This article appeared in the Boston Herald this morning and addressed an interesting move by Tufts University to curtail the practice of “sexiling” or engaging in intimate acts in the presence of a roommate.
One would hope that an individual’s common sense would prevent them from having sex in front of a reluctant other but it appears that common sense may be lacking at Tufts resulting in regulation effectively forbidding the practice.
One student had this to say about the new rule:
“If you are uncomfortable with your roommate’s activity, you should talk to them,” sophomore Christina Simonetti, 19, said.
I don’t know about your experience but I didn’t always have the opportunity until after the fact to address this issue. My experience was usually arriving home after class one evening to find my door locked (I went to a small private college where doors were seldomly locked) and some sort of indicator on the door that meant my roommate was preoccupied with someone else. This left me to hang out down the hall or retreat to the library to ‘wait it out’ when all I really wanted to do was curl up in my bed with my studies and a mug of hot chocolate.
Thoughts from the readers?
My usual practice was to talk about issues like this either before moving in with a roommate or just after (freshman year). I had three standard roommate rules in college, which my roomies (6 over four years, two three person rooms) had no problem with and served us well.
1. No alcohol in the room. -My roomies were always underage, though I wasn’t senior year (but I don’t drink), but this rule worked out really well. Anybody was free to come home drunk if they insisted, though they were expected to finish vomiting before they came in and were responsible for their own cleanup.
2. I am an un-bribe-able roommate, and so are you. -No pranks in the room, at least not from outsiders. Also, no secrets let out. My roomies loved this rule, as several of our friends were pranksters.
3. No kicking fellow roomies out of the room. You want privacy, you leave. -This rules out sexiling, as not allowing roomies to enter was also covered. It also meant that we couldn’t guilt each other into leaving to have private conversations in the room. Saved a lot of melodrama.