Scarleteen

So I'm in a bit of a conundrum and I was wondering if anybody has some advice from being in similar situations.

I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for three years, and we're currently in our last year at university. Everything is going great, except for the fact that we very rarely have sex due to the fact that we both have roommates. I'm talking like, once a month a lot of the time. My boyfriend lives with his cousin, and he feels very uncomfortable about talking to him about sex. I live with my two best friends, both of whom are sexually inexperienced and single. We each have our own rooms in an apartment. So far, my boyfriend and I have been only having sex in the 'once in a blue moon' occasion that our roommates happen to be out of the apartment for an extended period of time, because we're both afraid of offending them or making them feel uncomfortable.

Obviously, this situation isn't ideal, and I'd like to be able to talk to my roommates about their comfort levels surrounding my sex life, but it doesn't seem fair since I'm the only one with a boyfriend. How do I go about having this awkward conversation?? Thanks!

I don’t think it’s unfair for you to have this conversation because you’re the only one currently dating. And in the event any of your housemates ever want to be, it’ll be great for them to already have protocols for all of you set up!

I think this is as potentially simple as asking to work out how any of you can get privacy in your place, whether that’s wanted for sex or for just dancing around in one’s underpants on a bad day. What are your shared agreements with privacy in general right now?

That's true. I think part of the problem is that we don't currently have a protocol about when we want privacy in the apartment. It's funny - because we had a long talk at the beginning of the year about other shared living agreements, but this never came up. The other part of the problem is that I feel guilty about asking for this privacy, like part of me doesn't want to be the kind of person who 'sexiles' their friends. Anyway, I guess that's a whole other can of worms. Thanks for your help, Heather. I will have a chat with them in the near future when we're setting up our cleaning schedule for the new term.

Again, I would consider that maybe for right now it's just you asking for privacy for this reason, but a) it might not always be, and b) people want privacy from housemates for all kinds of reasons, so working out how all of you can get it -- for any reason -- is likely to be of benefit to everyone.

One easy, non-loaded way to do this might be to just see about arranging scheduled time for each of you to have the place to yourselves for a few hours a couple times a month. Maybe that's for sex, but maybe it's just to have five minutes to yourself away from your freaking roommates, because you know how that can get, even when everyone is a good roommate. And anyone can always swap it out, or ask for a different time if need be.

That really helps actually, thank you!! You're right - phrasing it that way would be a lot less loaded a conversation. My friends and I are all musicians, too, so I'm sure they'd appreciate having some time alone to practice loudly a couple times a month, or dance around in their underpants haha! I'll bring it up with them this week, and maybe we can mark some times in our apartment's calendar. Thanks Heather. I really appreciate everything you and the rest of the Scarleteen staff do here.

Oh, for sure, for music practice alone! (I personally think of alone-time to practice instruments as one of my favorite luxuries.)

Happy to be of help.