What to do when the roomie's having sex

This is the story of the sexiled - those poor, lonely students cast away from the comforts of their room for a short time, maybe a night, maybe even longer, so that their roommates might enjoy, shall we say, a short study break. Yes, it happens to most of us at some point during our college years when we are either the victim or the perpetrator in the act of sexiling.

In case you've been living in a bubble during your time at school, to sexile is the act of kicking out one's roommate so as to privately engage in intimate acts with another. Some roommates are accommodating to this, others are not. Some roommates will create secrete warnings not to enter, while others will learn by mistake. Some roommates will be respectful of being sexiled, while others will do all in their power to embarrass the hell out of their roommate. Still some will find a productive use of their time of sexile, while others will lugubriously mope about wondering why they themselves are not quite so lucky.

To begin with, roommates will often develop systems of communication to prevent any unexpected and embarrassing confrontations. If they hadn't discussed plans beforehand, out of a number of students I spoke with, the most popular signal used to warn roommates against entering a room is simply some kind of prop, sign or message written on the door. Props used included Mardis Gras beads, socks and hotel door-knob signs warning "Do not disturb!" Of course there were also secret messages written on dry erase boards and possibly the most blatant signal, a bolted door. Well, I guess there's also the auditory signal as well: if you hear anything suspect, enter at your own risk.

You might laugh at such silly communications between roommates. But one need only think of all those embarrassing situations in which no such system existed, to see its necessity. There is the story of the roommate who woke up one morning only to glance across the room and realize that in his drunkenness the night before he had gone to his room without noticing that his roommate already had a girl in there with him. Then there is the humiliating story of a dorm mate of mine.

Her roommate's boyfriend was visiting for the weekend, so she slept elsewhere. One morning though, she needed her toothbrush, so she knocked for a bit, unlocked the door, and entered. To her surprise she witnessed the unclad boyfriend crawling out of bed, suddenly turning to her to whisper, "Bad idea . . ." After that she wasn't so anxious to find that toothbrush of hers.

One girl warned her roommate to no avail. She explains, "I left a note on the door saying: "Enter at your own discretion." And she did. My boyfriend barely got under cover while I simply hid behind him. She didn't notice that she had interrupted, must have thought we were just staying in bed for kicks. She proceeded to sit at her computer and talk on IM."

The story to top all others is a lesson in being careful who you sexile. A Hopkins student had a girl over one night. The girl left for the restroom, only to return discovering the door had locked on her way out and her date had passed out in the meantime. So in effect, the young man had sexiled both his roommate and his date.

So what does one do when sexiled? Surprisingly, time does not have to be occupied by bitter whining over having lost one's room and not getting any sex oneself. Believe it or not, there are many uses of sexiled time! Go someplace in Baltimore you've never been, go shopping, go clubbing, go to parties, or just hang out with friends. Some, in the true Hopkins spirit, will productively bury themselves in D-level under a stack of books.

For those who are not so academically inclined on the weekends, a freshman male offers an alternate plan: "When my roommate sexiled me, I just found another girl and went home with her." If this does not happen though, you might confront the problem of where to sleep. One student admits to having spent a night curled up on a ledge in an AMR I bathroom. However, if you find the thought of waking up sore and hung-over in a smelly bathroom less than inviting, there is the alternate possibility of having a sleep-over in a friend's room. In the Wood house of AMR I, which I lovingly call my home, we like to call this rotating beds; oddly, it seems to happen quite often.

Obviously, there's a whole milieu of activities one might do when sexiled. Of course, there will always be those roommates who get a kick out of going into the room anyway, bringing friends, turning on the lights, and inviting everyone to sit down on the bed to look at family photo albums, despite the fact that two very embarrassed people are hidden underneath the sheets.

But that's another story. What I mean to say is that being sexiled doesn't have to carry with it a negative connotation. If you are ever sexiled, be proud of your roommate for being so lucky, and go on to have a little bit of fun yourself, whatever that may entail.