Scarleteen

Hi, so I found this site through trying to find an answer through Google and I was wondering could I ask a strange question.

I'm currently working away from home in England at a boarders and sharing a flat with 3 guys and two girls.

One of the girls noticed one of the guys touching her underwear and it's now freaked us all out, we're concerned about pregnancy/infection.

He if was too use our underwear for masturbation and have semen/ejaculate on them and then we used them without knowing would there be a risk that one of us could get pregnant or catch a sexually transmitted disease from this?

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, it's just there's been no answer available anywhere else

Hi Sarah,

You can read all about what does (and does not) pose a risk of STIs and pregnancy here: Can I Get Pregnant, or Get or Pass On an STI From That? .

When you say this roommate was touching your other roommate's underwear, do you mean he was doing something like going through her stuff or taking her underwear? Because if so it sounds like a conversation about privacy may be in order.

So what I have described isn't on that list so even if there was semen on our underwear there would be no risk for us yea?


He was going my friends underwear drawer and she said it seemed like he was going to take a pair, to be honest we're a bit scared to say to him about it

Or is our situation in the semen and vaginal fluid sharing section??

You're correct that if something isn't on the list, then it doesn't pose a risk.

Is this roommate someone you generally feel comfortable around and it's only this situation that you feel afraid to speak to him about? Or is he someone who often makes you or the other women in the apartment nervous?

Could you explain how this situation couldn't be described as semen and vaginal fluid sharing?


To be honest, no
We've been here about 2 months and haven't been comfortable at all, he doesn't speak to us or interact the way the other guys do and now this has happened we're even more concerned

Fluid sharing means direct (as in no barriers), immediate contact between fluids, which only happens with actual sexual contact. Really though, I'm going to ask that we not keep focusing on the pregnancy risk (or rather non-risk) of a hypothetical situation and instead focus on the situation with your roommate.

How is your relationship with the other guys in your apartment? I ask because having them as back-up when you or the woman who's stuff was gone through ask him about it might be helpful. And do you and the other women have the ability to lock the doors to your rooms while your out?

think it's just because we're genuinely scared of pregnancy or Sti from him if he is doing more but thank you for clarifying why it's not a risk!

The other guys are great, we've got on with them from the beginning, but the other guy doesn't even get along with the boys which is worrying, we don't have locks on the doors only the bathroom which we all share, I suppose we could ask the landlord for locks but I worry that could create a lot of questions that could lead to confrontation

I've just let the girls read this, can we please just get a confirmation that we don't need to worry about pregnancy or STI's?

One of the girls thinks that her stuff has been moved about in her underwear drawer today and it's concerning us all

Got it. One smaller option if you can't get locks on the doors is to put locks on your drawers (if possible). As uncomfortable as it might be, the roommate whose underwear he was going through (with back up from the rest of you if that helps) is going to have to talk to him about it. It may help to do this while the other guys are home or in the room as well if that would make her (and you) feel safer (sometimes dudes behave better if there are other dudes watching). The reason for this conversation is so that she can let him know that she saw him and that it wasn't okay to go through her stuff, and also so that if he does something like this again or you end up having to talk to someone like a landlord about his actions you can say that you've already tried talking to him. Hopefully all he'll need is one call-out to knock off whatever he was doing.

got it? So we don't need to worry?


I'm going to speak to the other guys tonight and let them know what has been going on, we possibly might try the small locks first of all to see what he does if that happens

So the other girl I live with found some odd marks on her underwear and confronted him which did not go well and there was a lot of shouting from him

But should we be concerned with pregnancy like what if she hadn't realised there was something on the underwear and put them on

As Sam said above, we need to focus on the part of your question about your roommate who's violating people's privacy and disturbing your things, not on your worries about pregnancy risk; we are no longer discussing pregnancy risk scenarios in our direct services as you can read here (that page also links to all of our resources and tools you can use to assess your situation).

Is there someone like a landlord or (if your roommate works at the same place you do) employer you can talk to about your roommate's behavior? If he's responding with anger and shouting when you confront him about his behavior, I worry about this being a safety issue for the rest of you.