OLIVIA BIAGI / Staff
University of Pennsylvania juniors (from left) Cory Winkoff, Terry Kennedy, and Will Amling disagree with the Tufts sex policy.
READER FEEDBACK
Should colleges have a written policy about sex when roommates are present?
- No injuries in 3-alarm fire that damaged pier in A.C.
- Barber shot to death after quarrel in North Phila.
- Volunteers spend a day greening the city
- Old City shooting victim dies of injuries
- Researcher says faint text proves shroud's authenticity
- Two dance-pop divas cocksure of their power
- Will dredging make a difference?
- Open or Closed for Thanksgiving
- After 3 years, prostitutes' killings still a mystery
- Art Museum brings home two Bruce Nauman gems
- In 'Going Rogue,' the quoted set the tone
- Living testimony from a Pa. ghost employee
- Seismic rumbles in the forests
- 5-alarm fire destroys apartment building
RELATED STORIES
College sex rule unnecessary, many say
Penn State sophomore Ricky Morales and his roommates worked it out themselves: If the others are asleep, it's OK to have sex with a partner in the room.
"It's all about communication. That's what it comes down to," said Morales, a journalism major from Stroudsburg, Pa.
But at Tufts University near Boston, students apparently weren't able to negotiate such delicate matters so deftly.
After receiving about a dozen complaints in the last several years from a student body of 5,000, the upscale private university this fall took what is at the very least an unusual step in the world of college housing: It banned in writing sex with a roommate present.
Some students in Pennsylvania and New Jersey thought the policy sounded like a good idea.
"Sex should never have witnesses. Then it's just porn," said Fleurette Louis-Jacques, 20, an English and French linguistics double major at Rutgers University.
She and her roommate haven't discussed the topic, she said, but added that they don't have sex: "Seriously, not even being funny, we're like nuns."
Most students, however, thought that a written policy was unnecessary.
"Everyone here is smart enough to understand that it's a common courtesy" to leave the room while your roommate is having sex, said Doug Mocik, a freshman English major at La Salle University, ". . . unless your roommate is a freak."
Temple University senior Jordan Ramsey was incredulous that a policy would be needed. Told about the Tufts ban, he quipped: "Somebody wasn't getting any!"
Even some who have fallen victim weren't upset.
Ashley Clark, a senior business-law major at Temple, said she once had a roommate who would have sex while Clark was asleep. Clark sometimes woke up. She thought it was "weird, but it didn't bother me."
Kelly Powell, 21, a history and women's and gender studies double major at the College of New Jersey, had it happen to her, too.
"I didn't really care that much, as I was sleeping at the time," she said, "but I discussed it with her afterward and told her that it could not happen again."
Then there were those who thought sex with a roommate close by was something to be celebrated.
"You've got to get fist pounds," said Cory Winkoff, a junior communication major at the University of Pennsylvania.
He and a group of friends high-fived one another when the subject was introduced.
"We're happy when our friends are hooking up," agreed Terry Kennedy, a junior political-science major. "It's college; it kind of happens."
Most schools surveyed have no specific policy on sex in a room, but many ban behavior that offends a roommate.
"Our residence-life guest policy prohibits guests in a room over the objections of a roommate regardless of the activity," said Sandy Lanman, a spokeswoman for Rutgers.
MOST POPULAR PHILLY.COM PHOTOS
today's 
