Once upon a time, in a house belonging to your parents, you were free to have sex whenever your parents were downstairs, in the garden, at work, asleep or otherwise occupied. Nowadays you find yourself with a flatmate on either side, separated by a single wall.
These creatures are new to you, each with inexplicable habits. The flatmate to your left is nocturnal, the one to your right doesn’t leave his room during the day. No longer do you have a comfortable schedule for your fornications. Attempting to be polite and not keep anyone up at night seems like the logical option; yet being heard having sex at lunchtime risks a year-long reputation as a sex addict.
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I recently learnt that the walls in my university halls are definitely not as sound-proof as I believed them to be, when last week, a flat mate asked me: “Did you have fun before dinner? What about this morning?” Much to my horror, another retorted:”You must have had fun at 1am last night, right?”
There’s also the issue of space. Moving from a double bed in the middle of my bedroom wall to a less-than-single bed shoved in a corner has been a great loss. My new bed has a wooden headboard and a textured fabric board along it’s length which, when teamed with the lack of space, became my worst enemy – we’re talking carpet burns here.
However, all hope is not lost. We here at UoB have the added advantage of being at a Russell Group that prides itself on its architecture. If you have the benefit of being in a room with hardwood floors (as am I) you may be able to hire a mattress for guests. After one night sharing a single bed with my S.O. I put two mattresses on the floor. Not only did this give us the experience of a double bed and less elbowing each other in our sleep, it moved us away from the wall adjacent to my flat mate’s bed (I was starting to worry about her sleeping pattern) and we were free to be a little more adventurous.
Overall, us Freshers are living the sweet life. This is the exact time and place to be bolder and looser. Your flatmates are not your parents and they don’t care that you have a sex life; they just don’t want to be woken up by it. I actually got a “you go girl” from the flat regarding my louder moments, which I’m secretly pleased with.
Finally, it goes without saying that there is no subtlety in a 15-person flat. If you don’t want your flat mates to know who you’re sleeping with, I’d go back to their place.
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