Don’t make your roommate feel like you are waiting for her to leave all the time so you can have sex with your sorta boyfriend. Very, very rude treatment. If he drives over, do it in his car. If he wants to stay overnight on campus, ask male friends if he can crash there. Or pool your money with him for a cheap hotel. If your roommate is leaving anyway, then have him over. Honestly… you sound like a pretty inconsiderate roommate in the making. (And like a woman willing to alienate a female “friend” for the sake of a guy-- but that is a whole different thread).
After freshman year, maybe you can get your own room in suite style housing or something. But this year you live in a double with someone else who has equal access to the room at all times, and has the right to feel comfortable in her own space.
As I surmised earlier in this thread, your roommate objects on religious grounds. And since she says no sex in the room at any time, she’s made her stance pretty clear.
At this point, there’s no ambiguity or possibility for change unless the roommate does an exceedingly unusual 180 which goes against her religious values. Only options left are:
Find alternate locations for sexual relationship like your FWB's home, car, etc.
Get a hotel.
Forgo having sex altogether.
And getting the RA to try “mediating” this isn’t likely to go well as it’s basically asking her to compromise her religious values/beliefs which will open up more cans of worms and will likely aggravate what’s likely an already tense situation.
And I am getting the feeling it’s a tense situation considering you’ve mentioned in your latest update that she was uncomfortable with the questionnaire section on topics related to sex and sexuality and her sudden need to make a phone call. That doesn’t surprise me at all considering what I’ve observed of relatives/acquaintances who came from socially conservative religious backgrounds*.
Mostly fundamentalist evangelical Christian relatives from extended family and some acquaintances during/after undergrad.
I can get your roommate not wanting you to have the guy sleep over when she is there. What I don’t get is her being able to dictate no sex in the room ever, even if she is not there and not exposed to it. It isn’t a convent.
Where do you draw the line on this kind of stuff restricting the rights of one roommate?What if you had a staunch animal rights activist and vegan as a roommate who didn’t want any meat products or leather in her room? Would that be okay?
For the folks who say you should be fine having sex when the roommate isn’t there I’ll just share an experience that happened on my floor when I was in college. One roommate was at class. The other roommate was in the room having sex. The first roommate’s class cancelled up on her arrival so she returned to her room (her home). Yup, she walked in on them…it was bad. I won’t share any more details.
I agree with @doschicos on this one. OP’s sex life isn’t her roommate’s business. If the roommate’s religion forbids masturbation, is OP expected to abide by that rule too? She apparently doesn’t share the same religious beliefs.
I’d suggest not sharing details about your personal life with your roommate. You can’t ask her to leave her home, which is what your room is, so you can have sex. But she can’t forbid you from having sex when she’s not there.
If your boyfriend can’t afford to get a hotel, he’ll probably have to drive home. Befriending someone so you can use them to provide free housing for your boyfriend isn’t very nice. They’re paying good money for their room, and their roommate may not want to house an additional person even temporarily. In the adult world, if you can’t arrange your sex life without the concerted effort of a group of people, you don’t get to have one. Making arrangements with a roommate is reasonable. Expecting some as yet unknown boy down the hall, and by extension his roommate, to make accommodations for you isn’t.
I’ve known some animal rights activists/vegans who are like as you’ve described.
Quite a few of them at my and a few other similar type colleges(I.e. Antioch) and over there, the campus culture would overwhelmingly be sympathetic with them on that score.
Moreover, there are some non-mainstream sects of some religions(i.e. a few Buddhist sects, Jainism, etc) who’d have serious issues having meat or animal products in their living space on religious/spiritual grounds as they’d view that as unhealthy spiritual pollution that one shouldn’t tolerate for the sake of their spiritual health and/or that they’d have serious issues with how animals are harmed/killed in the production of meat, leather, etc.
When it comes to limitations/issues due to one’s religious values coming into conflict, unless those values seek to forcibly convert/enslave/kill someone or have practices which violate US laws, asking someone to compromise would be considered a serious imposition which effectively infringes on their right to observe/be compliant with their personal religious beliefs…especially considering the issue here involves a shared living space.
As such, the OP’s current options are limited to what I’ve outlined in my previous comment and the future option of seeking a roommate change.
Incidentally, I had a few vegetarian friends and even though they had no issues with me eating meat in their presence when outside their homes, my parents were of the opinion that if they were vegetarians in a society where being an omnivore/carnivore is the mainstream, it is I who should suck it up and forgot eating meat to meet the absolute minimum of politeness or at least “not be a outright jerk” in that social context.
Would an RA know if any other roommates on the floor or in the building having a similar issue? If so would it be possible to swap earlier? This seems like such a hard issue to resolve that I’m surprised your school doesn’t do any roommate matching screening to avoid such a pitfall. Good luck at school.
I agree with @doschicos . I think it’s within the roommate’s rights to say no guys sleeping over, but it’s 50% your room and your time. You should be allowed to do what you like in your room, on your bed, when she isn’t there. Is she aware that people have had sex in your room before you were both there? Now she is being unreasonable. Her religious beliefs should NOT infringe on your right to do as you please in her absence. Sorry, but I would get the RA and the housing office involved before this becomes a very uncomfortable living situation.
What’s really going to make it uncomfortable is when she finds out OP has been going against her wishes behind her back. And I highly doubt she wouldn’t find out at some point.
OP, what is the process for changing rooms at your school? If it’s easy (at mine there’s a online room exchange board that seems to be pretty simple), you might just want to do that before any other head-butting occurs.
“What’s really going to make it uncomfortable is when she finds out OP has been going against her wishes behind her back.”
IMO, a roommate’s sex life (or lack thereof) isn’t anyone’s business as long as one isn’t subjected to it which one wouldn’t be if not in the room. People are free to live their own puritanical lives but they don’t have the right to enforce it on others.
Do you really think she’s going to accept being told “it’s none of your business” and everything’s going to be fine?
What’s more important, the ~experience~ of having sex in a dorm room (“I am really excited to try new things, like spending personal time in my dorm’s space”) or being able to live with this person peacefully?
I would like to object, for the second time in 7 pages, to the label of “puritanical” for the roommate. (Whose side of this issue, by the way, we’ll never hear.)
I would hope that we could disagree without resorting to namecalling.
Yeah, it might not be fine but that is a problem for both roommates. I just don’t like the posts that frame this as only and issue for/caused by the OP. It’s not. IMO, the roommates viewpoint on this is extreme. Guess what? People have sex. College students have sex. As stated by @austinmshauri, what if her views extend to masturbation? If the roommate is that concerned about the sexual activity of the person she is sharing a room with, she should have requested a single, a roommate who went into the arrangement okay with signing on to that, or she should attend a college which has policies about such things.
ETA: I don’t equate the use of puritanical to namecalling. Dictionary definition: “practicing or affecting strict religious or moral behavior”. Seems to fit, IMO, based on info provided. Of course, we are limited to the OP’s description of things, as we are with any post of this type. Advice is given based solely on what is offered here for details.
I think doschicos is right. The room is the home of both students. It’s fine to say “not when I’m in the room,” but it’s not fine to say never. The op can simply hang something on the outside of the doorknob when she is expecting to roommate to be gone a while in order to warn her if she comes back unexpectedly. That’s not unreasonable at reasonable times. It’s not reasonable all the time.
I don’t care whether the roommate’s stipulations are reasonable or not and neither should OP. You don’t convince people to let go of deeply held religious beliefs by saying they’re not reasonable.
Either you work with the beliefs or you find a roommate without them. Because even if you say no, I’m going to have sex in here no matter what you want, you still have to live with this person ALL YEAR.
I get your point @bodangles , but it seems that the OP is pretty strongly attached to the idea of having sex while in college. The roommate’s religious beliefs don’t trump the OP’s personal beliefs. You could equally argue that the roommate should work with the OP’s beliefs. Religious beliefs are not more important than personal beliefs. I am 100% not religious. What the Pope believes is not more important than what I believe. Yes, they need to respect each other’s beliefs, but one of them doesn’t get to dictate what the other does when they are not in the room together.
I personally do not think these two should be living together. I strongly encourage the OP to find a new living situation.
I am not sure why it would necessarily be the case the one roommate’s preferences/views would need to override the other roommate’s preferences/views when only one roommate is in the room. To me the bigger issue (than sex/no sex in the room) with respect to a roommate with that view is the inflexibility. Seems to me it will be a long year as a result. Though you could request a roommate change and find that to be worse.