Editorial: Tufts gets tough on sexiling

It’s as much a part of the first year experience as the freshmen 15 and getting lost around… It’s as much a part of the first year experience as the freshmen 15 and getting lost around campus. You return to your dorm room one night only to find it barricaded by a tie, T-shirt or some sort of undergarment hanging nonchalantly from the doorknob. If you’re lucky, your roommate left you a warning sign. Better head back to the library because you’ve just been sexiled.

Discontent with this time-honored practice of dorm living, Tufts University has made an amendment to its 2009-2010 student handbook, according to CNN: Students cannot sexile — the banishment of another for the purpose of privacy while engaging in sexual activity — their roommate, nor can they have sex while their roommate is in the room.

The new policy stems from dozens of complaints to the Office of Residential Life and Learning at Tufts relating to this issue over the past few years. While the new rule has its uses, it restricts a student’s sex life to the point where finding a suitable place for intimacy becomes a challenge.

On the surface, this new policy has some purpose. Imagine the student who hoards the dorm room from his roommate for the purpose of sex. What can the perpetually sexiled roommate do? First, he should talk to his roommate about the condition, and if that fails, talk to his resident assistant. If the sexually illustrious roommate fails to adhere, the student or RA can now cite the handbook for reinforcement. Essentially, this policy seems to have the repeat offender in mind, and, against such perpetrators, the new rule should be an effective tool.

Tufts says the purpose of this policy is to make sure both roommates have fair access to their room for the purposes of sleeping, study time and privacy. As for the rule forbidding sex while a roommate is present — well, maybe that just falls under the line of good taste. It would certainly cut down on the awkward, I-thought-you-were-out-but-I-guess-you-just-witnessed-my-nubile-girlfriend-and-I-form-the-two-backed-beast situations that are so common with roommates who think they are sneaky.

But if students can’t use their dorm rooms for sex, where are they expected to go? The bathroom down the hall? This might force students to get creative — and lead to more embarrassing, indecent and, likely, unsanitary situations: “I don’t want to get in trouble, but I want you so bad. I hear the organic chemistry lab has a discreet corner.”

Also, should a student be worried about this policy, he’d be prompted to act fast with his or her partner. No time for foreplay, and certainly no time for mood setting — just a slew of quickies.

The only way to really enforce this policy relies on a student complaining about his roommate’s venereal encroachement to a resident official. Of course, some violations will go unreported, but reconciling differences and establishing rules between roommates is a foundation of the dorm living experience. To a degree, it’s unfortunate that Tufts needed an addition to the handbook to settle this issue. By this age, students should be mature enough to both handle and respect the sexual congress of others without the intervention of a third party. Whether we’re the sexiler or the sexilee, learning to live with a roommate is an important educational part of the dorm experience.