I just find it so telling that so many of the CR members seem to assume that getting together in a mixed group AUTOMATICALLY leads to sin. I think first of all, that some people’s minds are too troubled by the fear that our kids are so poorly brought up that they have absolutely no way to go but to SIN. That says a lot about how confident we are that we have brought them up properly, Yeshivah education and our own teachings.
Second, I think that if our children are old enough to get married or date altogether, they are old enough to exhibit a little self-control, which they seem to show quite well on their shidduch dates. A date is a date. If the boy and girl are emesdig frum menschen, they will act properly wherever they are. OTHERWISE, they might be phonies and hypocrites, who can only be trusted when they are on a halachic leash. The true eved Hashem is one who learns to controls his taivahs in spite of himself, not one who needs to become a “nazir” in order to have self-control.
I trust my adult children to behave with derech eretz and halachic propriety, because in all circumstances to date, whether in one-gender or mixed-gender events, they have ALWAYS shown me that they are trustworthy. I am saddened that so many appear to have no faith at all in their young people. Maybe that is because the young people might feel like kids being let loose in a candy store for the first time. These are just observations on my part, whether or not you might agree (and I am sure many of you will STRONGLY disagree, but it does not make me wrong, necessarily). In any case, I express my own feelings, obviously, based on my own extremely subjective observations of my own teenage years and those of my children and my friends’ children. I mean no disrespect to anyone here.