Forget Houston — girls, we have a problem! I have learned from several reliable sources that the dorms are infested with lonely losers bearing high-powered telescopes — a bad combination.

Let’s not get discouraged, though. We can get these perverts yet! The time has come to ruin all of their fun.

Remember the drug campaign “Just Say No?” Well, I have a new campaign, this time against peeping toms. The slogan is, “Just Close Your Curtains.”

Some of you might think that only the really stupid would not close their curtains, but it is pretty easy to forget when you’re eight floors up, and all you want is a quick change. It is easy to forget to close your curtains.

Occasionally I forget, but luckily my window faces the cross country field.

But what about the girls from small farm towns that have about eight trustworthy people in them? They probably aren’t afraid to forget once in a while and change their clothes in front of a picture window across from a frat house, expecting that any boy who saw them would be gentleman enough to turn his head like back in Mayberry. Wake up, Laura Ingalls, you’re in the jungle now, baby!

There are occasions when not shutting your curtains can be excused. But every time you forget, it could be that one instance that keeps some pathetic horndog glued to his binoculars, prolonging the practice of peeping.

We can no longer afford to forget! “Just Close Your Curtains!” Memorize it, write it on the wall, tattoo it to your freakin’ forehead … Just do it!

It sounds funny, but this is no joke. This has been going on for years, and it is not just a few nerds too cheap to pay for the premium channels anymore. These perverts are professionals. They use high-quality optics, and everybody is getting in on the act.

It isn’t just five or six voyeurs — it’s entire floors peeping in unison. It is like an extracurricular circle jerk.

I was shocked when I found out who was participating. Guys I thought of as nice were taking part in it.

This should not be as surprising as it seems, though. Especially when considering the guy-to-girl ratio. When all is said and done, a lot of guys are left all by themselves. I guess after awhile the Playboys get old and porno loses its luster. What else is a horny guy to do?

Well, loneliness is no excuse. Instead of peeping, maybe guys could do something else to occupy their time. One thing that can keep a guy busy for hours is a Playstation. Just run out and buy one, or ask Santa for one at Christmastime instead of that state-of-the-art, high-powered telescope with the night vision and built-in 44 ounce Slurpee-holder on the side.

What if scoping is not enough? This is exactly how sociopaths get started, you know. One day you are sneaking a peek across the quad. The next day you’re living in the steam tunnels like the “Phantom of the Opera” and drilling holes in shower walls. Eventually the only way you can satisfy your deviant nature is with break-ins. How can we defend ourselves against something like that?

Maybe this sounds extreme. But I might not be too far off.

I thought that in this day and age, men were more mature. That they would no longer treat women like sex objects, at least not like they did in the past. I guess I was wrong.

I couldn’t help but wonder what makes a guy do this. I decided to ask one of the many perverts I recently uncovered. He told me, “If they are going to leave their curtains open, then they deserve it.”

They deserve it? Just because a girl leaves her curtains open, she deserves to have her privacy violated? What a sensitive ’90s man.

The simple fact is that no one deserves to be spied on while they are changing. I do not think that many guys realize how terrible this really is — or maybe they just don’t want to.

It takes a real sicko to go through all of the trouble of looking into every room in a building for one naked girl, and it takes a really sick floor to make a group activity out of it.

Women must stick together. Let’s not give them an excuse for peeping. Just Close Your Curtains!

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Jessica Bittner is a freshman in journalism and mass communication from Council Bluffs.