our house, we would
call her a "dirty leg" We had a housemother and it is tough for
me to fathom some female gettin' by her. It was not a fearful
situation at all, but we did respect the quiet hours, and some of
the guys who'd plank their girl were not too considerate as they
would want to spend hours with her. How quickly us oldsters forget. But there was still something to be said for discretion,
and remember, mom and dad are paying the bills in most cases.
There were posted hours in sorority houses and it'd have been
difficult to march in the dorm, sneak out, and return the next day,
and the housemother or resident supervisor were charged and expected to 'protect' the girls.
And, for us in the house, if we had the slightest hint that one of our guys was shacking with a girl in our house, we'd kick his ass
out...immediately. It is OUR house, not a brothel. Those manners
have apparently disappeared. And, there were simply some men
who'd study and did not appreciate other goings on. But today there does not seem to be a big stigma for having bastard kids
or kids out of wedlock...but I do not have to deal with that...LOL
This is no lecture...this is how it was...
I don't think I care to project further.

[aephi alum]

I don't think I would have been too happy with a sleeping-porch arrangement. I like it quiet when I'm trying to sleep. Suppose you have a sister/brother who snores, or is sick, or stumbles in drunk at 3am making noise and waking everyone up?

There is only one org at my school that I know of that has an arrangement where everyone sleeps in the same room. Everyone has a bed in the attic - women at one end, men at the other (this is a coed house). One person sleeps downstairs in a private bedroom with an alarm set for 5am. Everyone else specifies what time they want to be woken up, and it is this person's job to wake people up at their chosen times - so there are no alarm clocks in the attic. Being the person who woke everyone up was a house duty that rotated among the members... it was called "arousal". Each member also had an assigned room in the main part of the house (usually 3-4 people to a room, I think) where s/he could keep personal effects, study, spend time during the day, etc.

[Firehouse]

Sounds like some kind of cult. Not a fun way to go through college.

[Tom Earp]

Isnt it True, that one gets used to what the Norm is?

I am sure many good memories were and are had by all of us today!


Living conditions must Be shared to understand what it means.

[Erik P Conard]

one never came into the porch making noise as a fine could be
assessed by anyone to anybody, subject to appeal. The major
problem occurred when we gave up our rack to a visitor. Often a
TKE from another chapter could not seem to grasp our seriousness about a quiet porch. Seldom, but it happened, was a
visitor kicked out. There were fisticuffs with the drunks.
We really had a problem when unannounced pledge sneaks would appear; one weekend we had almost 200; our social calendar was drafted each semester, so unless we had advance
notice, hard feelings often occurred. But, say Warrensburg with
50 pledges or Maryville with 40 or Jonesboro with 60, or Missouri
Valley with 30 would appear at our doorstep, suppertime, a very
undeserved rep for lack of hospitality developed. The lesser or
smaller schools did not understand the rigid formality we had to
embrace so we were sometimes called snobs...but warm ones!
We borrowed Clyde Lovellette's rack from the Sigs; he was 6'10":and we had a 6'9" guy and two 6'7"s so we made up a
new three-decker. After one semester, the 6'9" one flunked out,
and we returned the big bed. Our porch was triple-decked. The
open window was for health reasons and I never heard of any
problems. However, grandma's quilts were commonplace! You went to the porch to sleep! Lights out, too.

[FAB*SpiceySpice]

I always wanted to live in a sorority house that had a sleeping porch and I have NO idea why, but Mizzou doesn't have them so that never happened.

I did have a boyfriend for awhile at a different school who had a sleeping porch in his fraternity house. You could not have PAID me money to sleep in that place...yuck. We always slept on the futon in his "bedroom" that he shared with two other guys that only held desks, the futon, and a TV whenever I went to visit. All of their beds in the sleeping porch had the shacker sheets hung up all around them, (which is what most guys in fraternities do here in houses for some privacy in rooms they share with 2-6 other guys)...but I cannot imagine any girl that would ever actually want to shack in the sleeping porch with all those dudes around...

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by Erik P Conard
Sleeping porches were more economical, quiet hours enforced,
and they were for sleeping, nothing else. Girls were never ever allowed to be above the first floor, and the gettin' laid in the house is one, but only one, thing that destroys morale. We felt
one either oughta get a motel or use the back seat, and that the
use of the house for sex was tantamount to a whore house. But
times have changed and the pill has hastened deflowering.

I didn't know a member of the South Dakota legislature posted here.

[SigKapCoug]

I go to Washington State and I love the sleeping porch.

My boyfriend is a PhiKap and he has a single room, so occasionally i sleep there. His house does have a pledge porch, but all older members have single rooms... i think a few people may have doubles.

[Sister Havana]

Most of the sorority houses at IU have some sort of cold dorm/warm dorm arrangement. I couldnt have handled it, but the women I know who lived in those houses loved it.

[GA-Beta]

UI student satisfactory after frat fall

Kandis Carper
Staff writer
April 2, 2006

A University of Idaho student who fell out of a third-floor fraternity house window remained in satisfactory condition Saturday at a Spokane hospital.

Gawain "Dewey" Neighbor, 21, of Boise, fell out of an open window on the sleeping porch at the Beta Theta Pi house, 727 Elm St. in Moscow, around 4:15 a.m. Friday, said Joni Kirk, UI spokeswoman.

Ken Henderson, house president of Beta Theta Pi, the largest fraternity house on the Moscow campus, said Neighbor suffered broken heels, ankles and a small fracture in his lower back and may undergo surgery either today or Monday.

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Henderson said Neighbor will not be back at school this semester.

"The doctor said … after a summer of recovery he should be able to come back. He's doing great. He's in high spirits. He has full movement," said Henderson.

He confirmed that Neighbor had been drinking at an area bar Thursday night.

Fraternities and sororities on the campus were dry, meaning no alcohol on school property because it was Greek Week and Vandal Friday.

"Every time high school seniors come up to visit, the campus goes dry. He was at a bar. He's 21. There was no alcohol on campus or in the house," said Henderson.

He said that there were six students sleeping in the 10-person sleeping porch. Two students heard moaning outside, and they found Neighbor on the ground. They took him to Grittman Medical Center in Moscow, where he was treated before being transported to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

"As far as the police are concerned and everyone else is concerned, it was a complete and utter accident," Henderson said.

A Moscow Police Department spokeswoman said that no information on the incident would be released until Monday.

Neighbor's bed was located right next to an open window, and he apparently was disoriented and got up on the wrong side of the bed, Henderson said.

University health codes require that a window be open at all times in the sleeping area.

"What we're dealing with right now is a way to secure those windows so it doesn't happen again," Henderson said. "And we hope that other fraternities will consider taking proactive measures (to make sure windows are secure) as well."

[KerriMarie]

My sorority house had sleeping porches... our bedrooms were pretty small, and a lot of girls wanted to live in the house, so the porches were necessary! A bedroom for two girls was really only big enough for one bed, two desks, two dressers - so the roomies would decide who slept in the room and who was on the porch.

I liked the porch because it was always cold, dark, and quiet - perfect for sleeping!

[ASUADPi]

Originally posted by flirt5721
At my campus there are no sleeping porches, but when I went to UofA for a sorority house tour it found out what a sleeping porch is. Not all the houses at UofA have sleeping porches but many did. It seem kind of weird to have a bunch of girls sleeping in the same room. I would think it would be kind of hard if you have a sister that snores load or something. I prefer having my own room.

Our chapter at UofA had a sleeping porch. The house only had (I do say had because the chapter closed May 05 and won't reopen until Fall 09) 17 rooms. 2 of the rooms housed 4 girls, the others housed 3. The president had her own room, with 1 roomate. So essentially only 55 girls could live in the house. The rooms had 1 bed (a day bed). Closets for each girl and a desk for each girl. That was it. The rooms were just that rooms. You slept on the sleeping porch. Although because of the sleeping porch sisters who didn't live in the house would claim a bed. So if they wanted to take a nap between classes or didn't want to go back to their dorm, whatever, they had a bed.

The sleeping porch wasn't actually that bad. Got a bit cold at night because it was on the 3rd floor. As for the snoring. I never heard anything and I'm the worlds lightest sleeper. I mean I usually need absolute silence to fall asleep. I really liked the sleeping porch. Because let's face it if you're tired, wanna go to bed, you could go to bed and not have to worry about sisters keeping you up because they need to get homework done. Plus with the porch being on the 3rd floor it was eerily quiet. The rooms (and showeres) were on the 2nd floor (still are) and everything else on the 1st. So people could be watching TV and you wouldn't hear it on the 3rd.

I'm not sure how many other houses down there have sleeping porches.


Now my opinion is based on my experiences. I never actually lived in the house. Stayed there plenty of times, didn't actually live there though.

[DeltaEtaKP]

I think it would be fun! I am trying to convince some of the girls on my hall to move 6 beds(which is 3 rooms worth) into one room, then having the other two rooms as a study room and a lounge.... I just think it would be fun!

[Erik P Conard]

A fraternity house or a sorority house is not a brothel, a whore
house, or a bar. People sleep, people study, people visit...all
without a vomitorium or sexual fanfare.
Is this so tough to understand? If you gotta have a house for sex
then rent one...not the fraternity house.
This might sound like preaching...it is.
And you dummies who think South Dakota or the hinterlands are
primitive ought to take a look at yourselves.
Yes, I would say the social graces and manners have been flushed in many cases. Will they return? Maybe, hope so.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by Erik P Conard
A fraternity house or a sorority house is not a brothel, a whore
house, or a bar. People sleep, people study, people visit...all
without a vomitorium or sexual fanfare.
Is this so tough to understand? If you gotta have a house for sex
then rent one...not the fraternity house.
This might sound like preaching...it is.
And you dummies who think South Dakota or the hinterlands are
primitive ought to take a look at yourselves.
Yes, I would say the social graces and manners have been flushed in many cases. Will they return? Maybe, hope so.

It must have been nice to have so much extra money when you were in college that you could afford to rent a sex house. Where did that come from?