No Longer Sexiled: Universities Grapple with Sex in Dorms

I just graduated from a university which, for religious reasons, officially banned students from having sex entirely. No, it didn't stop anyone from having sex in their rooms (or in the shower, for that matter), nor were people regularly called out for or punished for having sex. What it did do was shut down dialogue, entirely. If you had a serious problem with a roommate having sex while you were in the room (say, your roommate and his girlfriend tried to have sex at 3 AM while you were asleep because they were completely plastered, and then your roommate put his used condoms in your garbage can), you really had little recourse unless you were so mad at your roommate that you wanted him expelled.

In a non-college context, forcing someone to witness a sex act or effectively punishing someone for their unwillingness to witness that act would be treated as sexual harassment.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:00 AM on January 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

It's a good start, and would have made living with my first year roommate a whole lot less embarrassing.

Now if they'd also add a rule that prohibited people from having sex in the bathroom during prime morning showering times, and everyone in our suite might not have hated her.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:02 AM on January 8, 2010

You can't legislate good taste.
posted by stevil at 7:06 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

The only solution is low-cost (possibly government-subsidized) love hotels and bathhouses on American campuses. Imagine - going to 'Plato's Retreat' and bumping into the guy who's actually teaching you about Plato!
posted by eatyourcellphone at 7:10 AM on January 8, 2010

Ugh. This just means there will be more couples masturbating each other in the back rows of the theater in Davis Sq.
posted by jock@law at 7:14 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure my college instituted an official "kneck-tie on the door knob" policy back in the 60's.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:17 AM on January 8, 2010

kneck? What the hell is a kneck? Time for coffe, but first:

I don't want to get into it, but a friend of mine got in trouble for it.

Maybe if your friend hadn't wanted to get into it so much he wouldn't have gotten into so much trouble!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:21 AM on January 8, 2010

coffee. see?
posted by Pollomacho at 7:21 AM on January 8, 2010

You could just ask your roommate to "go to sleep."
posted by four panels at 7:31 AM on January 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

On Seinfeld, the cabdriver was calling Elaine rich or overprivileged or something, and Elaine said, "Hey! I went to Tufts! I had to settle!" When I visited my friend there (years and years ago, so it might be different), her dormitory smelled like a vomitorium. Prestigious American universities are less admirable places in reality than we used to imagine back in our high schools in India.
posted by anniecat at 7:33 AM on January 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Some enterprising young person is going to make a killing selling ready-to-hang-on-the-doorknob neckties.

AKA socks.
posted by jckll at 7:34 AM on January 8, 2010

This rule would have made fall semester, soph. year a lot less interesting.

15 men in 15 weeks, the ones that I was there for. (I was seeing a guy at the time, so spent some nights not-in-my-own-room.)

Of particular note, the lanky blond from the virgin (hur hur) islands, who lost his firmness of purpose when I woke up (she had the squeaky bed) and lit a cigarette. He lost points when, an hour later, he asked me to leave so that they could resume. (I did leave. It's not like I couldn't hear them down the hall... she was a screamer.)

Also the delightful brown-haired fellow whose name might have been Mike who had absolutely darling bikini tiger-striped underwear. Simpson said, "Oh, those are so cute!" and then she woke me up so that he could model them for me, too. They were cute.

Oh, and how could I forget the weekend of the one-armed bandit (watching him tie his shoes was entertaining), who showed up with a case of Beck's and displayed truly impressive stamina.

Penn State, 427 Bigler Hall, roomate's name was Simpson. Good times!
posted by which_chick at 7:37 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

HEADLINE: Dean of Tufts University just figured out what was going on in that Bret Easton Ellis novel
posted by shakespeherian at 7:44 AM on January 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yeah, they could solve this problem by not forcing adults to live in a room together. It's pretty uncivilized, you know? People here have single rooms, but I could hear my flatmate fucking away the night, and that was pretty annoying. If I had to share a room with that, I would have killed her.
posted by Sova at 7:45 AM on January 8, 2010

"no, i don't mind at all - let me just set up this webcam so everyone can see you"
posted by pyramid termite at 7:50 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not clear if it's still okay to masturbate while your roommate feigns sleep and watches you through mostly-closed eyes.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:51 AM on January 8, 2010 [9 favorites]

He transferred schools after our freshmen year and has spent the rest of his life living in Asia.

because there's no other reason a sane, un-traumatized american would want to do an awful, self-destructive thing like living in asia
posted by pyramid termite at 7:52 AM on January 8, 2010

My daughter just became roommates with her boyfriend. Problem solved.
posted by bitslayer at 8:00 AM on January 8, 2010

This policy makes me wonder what Tufts's housing policy is. A lot of schools have an abundance of dorms, and in order to recoup on the investment, require students to live in them for anywhere from 1-4 years. Dorms where a single is unlikely to exist beyond 1 or 2 per floor for RAs.

Of course roommates should be courteous and keep the conversation open, but if you're forced to live with a stranger, your sex life shouldn't be under that strangers' control.
posted by explosion at 8:01 AM on January 8, 2010

Why don't they just start a dating service for the sexiles?
posted by ob at 8:02 AM on January 8, 2010

In hindsight, I miss spending Friday nights sleeping on the lounge couch.
posted by spamguy at 8:06 AM on January 8, 2010

This is why I got a single room after the first week of first year.
posted by jscalzi at 8:06 AM on January 8, 2010

...if you're forced to live with a stranger, your sex life shouldn't be ~~under~~ in that strangers' ~~control~~ presence.

FTFY
posted by RussHy at 8:08 AM on January 8, 2010

Sova: "Yeah, they could solve this problem by not forcing adults to live in a room together. It's pretty uncivilized, you know?"

Wait you go to a college where most of the students are adults? I'm pretty sure many 2 and 4 year college graduates are still not adults after they leave.
posted by MrBobaFett at 8:14 AM on January 8, 2010

mccarty.tim: Was it? I attended TCNJ last year, and we were never informed of that rule. Several unpleasant nights where the sounds of the girl next door shrieking made it hard to fall asleep. I always wondered what the roommate thought; perhaps they'd waited to start until after she was asleep.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:24 AM on January 8, 2010

ha. i solved this problem with my roommate my freshman year with a tennis ball.
posted by lester at 8:25 AM on January 8, 2010

Me and girlfriend: this is some sexy makeout time under the covers and in the dark! whoo! boobies!
roommate walks in and sits at computer: type type type type
Me and girlfriend: ...
roommate: ...
[two minutes pass]
roommate: should i leave?
Me and girlfriend: (muffled, under covers) yes
roommate: exit stage left
[scene]
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:25 AM on January 8, 2010 [7 favorites]

...if you're forced to live with a stranger, your sex life shouldn't be under in that strangers' control presence.

FTFY

Fuck that shit. You didn't "fix it" for anyone. If you're a student and you want to get the education, you pretty much have to abide by the shitty living arrangements that they put upon you. So now you're just not allowed to have a sex life if you have a stubborn shut-in of a roomie?

Yes, there are certainly people who will trample all over any arrangements and essentially sexile roomies constantly. However, there are also roomies who are shut-ins, never go out, and are unwilling to compromise at all. There's a middle ground to be had, but this policy refutes any middle ground, and cedes all power distinctly to stubborn, unwilling-to-negotiate roomies.

This is all because sexual culture in America is so fucking backwards. Any other activity, whether it's listening to music, playing video games, or watching a sports game on TV is equally disruptive to a living situation. If your roomie was playing GTA at 2 in the morning, yeah, I'd call that harassment, but you couldn't tell your roomie that they're not ever allowed to play video games or watch the TV while you're there.
posted by explosion at 8:30 AM on January 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

The problem is that this sort of thing can make one evil. very, very evil.

My freshman year I worked in the campus radio station and had a roommate who had a different girl every weekend. I'd come back on a Friday or Saturday night from something (they had a dance in the gym some weekends, or I had classwork to do in the computer lab (yes, I'm that old)) and find a note on the door, or a sock, or a tie, and I'd go find somewhere to sleep. (A friend's room, the dorm couch, the physical therapy lab...)

By mid-November, I'd had it. I took my sound-activated tape recorder, put it under a pillowcase, and put it on my bed, then left. I came back the next morning to find myself with an hour of sloppy teenage screwing, and then I went to the radio station and put it on the air.

I got into a huge amount of trouble with the administration, lost my radio privledges for the rest of the semester, and had to sleep in the PT lab for a week due to being worried for my life, but the message was gotten and, once he decided I shouldn't die, we worked out a plan for, as I put it, "mutual alternating inconveniences". Which, basically, meant that if he picked up a campus girl, he'd go to her room instead of ours every other week, and give me notice if he intended to do such a thing. (Interestingly, he took up regularly with a girl the next weekend, and her roommate came to my room to bitch about it, and said roommate and I ended up being good friends, to the point that when my roommate and her roommate were in my room I would go there, and when they were in her room she came over and crashed in my room.)

But yeah, if he'd been banging her while I was there, I would have been pretty pissed off about it.
posted by mephron at 8:32 AM on January 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

We had our fair share of 'screamers' in our dorm.

(Ohio U forces you to live on campus the first 2 years, I managed to skate out after 3 quarters thanks to bringing in a bunch of credits and going to study abroad the last quarter of technically-my-sophomore-year).

The very second I was able to move out I left and moved in with all guys.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:34 AM on January 8, 2010

If your roomie was playing GTA at 2 in the morning, yeah, I'd call that harassment, but you couldn't tell your roomie that they're not ever allowed to play video games or watch the TV while you're there.

Maybe I'm just a huge prude or something, but it seems to me like there's possibly a difference between video games and sex. Video games can be harassing to roommates in some instances, like played too loudly or too late at night. But it'd be fine otherwise. I don't really see any situation where having sex while your roommate is present will be good for anybody. Unless they're a voyeur, and you're exhibitionists, in which case, hey, go for it.

But what do I know, I never even lived in on-campus housing. (You'd have to pay me to live in Jester. *shudder*)
posted by kmz at 8:41 AM on January 8, 2010

The rule here kind of highlights just how people need to talk to each other and establish some sort of compromise for these things instead of just doing whatever you want and hoping the other person doesn't mind or something. This applies to a number of situations, such as whoever mentioned loud 2am videogames, loud music when it's finals week, and others.

I do think that this is a good idea, since it should theoretically get people to talk and work something out, and since the room is a person's home, there should be ground rules of this sort. When we grow up and move into places with roommates (as some of us do), we expect ground rules and courtesy from each other in many areas, most times including things like loud or disruptive sex.

So for those who think this is a bad idea, given the above, why should it be any different for college students? Would you approve of someone just coming into your home to have sex and basically you either have to put up with it or leave, no matter what you might've been doing? Because the horny roommate certainly didn't respect you enough to care.

Dialogue is the key, really.

The very second I was able to move out I left and moved in with all guys.

Who were....celibate?
posted by cmgonzalez at 8:46 AM on January 8, 2010

Quidditch society takes off at university, dorm sex is a misnomer.
posted by robot at 8:50 AM on January 8, 2010

The very second I was able to move out I left and moved in with all guys.

Who were....celibate?

If they ever snuck girls in, I sure as hell didn't see or hear it. Compared to being able to hear one particular girl down in another WING of our dorm, it was heavenly. Seriously. Ok, you're loud, we're impressed, now cut it out.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:54 AM on January 8, 2010

My Sophomore year I lived in drafty, creaky West Hall at Tufts. (They closed down Bush Hall over the summer so we got a nice upgrade!)

The old walls were so flimsy that our bunk beds would sway when the lass next door entertained visitors, and we actaully smelled cigarette smoke when they were done. One day she locked out her guest in the hallway in the all-together, and everyone on the floor howled with laughter as he begged for readmittance...and then asked to at least have his pants.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:57 AM on January 8, 2010

This is all because sexual culture in America is so fucking backwards.

I knew that was coming. Apparently, everwhere else in the world, people have 3-ways in the middle of the street and no one blinks.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:05 AM on January 8, 2010 [9 favorites]

Wait, does this mean they just barred having sex with your roommate?

No, you can have sex with your roommate anywhere except in the room. It's what the Germans call "Nicht sexxenspiel in der zimmer."
posted by Mister_A at 9:06 AM on January 8, 2010

And yes, this is a totally reasonable rule by the way.
posted by Mister_A at 9:07 AM on January 8, 2010

When I was teaching at a university, had a young hippie prof who got called before the dean because a female student complained that the teacher had thrown her out of her own dorm room so he could have sex with her freshman room mate. The prof defended himself by stating that the student lied. He had asked her to leave so he could have sex. He had not thrown her out.
posted by Postroad at 9:21 AM on January 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

I would just like to say that I am very, very grateful that so far my husband's college roommate has not shown up in this thread.

I also have to say that this doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me; what I feel like this means is that if someone complains, then it gives the RA or whomever a chance to tell the roommate to cut it out. I don't think this means that it will or should be a huge deal, but I think it makes "dude, seriously, not cool" official and means that if a roommate has an issue with his or her roommate having sex around them there is official recourse instead of just, "Yeah, that sucks, but what're you going to do?" and you can tell them to stop. If your roommate's not going to complain then whatever, but if someone is made uncomfortable by this behavior (which I think is not ludicrously unreasonable) then I think it's nice that they have some recourse.

Robot's link shows up when I hover over it as "Tufts Students Bring Harry Pot".
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:33 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hmm. I must have been doing it wrong. I spent my freshman year in the dorms waiting for the time when my roommate would finally have sex with one of the many young ladies who would stay over in his bed. It would have been a hoot, as far as I was concerned.

I guess I don't see the need for a specific rule about this. Aren't there usually systems in place for dealing with any type of friction that comes up between roommates?
posted by barrett caulk at 9:33 AM on January 8, 2010

any type of friction that comes up between roommates?

Can't you take this seriously, Barrett?

/storms off
posted by Mister_A at 9:41 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

They should ban the roommate that isn't having sex from the dorm. What's he doing there? Why doesn't he have the decency to leave for an hour? Freaking pervert.
posted by clarknova at 9:45 AM on January 8, 2010

During my ill-fated dorm life (I was only there 3 months), my roommate asked me not to smoke in the room, a reasonable request of course. But she thought nothing of having loud sex in the middle of the night with her greasy boyfriend while I was trying to sleep. I finally told her that if I had to smoke in the lounge, she could go have sex in the lounge. Needless to say, she didn't see the logic in my argument.
posted by amyms at 9:52 AM on January 8, 2010

My university had this rule where the doors of your dorm room should be kept open if a person of the opposite sex was in your room.

And so they remained open all the time, even when the neighbour invited two fine women over.
posted by the cydonian at 9:53 AM on January 8, 2010

I'm glad I had a relatively docile dorm experience.
posted by Think_Long at 9:58 AM on January 8, 2010

Well, as long as Mister_A is out for a while . . . .

/hangs tie on Metafilter's doorknob.
posted by barrett caulk at 9:59 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

At William & Mary it was called getting SPOON-ed. Start Pursuing Other Occupancy Now. A spoon on the doorknob was the clue to the SPOON-ed roommate.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 10:05 AM on January 8, 2010

Seems like common courtesy.
posted by gyc at 10:19 AM on January 8, 2010

All I'm getting out of this is a lot of regret about the lack of sex I had in college.
posted by keep_evolving at 10:27 AM on January 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I see it as a courtesy issue too. Courtesy evaporates in the presence of hormones and beer, so it helps to have a policy.
posted by RussHy at 10:28 AM on January 8, 2010

1. This is old news. I remember because no one would shut up about it at my job for like a week a few months ago.
2. As a Tufts alum, I'm sorry to say I've been on both sides of this rule. It's a common sense/courtesy thing, but when you're in a double or forced triple and you and your boyfriend haven't been alone for weeks and you THINK his roommate's probably asleep, things move into a nasty shameful grey area.
3. Tufts ResLife is literally the worst entity I've ever had to work with. I was social head of an alternative on-campus house, so I had to deal with them routinely (registering parties, etc), and these people are both vindictive and incompetent. Tufts bureaucracy is the saddest thing ever.
posted by oinopaponton at 10:49 AM on January 8, 2010

I could never get my roommate to have sex while I was in the room.
posted by Eideteker at 10:52 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

It might have changed in the last 7 years, but we were encouraged to do roommate contracts that said upfront what you were and were not comfortable with, when you liked to sleep, all that stuff. And generally, I can't remember a single rule about living in the dorms other than "don't piss off your roommate," which since she's still my friend all these years down the road, even though I did commonly get laid in our room, I guess we did okay agreeing like adults about sharing our space.

Rules are for children. Dialogue is for adults. Tufts should have a policy, certainly, but legislating behavior like this is ridiculous.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:00 AM on January 8, 2010

I solved this problem by sleeping with 2/3 of my college roommates. But I'm sure if I suggest that any of the rest of you do that, it would be seen as pushing some "homosexual agenda."
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:01 AM on January 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

I love my off campus apartment. I love it so much.
posted by NoraReed at 11:17 AM on January 8, 2010

Medieval Maven has it right on. Dialogue between roommates is the most important factor. The rest of the rules and crap is waste of bureaucratic time, as it will have little to no effect on college students.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:38 AM on January 8, 2010

I don't really see it as legislating behavior as much as it forces that dialogue that everyone is talking about to happen.

It means roommates have to actually talk to each other and work out some system for sharing the room, giving them each alone time in it, rather than one person thinking they're being sneaky by getting it on at night and the other person lying there not sure whether to pretend to be asleep or what, because it's kind of awkward. That latter situation is what some people seem to do, presumably because they don't want to just sit down and work out a system like adults.

All it does is set a very minimal standard for decency that people can build on top of.

My freshman roommate and I used a whiteboard, which at the time were ubiquitous on everyone's door, to signal to the other person that the room was, er, "occupied." A little more subtle than a sock/coathanger on the doorknob, but the same idea. It always surprised me that some people didn't work out similar schemes, and instead just tried to sneak it past their roommate... that strikes me as the cowardly / problematic way to do things.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:55 AM on January 8, 2010

i suppose that means having sex with your roommate is right out...
posted by przxqgl at 12:00 PM on January 8, 2010

I love my off campus apartment. I love it so much.

It all depends on the crowd. Dorms seemed pretty benign compared to the constant sex I was exposed to once outside. You could almost smell the liberation.
posted by PBR at 12:13 PM on January 8, 2010

Just think, 200 years ago most of us would be living in situations where we were forced to sleep while our parents fucked. You got to love modernity.
posted by afu at 12:26 PM on January 8, 2010

Just think, 200 years ago most of us would be living in situations where we were forced to sleep while our parents fucked. You got to love modernity.

I read this comment, and read the title of the next thread in my recent activity queue: “Finger’ Lickin Awkward”. It was an interesting juxtaposition.
posted by Think_Long at 12:40 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I lived in residence where most of us had singles. Never had to deal with a roommate sharing the same sleeping space as me. Beautiful system. Could stay up as late as I wanted, play games, cram all night, get back from building snowmen in the yard all frozen at 3 am, or sleep in until 3 pm and not bother anybody. Also sexytime, and not bother anyone. It was great. More single room residences for everyone!
posted by sandraregina at 12:56 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

What if the roommate likes to watch?
posted by rodgerd at 1:11 PM on January 8, 2010

I also loved my off-campus apartment and the ability it conferred to have uhm... extra-curricular activities. But it totally eliminated the curse of roommate sex and all the amusing passive-aggressive warfare that made college so enjoyable. You know, if your roommate's one night sexcapade and concomitant rutting noises and fuck fumes annoyed you, the next night he was liable to find a condom in his bed half filled with jizz-like handsoap. (To my knowledge, no one ever unties the codom and sniffs it.) Nor can you leave fun notes.

Ah, those were the days.
posted by Hylas at 1:19 PM on January 8, 2010

ha. i solved this problem with my roommate my freshman year with a tennis ball.

Am I the only one pondering this? Did everyone else get it? If so, could someone 'splain?
posted by qldaddy at 1:22 PM on January 8, 2010

her dormitory smelled like a vomitorium

You do know a vomitorium isn't actually a room for vomiting in, but rather a means of public passage to and from an amphitheatre's seats, right?

/pedant
posted by Sparx at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

To all my former fellow residents of Hayden (and occasionally Goddard), let me just take a moment to tender my most humble apologies.

your (probably non)friend,

the 7th floor screamer
posted by elizardbits at 1:48 PM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wait ... This happens? Really? I thought this only happened in Hilarious Teen Comedies™.
posted by alby at 1:53 PM on January 8, 2010

ha. i solved this problem with my roommate my freshman year with a tennis ball.

Probably threw a tennis ball at the roommate everytime they started up? Like training a dog.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 1:55 PM on January 8, 2010

... uh, not that I train dogs by throwing things at them. just my roommates.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 2:00 PM on January 8, 2010

it seems to me like there's possibly a difference between video games and sex.

I'd prefer the sex, because it won't last more than ten or twenty minutes (longer if you count the foreplay, I guess), whereas videogames go on all fucking night, complete with flashing lights and crappy music.

Just think, 200 years ago most of us would be living in situations where we were forced to sleep while our parents fucked. You got to love modernity.

There's a hysterical scene in the documentary Surfwise, about the wacky Paskowitz family, nine kids and two countercultural parents living in a tiny RV, where all the kids complain about having to listen from a foot away to their parents getting it on, loudly, every single night.
posted by Forktine at 5:15 PM on January 8, 2010

... uh, not that I train dogs by throwing things at them. just my roommates.

Throw enough roommates and your dogs will eventually get the idea.
posted by Forktine at 5:16 PM on January 8, 2010

"My university had this rule where the doors of your dorm room should be kept open if a person of the opposite sex was in your room."

My university had this policy too and I can't figure out if it was intended to give gays and lesbians a free ride or if the policy setters were unable to acknowledge the existence of such students either because of head asploding or lack of imagination.
posted by Mitheral at 5:21 PM on January 8, 2010

"I will never forget the look on my roommate's face the next morning," Daley said. "I could see that he felt his privacy had been violated ... He transferred schools after our freshmen year and has spent the rest of his life living in Asia. I am not saying this experience is what caused him to do this. Just saying.

"Just saying". Lol.
posted by delmoi at 5:41 PM on January 8, 2010

I'm back! Hey what's this thing on the door?

Ohhhhh...
posted by Mister_A at 6:24 PM on January 8, 2010

I told my vile soph roomie that she and her pimply boytoy could go to his room. Had she not been such a horrible person, I might have left them alone.

Loved living off campus, didn't so much love my roomies' Loud Sex with Banging Headboard when boyfriend came to visit. But at least I could go in the living room and drown the noise with TV.

Husband likes to tell of his old bachelor digs, when his roomies brother and wife stayed with them a few nights and slept on the couch. And had sex loudly. To the point that roomie came downstairs and threw a can of tuna at them and shouted QUIT HAVING SEX GODDAMIT.

I guess the only lesson to be learned is that sex is like cigars; everyone present should either be participating or not.
posted by emjaybee at 6:47 PM on January 8, 2010

No Longer Sexiled: Universities Grapple with Sex in Dorms January 8, 2010 6:37 AM Subscribe

No Longer Sexiled: Universities Grapple with Sex in Dorms
January 8, 2010 6:37 AM Subscribe