While having unwanted roommates during your sexytimes is certainly not an uncommon living situation, with the pandemic in our midst, it’s more common than usual. Keeping your sex life private when you have roommates isn’t impossible, but the stakes are higher when your roommates finding out can be extremely problematic for your life within the household. If your “roommates” also happen to be parents, this can be especially important. Most of us don’t necessarily want our parents to know about our sex lives.
How to Keep Your Digital Sex Life Private
First, let’s start with your digital life to ensure that your roommates don’t suspect any reason to further investigate your personal life. Simply viewing a kinky message from a friend – or seeing your website history – can be enough reason to make someone suspicious of your sexual habits. Instead, let’s start with protecting our digital information, so there’s little chance that someone will have the opportunity to see it in the first place.
Get Your Own Device
If finances allow, one of the easiest ways to ensure your own privacy is by having your own devices. Sharing a computer means sharing access to data and all of the activities you do on that computer. If someone is particularly savvy or has the disposable income, a keylogger and other “spy on your activities” software can be installed to watch over what other users of the computer are doing. In some parenting circles, this is actively encouraged. Since a lot of what you may be doing is browser-based and low-processing, you can usually pick up one of the cheaper laptops/cell phones/etc. and still have a good experience. Getting your own device allows you to control your own privacy settings, keep things away from others, and have your own set of boundaries for use of the device.
Screen Privacy Protectors
A lot of us like to access our digital devices while around other people, and depending on what websites you use and what you do online, that might include accessing Fetlife or other adult material – or even just scrolling through Twitter with the occasional inappropriate picture popping up. Save yourself the embarrassment of when you’re around others by using a screen privacy protector on any devices that might have kinky information (like your sex toys for men shopping spree last weekend). These are relatively cheap on any online store, and effectively, unless you’re viewing the device from straight on, it makes it difficult to discern what’s happening on the device. It’s a cheap addition that makes it difficult to view what’s on your screen unless the person happens to share your viewing angle.
Password Protect All Devices
Another simple-and-easy step is to password protect all of your electronic devices. Make sure it’s a password that your roommates don’t happen to know about. Password protecting itself isn’t enough, though. You need to make sure you enable password locking anytime you’re away from the device. You can do this manually every time you get up, but as a back-up, change your computer settings to automatically default to the lock screen after 5 minutes of inactivity.
How to Keep Your Sex Toys Hidden
Now that we’ve covered your digital sex life, let’s talk about your physical sex items. While digital discovery can lead to your roommates finding out about your sex life, your housemates discovering your sex toys can be just as damning (and awkward!). Try to take some of these tips about how to keep your sex life private with roommates
Remove the Label from the Lube Bottle
Do you keep a bottle of sex lube around? You might want to specifically purchase lube based upon its ability to remove the label. If you take the label off of your sexual lubricant, it will just look like a clear, see-through bottle. Alternatively, while a lot messier, you can pour your lubricant into a clear, unmarked bottle of your own. If anyone ever happens to ask, you can mention that it’s an essential oil blend or a bottle of hand sanitizer.
Purchase a “Boring” Bag that Locks
There are lots of sex toy storage containers out there that work wonderfully for storing sex toys. One big issue with most sex toy storage containers is that they look unique. Most of them don’t necessarily look like household objects – which makes them suspicious in the first place. If you’re only locking up your items from accidental discovery, this can work great, but if you’re looking to prevent discovery or curiosity in the first place, you can be better off with a “boring” looking bag. For example, a yoga bag (or duffel bag!) with a double-zipper that allows for locking can be a great start. Toss a couple of clothes in there, throw your toys like the Blowjob Simulator in there, and lock it. If anyone asks, that’s where you keep your out-of-season clothing.
Store Your Toys in Other Hidden Containers
You don’t necessarily have purchase a bag to lock to toss under the bed – especially since the “first place” someone looks is usually under the bed. If you want to avoid the toys being easily found in the first place, I’d recommend looking into some non-standard storage places. A thick, hollowed-out book on your bookshelf can be a great choice if you’re a reader. If you aren’t, an empty snack can (stackable chips or long, straw-like cookies!) can be a great way to hide a sex toy in plain sight.
Have Hidden Transport
After you finish using any sex toy, it needs to make it to a sink for a good, thorough washing. Skipping this fact can lead to infections – or even just break-down of the sex toy material itself. You need to ensure you have an easy way to get it to a bathroom to clean it. This might be wrapped up in your clothes for a shower, hidden inside your clothing, or other methods, but make sure you’ve thought it through. Most mild household hand soaps can wash sex toys for you (though make sure you know the cleaning requirements for your own individual toy!) In a pinch, if there’s no way to get to a sink right now, you can use a sex toy cleaner spray as a stop-gap until you can reach the bathroom for that thorough cleaning.
Purchase Quiet Sex Toys
Of course, the noise level of your sex toy matters when you live with roommates. Pay attention to reviews (and possibly watch video reviews of the toy!) when purchasing new sex toys. Try to ensure that your sex toy will be as quiet as possible. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the toy, the less noise it will make. That doesn’t always prove true, but a wand massager will always be louder than a bullet vibrator. If any noise is problematic, you can always use dildos and non-vibrating sex toy options.
How to Keep Your Sex Life Private with Roommates
Now that we’ve covered the digital aspects and the physical sex accessories, let’s talk about the sex acts themselves – and how to keep them private. While protecting your digital sex life and your sex accessories from view will help decrease suspicion about what you’re up to in your private life, having a roommate walk in on you having sex will certainly make things extremely obvious in seconds. With that in mind, keep these tips in mind for keeping the sex acts, themselves, as discreet as possible.
Lock the Door
If your door has a lock, use it. If your door doesn’t have a lock, there are some products online that can help function as a lock on a door that doesn’t have locks. You might check into getting some of those for your room when having sex. (Just remember to give it an initial try before it matters!) If you’re open to a general boundary discussion, you might discuss using some sort of scarf on the doorhandle to make it extra-obvious when the occupants inside the room request privacy from other housemates.
Be Careful with your Masturbation
While having sex with a partner tends to be more suspicious for a few reasons (noise and the fact that you have another person in there), you can get caught during masturbation as well. To avoid that, avoid listening to your porn material on headphones (opting for very-quiet or muted sound instead), masturbating with something easily tossed over your lap, always having a quick way to tab out of porn when viewing it on your laptop, and keeping your unlabeled lube bottle sealed up and not within obvious arm’s reach for when someone comes in.
Don’t Have Sex at Home
Most-obvious is to not have sex while in your home. If your partner has their own place, you might consider having sex there. If you know of private places outside, you could also take your sex life there (and have some fun doing it too!). If it’s possible to avoid having sex within the house, that’s always an easy option to keep things as hidden as possible.
Arrange for Private Time
If having sex outside of your home isn’t doable, you might consider arranging for private time. Especially if you’re staying with roommates (instead of parents), they’ll likely understand the need to want to have 1-on-1 time with your partner(s). In exchange, they might ask you for the same favor when they want 1-on-1 time. If you’re reluctant to even bring up the topic of asking for privacy, I definitely recommend a discussion about boundaries and your needs while living within the house. It’s entirely normal (and acceptable!) to say “Hey, this is a thing that isn’t being met for me. Is there something we can do to change that?” Of course, if you’re related to your roommates, this might not be a discussion you want to have. In that case, try to plan your at-home meet-ups with your partner when you know that your other housemates will be out of the house.
Soundproof Your Room
You can go all-out with setting up complete soundproofing for your room, but for most people, the discretion and budget required for that won’t be a reasonable option. That being said, there are small things you can do around your bedroom to help keep your activities as private as possible. For one, make sure your headboard won’t bang up against the wall. Adding fabric to the headboard can help reduce any banging noise – though you might need to experiment to see what works best for your bed. Oil the springs of the bed if squeaking is an issue from weight movement. Keep a thick towel around that can be rolled up and placed against the base of the door to reduce sound leaving that way. If furniture rearrangement is possible, move the bed away from the areas most-likely to leak noise. If you have thin walls, that might be a wall you share with a roommate. If your walls are reliable, that might be the door.
Keep Things Quiet
Now that you’ve added the soundproofing to the room itself, try adding some “soundproofing” to your sex. Make it a point during your sexual encounters to keep things as quiet as possible. You can make it a challenge or dare to up the sexual enjoyment of it. That doesn’t mean you have to be entirely quiet, though! Just make it a point to keep your lips near your partner’s ears, so the softest of moans can still be heard. In addition, if it’s within your pleasure profile, you can use gags to make the act of “quiet” feel even sexier.
