‘Sexiling’ creates tension, awkward moments in dorms

The entire bunk bed shakes at about 3 or 4 o’clock every morning, waking up Ali.

“I skipped my first class at nine in the morning once because I was woken up four times in the middle of the night,” she said.

For the past five weeks, Ali, a freshman who asked to not be identified by her real name because of possible ramifications from Residential Programs and Services policies, said her roommate has allowed her boyfriend, a non-IU student, to live in their McNutt Quad room. Her roommate proceeds to wake her up each night by having sex in the bunk above her.

Junior Sadie Martens’ story is similar to Ali’s. As a freshman at IUPUI, Martens said she would be banned from her room for two-and-a-half hours every other Saturday so her roommate and her boyfriend could have the room to themselves.

“I would go do homework,” she said. “And if I forgot something and had to get it, she would get mad at me.”

This year Martens said she lives in a triple room where she has her own space to focus.

“She did it in the room I had to sleep in,” she said. “I thought it was thoroughly gross.”

“Sexiling,” the exiling of one roommate so the other can partake in sexual activity, has become a common term used by students across college campuses and has recently been banned at Tufts University.

Tufts’ guest policy states that students “may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room. Any sexual activity within your assigned room should not ever deprive your roommate(s) of privacy, study or sleep time.”

Laura Eads, assistant director at the Office of Student Ethics & Anti-Harassment Programs, said IU does not have a direct policy on “sexiling.”

However, IU’s 2009-10 Housing and Dining Contract Terms and Conditions states:
“Occupancy for more than four (4) consecutive nights more than once a semester by any other person, shall constitute a breach of this contract unless prior written consent is obtained from your residence manager.”

RPS tries to prevent such behavior with the Roommate Agreement contract that every student living in RPS housing is requested to complete.

Under section 3 of the agreement, “Privacy, Visitation, and Safety,” students are asked to answer the questions: “How do I feel about my roommate(s) being intimate with his/her significant other in the room? Does this need to change if I am in the room?” and “If visitors are bothering me, how will I tell them?”

The agreement asks students to “sit down together” to fill it out and informs students to discuss problems with their RA.

“Once you tell people how you feel, some people will take that into consideration,” Martens said. “If the other roommate is severely uncomfortable, RAs can deal with it.”

Eads said resident assistants would suggest roommates begin with mediation. If the issue becomes more severe, she said it could be taken through the campus judicial system.

Ali said she does not want to tattle on her roommate and hopes the boyfriend will leave before she has to say anything.

“Maybe people just want to be friends with their roommates,” she said. “That’s why I haven’t said anything. I want her to like me. But she doesn’t do her homework. I think she’ll fail out, so maybe I’ll have a single.”

If RPS had a policy on “sexiling,” Ali said she felt like the only people who would follow RPS rules in the first place would tell their RAs.

“Most RAs don’t know what’s going on now,” she said. “There are so many rules in the RPS book, no one would know about it. No one actually reads the book.”

During junior Brittany VandenBossche’s freshman year, she said her roommate would bring her “sex partner” to their room in Collins LLC after a night out drinking.

“Our room was connected by a half wall,” she said. “She knew I was awake because I had a light on.”

Despite asking her roommate to stop, VandenBossche said her roommate continued to bring the guy back to their room.

“Eventually he came so drunk that he fell down the stairs and got arrested,” she said. “She realized he was a loser and stopped seeing him.”

VandenBossche said that in a way, she is glad her roommate did not kick her out because she had no place to go.

“It was inconsiderate and rude,” she said. “I don’t care how well you know your roommate.”