Sexile

Can Colleges Ban Dorm Sex?

It wasn't even sunrise when I felt nature's call. Clad in my usual sleepwear — yesterday's T-shirt, unfussy undies — I stumbled half-dreaming from my twin bed toward the loo and stopped cold as I shuffled past my roommate's bed in the opposite corner of the narrow room.

Was that a hairy arm hanging out of the bed? Was that a man's sleeping body entwined with that of my sacked-out roommate, only inches from my barely garbed, bathroom-bound bladder?

He hadn't been there when I went to sleep. What had happened in here? Scratch that. I didn't want to know. Could I possibly go back to sleep a mere feet from this rather attractive stranger? And if I left the room in my skivvies, how long before they'd clear out and I could return?

Tufts University drew nationwide shrugs and sniggers last month when it issued an edict to students: "You may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room."

It's funny. It is. But finding somewhere to bump bodies in college really is an exacting task. I remember breaking into empty dorm rooms and, once, climbing onto a campus rooftop. Not safe. Not smart. Not especially sanitary.

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