8 Types Of Sex You Have When You're Sharing A Dorm Room
My first day of college has been burned into my memory. It's one of the most terrifying flashbacks I have, and trust me, honey: I have a never-ending laundry list of terrifying flashbacks that constantly invade the surface of my brain.
Did anything bad happen that first day? No. I mean, I was an east coast baby suddenly thrust into wild, wild southern California. So, I was a little taken aback by the slow, throaty way my chilled-out, west coast compatriots spoke.
But nothing BAD happened.
Still, it's a feeling I can so distinctly remember. As I put together my dorm room with my flamboyant, over-the-top mother – who had purchased a very retro shag rug and massive red oil painting of a Vogue model smoking for me – I felt an anxiety I hadn't yet felt in all my 17 years on this cruel, cold earth.
The root of this all-consuming fear could be boiled down to three things: I was terrified of failing. I was terrified that my instinct that I just might not be the "college type" – even though I was at a notoriously liberal art school – might be correct (it was).
Mainly, I was terrified about who the hell I was going to live with.
When my flaxen-haired, Malibu-tanned roommate gracefully waltzed into the room like the prima ballerina she was, I nervously smiled. I was feeling that good energy, babes.
Five minutes later, the two of us are smoking a low-key cigarette behind the dumpster, discussing our shared social anxiety, love of chain-smoking and freaky Venice Beach. (This was before the great hipster takeover.)
I was smiling WIDE. I knew this ciggy-smoking, dance-major girl creature and I were going to be best friends. We were both wild contradictions. I mean, she looked like a tall Olsen twin with mint green eyes. I looked like an urban Esmeralda, with hair to my hips and mega hoop earrings with my name etched across the middle.
Here's a picture of me in my dorm:
(I feel like the fact that this picture is upside down makes it even MORE real to my mental state.)
And you know what, girls? I was finally in college. I had spent high school enduring secret kisses with girls and disappointing hookups with lanky skater-boys.
I was in southern California now, and I had a DORM room. I was teeming with the relentless desire to SEX, SEX, SEX all these new west coast entities who were roaming around campus with their sun-kissed skin and unkempt lion manes of hair. I wanted my 17-year-old fingers to get lost in all that unbrushed surf hair. (I was from New York: Everyone had keratin, silky smooth locks.)
This was all new. And you know I'm always turned on by what's new, new, new...
My roommate was single and sexual, too. So, we navigated hooking up with different people in our dorm rooms pretty well. I mean, look: I was a theatre major, and she was a dance major. Actresses and dancers will never hook up in the woods, or in communal laundry rooms. We had standards. If there is no bed and no clean sheets, there is no sex from yours truly. I'm high-maintenance.
I ended up dropping out of art school because I'm more of a workin' breed of girl and less of a beer-crushin' breed of girl. But I still got a lot out of my one year in regular college. Namely, I learned a lot about the art of hooking up when you have roommates tossed into your life mix. (They don't call it “art school” for nothing, kittens.)
Because, see, I moved straight from LA to NYC at 21. So, unless you've got an endless trust fund or a lucrative job in finance, if you're going to do the whole Manhattan thing, you're going to have to share studios the size of shoe boxes. You'll be living in studios or raw, open warehouse spaces, deep in questionable parts of Brooklyn. They will have pod-like bedrooms with temporary walls so thin, you'll be able to hear your roommate BREATHING... let alone having sex.
And we all know that everyone in New York is sexually charged. You don't move to a town like New York if you're asexual; you move to places like Colorado if you're asexual.
But every Manhattan success story is rooted in the desire to throw a bizarrely gorgeous entity up against the wall and engage in some hair-pulling, spine-tingling ~sex~. Why else would we pay $2,000 per month for an apartment with such weak shower pressure that it's like showering under the kitchen faucet? We do it for the sex.
So, here are eight types of sex I've had either in a dorm room or in a tiny, shared studio apartment:
1. Silent Sex
When your walls are thin, or if your roommate is sound asleep, the only kind of sex you can have is the silent kind. This kind of sex is profoundly challenging, but also really, bizarrely hot.
It reminds me of being a naughty teenager, sneaking hookups into my bedroom late at night. Also, I'm a firm believer that when you take one sense away (like SOUND), it heightens all the other senses... like sensation, baby.
2. Drunken Sex
Usually, you're a little lit when you think it's actually a GOOD IDEA to bring someone back to your dorm room or shared studio.
Your sober self would get a HOTEL room, even if you're in college and don't have the money. (That's why I recommend dating someone older when you're in college. But more on that later.)
3. Desperate Sex
Sometimes, when you bring someone back to your shared space, it's not because you're wasted; it's because you're desperate.
It's been so long since you've been laid that you'll have sex anywhere. You need to dust off that rusty vagina before it ends up on sale at the thrift shop.
This sex is worth the wrath of your roommates the next day.
4. Non-Sex Sex
There will be times when you bring someone back to your dorm with every intention of having SEX... but once you're twisted in-between those hot, sweaty sheets, you roll over and lock eyes with your roommate. You then realize this is ALL TOO WEIRD.
So instead, you just spend the night cuddling with your hookup. It's a very good way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs... if you catch my drift, kitten.
5. Double Sex
Double sex usually happens when you stumble into your dorm room, your hands clutching a boy or girl you just picked up at the dive bar – or hotel bar, if you're a posh slut like me – only to realize your roommate is in the middle of a salacious hookup of her very own.
You think to your horny self, “Screw it, you only live once.” So, you have sex in your little twin bed, and she has sex in her little twin bed. You both laugh about it the next morning over greasy eggs and cheap mimosas.
Nothing will bring two roommates closer than double sex.
6. Threesome Sex
This has never happened to me. But OH, I wish it had, kittens! The only people who I know it's happened to are sexually liberated, hot gay boys with active Grindr accounts and abs cut from steel.
It's when you bring someone home and your roommate joins in on the action, baby.
7. Oral Sex
Look, when you're having sex, that cheap dorm bed is going to creak worse than an old lady's hips in vinyasa yoga class.
This is when oral sex comes in really handy. Just clasp your hand over your mouth so you don't let out an irrepressible scream of pleasure. Also make sure your hookup is deep and hidden under those floral covers.
Then, you can have the quietest orgasm in the endless sea of orgasms peppered through your endlessly sexual lifespan.
8. The Sex That Gets You Kicked Out
As is the case with most things in college that go wrong, you'll probably be wasted off your ass when this ship goes down. This is when you have wild, wild, wild, LOUD sex in front of your roommate, who will be deeply traumatized and request a new roommate ASAP.
You will be thrown out of the dorms, and forced to tell your parents WHY, the next hungover morning on the phone.
Maybe this is when you'll realize shared living just isn't for you. But kitten, if this is you, don't make my mistake and move to NYC when you're still broke. Because if you think sharing a dorm room is rough, try sharing a roach-infested studio with three roommates in a bad neighborhood.
And trust me: Your parents will be unlikely to foot the bill for this one.
