Two’s company, three’s just awkward
By Roberta Wolfson
May 29, 2008 11:35 p.m.
One day during her freshman year, Yesenia Arellano walked into her dorm room to find her roommate with a guy, just about to have sex.
“He was lying on the bed and she was doing something with her shirt, taking it off or something. I told her, “˜Let me know when you’re done,’ and left,” said Arellano, a second-year biochemistry student.
But this wasn’t anything new for her. In fact, she regularly became a victim of “sexiling,” a casual term that describes kicking a roommate out of the room in order to hook up.
“This definitely happened more than once, usually during the beginning of the quarter when (my roommate) had more time,” Arellano said.
For students living away from home for the first time, college is an ideal time to engage in new activities, meet new people, and exchange sexual partners sometimes as often as they do new perspectives.
Sexiled on the Hill
Living in a culture without the restrictions of parent supervision, however, does not mean there are no rules.
In fact, when sexiling gets out of hand, the Office of Residential Life has a guest policy in place to minimize the amount of students left stranded out in the hallways, waiting until their roommates finish up inside the room.
This guest policy places limits on the number of nights that guests can stay in the residential halls in order to create a more comfortable living environment, said Dana Pysz, the resident director of Rieber Hall.
According to section A.8 of the on-campus housing regulations contract located on the ORL Web site, “Resident hosts are expected to be present with their guests at all times. Residents may accommodate overnight guests pending prior arrangements with their roommate(s). Guests are expected to make access arrangements at the Door Access Station and are limited to staying no more than four (4) nights per month.”
But students don’t always honor this agreement, and ORL often does not enforce the guest policy unless a serious transgression is brought to the office’s attention.
“We usually get complaints when a person has had a boyfriend or girlfriend over for an extended period of time and the roommate wants this to stop,” Pysz said.
Of the nearly 1,110 students that live in his building, Pysz said roughly two students per quarter approach him with a complaint about a roommate’s guest staying over, though many are able to work out their issues directly with their roommates.
When a student does reach the breaking point, the first step is for the resident assistant to try to work with students to alleviate the situation, Pysz said.
If the resident assistant is not able to solve the problem, the roommates are encouraged to speak to the resident director, who will try to mediate the disagreement, accommodate a request for a room switch, or enforce the guest policy by sanction, he said.
“In my five years here, I’ve never moved someone because of a sanction involving a roommate issue,” Pysz said. “They always switch of their own accord or are able to compromise through mediation.”
Over the course of a year, Pysz said he receives 30 to 40 room change requests, not all of which are necessarily related to roommate problems.
But less than half of these requests are granted because of the limited spaces available and the difficulty of accommodating specific requests.
Resources Beyond the Home
Perhaps because of the difficulty of changing rooms on the Hill, a good number of students turn to the Center for Women and Men in order to seek advice on how to deal with a sexile-happy roommate.
“We get a lot of questions from students whose roommates bring a boyfriend over and over and suddenly they are having sex on the other side of the room,” said Tina Oakland, the director for the Center for Women and Men. “It’s not an unusual topic to hear about.”
The center offers a variety of different workshops and counseling services that address this topic and provide students with the skills to communicate effectively with others, Oakland said.
These workshops include a series on assertive communication, a series on relationships and dating that coaches students on how to talk to partners about sex, and a series on conflict resolution.
But some students may still find the prospect of discussing sex with a roommate a daunting task. After all, it isn’t always easy to address the awkwardness of getting down and dirty while your roommate waits for the room to clear.
“The most important thing is to be direct and not embarrassed about setting healthy limits,” Oakland said. “If it makes you uncomfortable, deal with it early.”
“It’s really OK to start a conversation by saying, “˜Listen, this is very hard for me, this is awkward and I don’t usually talk about this kind of thing easily,'” she said.
The Greek Way
Some sorority houses attempt to minimize the rate of sexiling by implementing a “no boys allowed” policy on the second floor of the house.
One such sorority is Phi Sigma Rho, whose house on Hilgard Avenue has a policy requiring the house director to be informed 48 hours in advance if a boy is going to stay over and all the tenants in the house must approve of the arrangement.
“I think (the policy is in place) because … it’s basically a tradition type thing. In the past, it was inappropriate to have a boy over if you weren’t married,” said Jamie Wong, a second-year chemical engineering student and resident of the Phi Sigma Rho house.
Because of the policy, Wong sleeps seven nights a week at her boyfriend’s place, rather than bother with trying to get him authorized to stay with her.
“With no boys in the house it’s a lot harder for him to stay over, so I go over there,” Wong said. “It’s easier for me not to have to sneak my boyfriend around in my own house.”
As a result, she travels back and forth from USC, where her boyfriend lives, to spend her nights with him and her days at UCLA.
Wong keeps most of her possessions, including clothes, bedding and laptop, in her room at the Phi Sigma Rho house. When she travels to her boyfriend’s place, she brings just enough with her to hold her over for the night.
Wong said she did not mind the hassle of traveling back and forth. In fact, she is not the only Phi Sigma Rho house resident who resorts to such measures despite the inconvenience. Her two roommates also spend the majority of their nights at their boyfriends’ places, rather than attempt to bring their boyfriends to the house.
But Wong said some residents choose to risk sneaking their male partners upstairs, though she doubts there would be any severe punishment if they were caught.
“I really doubt that they would kick us out because the house isn’t filled to capacity and they need as many people as possible.”
The Etiquette of Sleeping Over
Despite the potential drama and complications of being “sexiled,” many students accept that having roommates invite guests over to spend the night is a regular part of college life.
“It’s definitely appropriate to have a guest over, so long as there are good intentions and he doesn’t come at 2 in the morning just to have sex,” Arellano said.
Wong described a variety of different ways that roommates can engage in so as to prevent miscommunication and confusion.
“I always texted my roommate. That was the easiest way,” Wong said. “But I’ve heard that some people put a tie on the door. Others stick their key in the slot where the key goes on the door. Those are the doors with the numbered key pads, so people can’t just walk in.”
For the most part, the rules of the game seem straightforward. Students who want to bring guests over should work out an arrangement with their roommates to make sure both parties are comfortable.
“I think it’s between the roommates to decide the number of times a boyfriend or girlfriend can stay over,” Wong said. “As long as the person isn’t having sex under the covers when you’re in the same room, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
