The College attacked the sexuality of youth as psychiatrically and morally harmful. Officials cried that "trouble has arisen because what was once considered a pleasant privilege has now, for a growing number of students, come to be considered a license to use the College rooms for wild parties or for sexual intercourse," and they said that sexual intercourse, before college graduation, could be mentally harmful.

Dean Monro, enlisted the aid of University Health Services (UHS) psychiatrists in the fight for strict parietal rules. Carl A. L. Binger '40, Consultant in Psychiatry at the Harvard Health Service, conducted a study of Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates that supposedly revealed that students were having sexual relationships out of lustful whims and desires.

Binger and the Deans said they wanted to correct this attitude, and in a letter to The Crimson in the fall of 1963, Binger wrote, "what is important and valuable in a sexual relationship is not merely the excitement and pleasure but also its uniqueness and meaningfulness. This will not be achieved when it is indulged in as a show of athletic prowess in the male or as reassurance for his own faltering masculinity; nor in the female as a conventional compliance with what others are doing or again to prove her own attractiveness and let her little world know she has her man."

Both doctors and administrators stressed that stricter rules would benefit students, because sex before college graduation was thought to be harmful to the young adult's psyche.

But Monro said that the College was looking out for its own welfare as well. The Deans were anxious to avoid scandals similar to those the conflict would eventually produce.

Also, the Deans compared their role to that of hotel proprietors. Monro argued that the Houses were not individual apartments that allowed students to carry on as they wished. He said that as educational establishments the Houses could dictate moral behavior. "We are legitimately interested in their use," Monro said.

The deans argued that College officials, like hotel managers, helped uphold morality by preventing unmarried couples from sleeping in the same room.

But Radcliffe administrators were more tolerant about student sexuality. As Radcliffe President Mary Bunting told The Crimson, "of course, I don't go through the Houses on Saturday night, and I haven't been making a special point of talking to the girls on the subject, but Radcliffe College should not ask what everybody is doing every minute."

Bunting indicated that the new policy to tighten restrictions might be linked with current events. As an article stated, "she stressed, however, that much of the Harvard Dean's concern could have been touched off by the country-wide publicity that the problems of premairital sex have received in the past three years."

But reports of responses to the potential tightening of rules shows that students' attitudes toward sex and romance were incompatible with those of administrators.

Most students said they felt that it was absolutely none of the College's business what went on behind the bedroom doors. Monro told reporters that, "When we talked to the students we found a prevailing attitude that what went on in the rooms during social hours was none of the College's business."

One student told The Crimson, "some College officials think the current undergraduate attitude is "what the hell; the College authorities know we don't have girls in our rooms just to hold hands and do intellectual exercises, so they must approve of what we are doing."

Many students evaded the rules as well as they could--hiding women in the bathroom when tutors checked the rooms after the end of parietal hours for the day--and some organized protests against the proposed restrictions.

The Dunster House Committee was among the first to protest vehemently against the considered changes in rules. Along with Thomas Seymour '64, president of the Harvard Council of Undergraduate Affairs (HCUA), the House Committee proposed a study of sexual practices at Harvard and organized a group to conduct the study and consider working to abolish parietals altogether. John Purvis '64 of the Dunster House Committee said then that, "it would be unfortunate if the privilege of entertaining a date in a natural setting were taken away because of vague suspicions."

Though Purvis' attitude reflects only dismay at the tightening of rules, other students were more open about what was going on in bedrooms at the time. One student wrote a letter to the Crimson, saying "Well, it is true that men and women students like to be together and enjoy each other's company in a quiet and private place; it is also true that most Harvard and Radcliffe students, when they leave their colleges are no longer virgins; and it is finally true that many of the students have their first complete sexual experiences during Harvard's parietal hours."

News of the controversy and the apparent ineffectiveness of parietal rules spread onto the pages of national tabloids like the Record American. Wire services like the Associated Press and United Press International carried the stories, and papers similar to the National Enquirer sported headlines about the supposed salubrious and origiastic fests at the College, setting off a chain of rumors no doubt worse than the potentially scandalous situations College Deans had feared the year before.

Though Deans Watson and Monro stated vehemently that the tabloid scandal would in no way affect the considered changes in parietal rules, the conflict between students and officials continued to be an item of interest for the rest of the year.

By the time the class of 1964 graduated, parietal rules were still intact. But the year of scandal and controversy was not without some lasting effects. Parietal rules would continue, but not for long, and by 1970 students at Harvard and Radcliffe would have fought for and achieved complete rights to determine morality within their own rooms.