<p>I knew people who would have welcomed this rule even back when I was in college. The more things change, the more they stay the same....</p>
<p>"Dorm rooms doubling as steamy love huts have Tufts University throwing cold water on sex on campus - at least when horny students let it all hang out in front of red-faced roommates.</p>
<p>You may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room, tuts Tufts 2009-10 guest policy, newly revised in response to student gripes about rambunctious roomies and their raunchy romps.</p>
<p>Tufts spokeswoman Kim Thurler told the Herald the 8,500-student school has fielded roughly a dozen complaints from chagrined scholars who expressed concerns that they were experiencing uncomfortable situations" with their roommates sex-tracurricular activities." Tufts</a> University bans nookie if roomie ‘is present’ - BostonHerald.com</p>
<p>Jeepers! It would never have occurred to me that anyone would have to pass a rule saying don’t have sex in front of your roommate. (Unless he or she is invited to participate and accepts, of course.)</p>
<p>Usually, I think that college sex today sounds an awful lot like the college sex of my youth, despite some vocabulary differences and a real shift in attitudes towards oral sex. But this story makes me feel that maybe something fundamental has changed, at least for some kids.</p>
<p>Having sex in front of your roommate . . . eeewwww! Having sex in front of your PARTNER’s roommate . . . double eewwww! And, lest we forget that it takes three to dance this particular tango, staying in the room while your roommate has sex also rates a big eeewwww! (Maybe THAT’s the change. Roommates are not accepting sexile without a fight.)</p>
<p>My cousin’s daughter at one of our state schools had this problem and no one would listen to her…the day she woke up to a used condom sliding down from the upper bunk, her parents got involved(freshman year) and reminded them her R&B was not paying for this…noise, sloppiness, etc., was in the realm, but not this. Somehow they found her another room. I thought they should have just said her roommate had to cut it out when she was around, but at least she had some peace…</p>
<p>“Usually, I think that college sex today sounds an awful lot like the college sex of my youth, despite some vocabulary differences and a real shift in attitudes towards oral sex. But this story makes me feel that maybe something fundamental has changed, at least for some kids.”</p>
<p>The same kind of things happened back in our days. You may have been fortunate enough not to have experienced it, but when I was in college, I knew people who did have roommates who were that discourteous.</p>
<p>S had the same thing happen with his freshman year roommate. </p>
<p>Frankly, I doubt that a college’s creating rules against such behavior will change the actions of the louts who do things like that.</p>
<p>If it every happens kill the mood with some commentary like someone previously suggested. My personal favorite is once things get heated do some nascar announcing. For example, also make sure to say this like a nascar announcer “And Lightening Rod is up and out of the starting gate, working his way around the competition, Rod slips right into a hole that just opened up from behind, he thrusts his way into another opening and is coming up coming up fast folks and it looks like…ah a Premature Finish folks as Lots of Shame slips right by him in the final few seconds.” one of them will be embarrased</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, I had this problem with my first roommate (even though boys weren’t supposed to spend the night in our dorm, her boyfriend would visit from another state and stay with us). At that point in my life, I didn’t have the inner fortitude to say anything (I think the first time he came to visit she asked if it was ok if he spent the night and I said yes, not thinking they’d actually have sex with me in the room). As soon as it was allowed, I changed rooms.</p>
<p>Sad that schools have to make rules about such things (you’d think it would be common sense) but by having a rule, the embarrassed roommates may feel they have some recourse when it happens.</p>
<p>I’m curious as to how they are going to enforce this. Does the offended party take a picture of the deed with their cell phone, grab a hallmate to see it happening for verification, or should you wake up your RA at 3:00 a.m. to witness it first hand? Barring any of those scenarios, it would be he said, she said…she said, or he said, she said…he said…just wondering.</p>
<p>Oh, from what I hear from my kids…it’s gotten MUCH worse. When I was in college (in the late 70s), kids who “had a relationship” would have sex, but the “friends with benefits” and “one night stands” were much more rare occurences among the regular college kids. I was in a sorority and I can’t recall ONE instance of a sister having a one night stand…that has all changed now…it’s commonplace now. </p>
<p>At my nephew’s college…one of the all-girls dorms is called “8 floors of _______” (fill in the blank with word that rhymes.)</p>
<p>"My cousin’s daughter at one of our state schools had this problem and no one would listen to her…the day she woke up to a used condom sliding down from the upper bunk, her parents got involved(freshman year) and reminded them her R&B was not paying for this…noise, sloppiness, etc., was in the realm, but not this. Somehow they found her another room. I thought they should have just said her roommate had to cut it out when she was around, but at least she had some peace… "</p>
<p>I’m waiting for one of the more enlightened among us to sniff “Well, I don’t see what the problem is…we should just be glad they were responsible enough to have SAFE sex.”</p>
<p>Can I just say that I am completely grossed out and I really don’t believe it’s that prevalent. Sure college kids have sex, but it takes a special kind of chutzpah to have sex with your roommate in the room.</p>
<p>One would wish that’s it not that prevalent but I think we’re kidding ourselves to think otherwise. I really think kids today have a much different attitude towards “hooking up” or whatever they call it. </p>
<p>Owlice, have to say that once again I love your suggestions!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Queen’s Mom, it IS prevalent. It happened to both my D and S as freshmen.</p>
<p>In the case of D, it was multiple times…seems her roommate was on the promiscuous side. She spoke to her about it, and was apologized to, but it did not change the behavior. She was very happy to leave the dorms after freshman year. With S, it was less a deliberate intrusion and more an accident of timing.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, they both informed me that it happened to many of their friends as well.</p>
<p>I think it’s fabulous that Tuft’s is taking a harder stance on this. I’ll be curious as to how, if at all, it will change behavior on that campus.</p>
Of course you can’t, and bless you for that. I’m certainly not going to recall any instances of MY friends having one-night stands, either, especially the women. That’s one of the things true friends are for – not reminding you of stuff that shouldn’t have happened.</p>
<p>As for the eight floors: I’ll bet anything that nickname is older than we are. And that it isn’t any more true now than it was back then.</p>
<p>The more I think about it (and having read the article), the more I think that the new thing may not be so much peoples’ willingness to have sex with their roommate present. It’s the decline in civility and accommodation that let us work out among ourselves when NOT to be in our rooms, and just how often it was appropriate to make a roommate absent himself. Sure, this caused a bunch of tension sometimes, but I don’t remember any open warfare over it, or people running to the administration to demand value on their room and board dollar. When Rodolfo and Mimi needed to be alone, the rest of the gang discreetly left to make art somewhere else, even if it was 2 am.</p>
<p>It sounds like what was happening at Tufts was a higher than normal (but still not overwhelming) number of situations where the roommates were not talking to each other, and engaging in a lot of strategic behavior. (“Well, I’m not leaving.” “Fine, don’t leave. Hope you get your jollies from it, creep.”)</p>
<p>I don’t think kids are that different today than when I was in college in the late 80s. Yes, kids experiment in college (as they should) but having sex with your roommate in the room is not a problem of sexual promiscuity, it is purely bad manners.</p>
<p>I don’t think it will make much difference at Tufts because of the problem of “enforcement”…it still requires the suffering roommate to “rat out” his roomie. That is a hard thing to do.</p>
<p>With so many laptops having “web cams” built in…what’s going to stop an annoyed roomie from recording the “event” while the amorous duo have no idea of what’s going on?</p>
<p>Legally, you can’t claim a “right to privacy” when you do things or say things in front of a third party (the victim roomie).</p>