Living in Sin: Loud Love

Every week in Living in Sin, Jen Sincero provides advice to LA's sexually curious. Now you can see her column in print, too, in the LA Alternative Press. Ask Jen your questions: all are posted anonymously.

Dear Jen,

- Sleepless In Silverlake

Dear Sleepless,

Oh god, is there anything worse than listening to other people getting all beasty? Everyone who's ever had a neighbor or a roommate has some awful story about it - "she sounded like a dying ox" or "I could hear them high-fiving after they came together." I had a neighbor who only got it on at three in the morning, or on Sunday afternoons when I had my knitting group over. She'd moan at the top of her lungs for a good twenty minutes, like she was getting serviced by The Tongue Machine. My neighbors and I would marvel at seeing her freshly-scrubbed, wimpy little boyfriend leaving the house, unable to believe that THAT was what all the commotion was about (really, the guy looked about twelve. He was always eating candy, too). Meanwhile my neighbor, dubbed The Orgasmatron by everyone within a five mile radius, was a soft-spoken, fluttery-eyed, shy little thing. Did you ever notice that? It's always the quiet ones, the ones who leave parties and drive all the way across town to their own houses should they need to take a poop, that have no problem bullhorning their way through sex. It made it real hard for me explain to her that she made my nights sleepless and my knitting groups extra-spinstery, so rather than deal with it like a grown up, I stormed out onto my front steps one frigid evening and screamed in my
best trailer-park holler for her to shut the fuck up already. Which is not my advice to you, even though we never heard a peep again.

But it does prove that people can indeed get off without sharing their passion with an unwilling audience. Your roommate included. I'm sure if she was spending the night at grandmas with her man, for instance, and was feeling a little frisky, they'd find a way to pull it off without scaring the nice old lady. So it's not that she can't be quiet, it's that she's too inconsiderate to make the effort. It's not fair of her to put you in this uncomfortable position, but perhaps she's unaware of how loud she is. I doubt it, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt since she's been good up until now. I'd have a little roommate "us talk" and tell her what's up. If she's as good a roommate as you say she is, she'll be embarrassed and apologetic and tone it down. If not, it looks like you may just get caught up in a moment of your own and start blasting Houses of the Holy at three a.m. when she's trying to sleep.

photo by dearoot via flickr