The Perils of Cohabitation

Sir and I moved in together! And it's going really great. But the title here is a little misleading; the perils mentioned above actually refer to my roommate, let's call her Cindy, and not my newly co-habitating partner. Dominant. Boyfriend. Sir. (I really like all the names for him).

Cindy and I have lived together before, and she's an up-and-up kind of girl. She knew, before we went apartment searching together, that I was kinky, and that the sex would sound like... well, like kinky sex. I make it a point, whenever I can, to talk to people about this beforehand; it's not a show-off thing; it's a consideration thing. I'd do the same if I were... I don't know, grossly flatulent, and thought my gaseous passages would echo through walls into the sleeping space of a future roommate. It's common decency.

Sir and I haven't been officially "living together" until about a week ago, but he's stayed over a bunch in the months Cindy and I have lived together. And we'd joke about playtime, in the mornings after, and she'd giggle about noises she'd overheard. Our apartment isn't particularly small or particularly poorly built, but it's still an apartment, and a certain amount of noise bleed is unavoidable.

We've tried to be conscientious about playing - like anything that makes noise, we try not to do it late at night when she's home (and she's a bartender, so there are plenty of late nights when she's not home, which works well). We live on the second floor, so the late-at-night thing is also for our downstairs neighbors. Nonetheless, I secretly hope that the bedroom below us is actually a converted office or workroom, simply because sometimes, with all our efforts, I'm sure it would bother someone trying to sleep.

Cindy has never been rude about our sexual preferences, and she is, generally, supportive (although her support comes with sort of backhanded language sometimes - see below). She also has no problem speaking up for herself, a quality I value in a roommate. Which is why I think I'm having some trouble with a conversation we had last night. It went something like this:

Cindy comes home.

Me: Hey! How's your night lady?
Cindy: Good! Good. (snuggles with cat on the floor)
(pause)
Cindy: Hey, so, I love your face a lot, but...
Me: Yeah?
Cindy: Whatever you guys were doing last night, you can't do that when I'm home.
Me: Um, okay.
Cindy: And I mean, it's not even just me. You can't do that when people are home. In the building. I mean, it's not just that it's really horrible to fall asleep to. I was waiting for somebody, or the cops, to come knock on the door, and trying to think about what I would say when I answered.
Me: Hey, it's no problem if it makes you uncomfortable. We can absolutely keep it down when you're home. And you don't ever have to answer the door - I've thought about that a lot, actually, and we'd answer the door together, no problem.
Cindy: Okay, sure. And I mean, I'm totally down with whatever you guys wanna do in there - if it's your thing, go for it, do what you do. But I'm just saying, when [insert Sir's name here] is playing the guitar in the living room, and I can hear it when I go check the mail, that's... noise travels, you know.
Me: Sure. And I've got no problem keeping it down when you're home. Thanks for letting me know.
Cindy: Yeah, and really, do what you do, it's just... you can't do that when people are home. I mean, it was like... sounds of ritual slaughter in there (giggles).

Anyway, you get the idea. Our back and forth banter about issues (roommate issues) goes sort of like this. She asks something very directly, and then I tell her what I think about it (usually, that it's totally cool - her requests are fairly reasonable), and then she proceeds to explain many times, in many different ways, it's justification and why it's important to her. Which, if we were arguing, might be productive. Except that we rarely disagree, so it just sort of cycles until she runs herself out of things to say.

It's starting to sound like I don't like Cindy, which isn't true. I like her a lot, and she's a great roommate in a lot of ways. She just has very... particular things about her, which most of the time are funny, and in this case, ended up hurting more than I initially thought.

Partly, it's her language. The way she always frames talking about our play in this sort of "I am supportive, of that thing, of that big freaky thing you're doing look I am supportive." As if the staunchness of her support is proportional to how freaky the thing is that she's supporting. But that's never really bothered me much. Her coming home and telling me, first thing, flat out, that I "can't" do something? That's not okay. Again, it's mostly her language, which is why I didn't have a big problem with the conversation at the time. I know that, although she's framing it in a really condescending way, what she's trying to say is "Hey, this thing made me uncomfortable, and made it hard for me to sleep. Think next time you could keep it down a little more?"

But how she said it really stung. In a few different ways. It stung because (and she does this, from time to time) she was trying to tell me what I should do, not based on her experience, but based on the plausible experience of other people. She was trying to tell me, based on the rules of arbitrary propriety of the neighbors, that I should be secretive about what I'm doing. I would have no problem with a neighbor coming to knock on my door, and telling me that either a) we were too loud, or b) that even though we weren't too loud, the kinds of noises we were making were unsettling or uncomfortable for them to hear. I honor that. I honor that sounds of violence and pain aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that many people have very personal reasons for not wanting to hear them. But the way that Cindy said what she said left me feeling very ashamed of what I do in my own bedroom, which is just... a really terrible thing to feel.

What I don't honor is somebody telling me that I should bend to these peoples, up to the point un-stated, preferences. There is nothing I can or cannot do based on someone's opinion who I've seen passing in the hallway; I don't think we're ever louder than a boombox, and I don't think expecting a neighbor to deal with that level of noise, at a reasonable hour, is that unreasonable. But most of all, I don't think Cindy has any place, at all, telling me to change my judgments of a situation based on her own. I think that's rude, oppressive, and smotherly motherly in all the bad ways.

There might be a little bit of masking going on. And I'm not trying to pop-psychologize (although maybe I am trying to make myself feel better about this by casting it in a different light), but I think Cindy might be a little shaky on telling me that noises were disturbing to her, so she's using out neighbors as a front. Or maybe she's a little embarrassed about interacting with our neighbors because she lives with me, and because the sounds also come from her apartment - again, this is totally valid. I have no issues with the motivations that come from Cindy, I just have issues with her prescribing other people's values (that don't actually exist yet) onto me.

To get meta for a minute: I also think part of the problem I have with what happened because of the way I responded. Or rather, the way I feel about the way I responded. I cut Cindy a lot of slack because I know her, and I like her a lot, but at the heart of it, I'm shaken and a little bothered when I don't stand up for myself; when I don't walk the walk, as it were. I've thought about talking to her about it, but I'm just not sure it's worth the heartache, or the cyclical conversation if would yield. So, there's me feeling not only hurt, but a little disappointed with myself.

At the end of the night, it really is just that I'm hurt. Kink is something I'm really proud of, that I really like about myself, but sometimes it's hard when the people closest to me use words like "animal slaughter," in a dismissive tone, with a laugh, to describe something that's a really integral part of my sexuality. Hell, of my identity in general. So, despite all of my strength, and all of my knowledge and reading about this, I end up feeling like a freak.

Sir and I went out for a cigarette before bed, after this happened, and I talked with him about it, which helped. I told him that I have thought about the neighbors, a lot, and about what I would do if someone came to the door. I looked him in the face, into his sleepy eyes (he'd worked something like a fourteen hour day that day), and told him that if someone, cops or otherwise, rang our bell, I'd open the door wearing my collar and holding his hand, and I'd tell them to kindly fuck off. Not in so many words (or maybe, depending), but that's the sentiment. I have to remember to hold onto that; remember that this is part of who I am, a part that I like. Ritual slaughter nay sayers be damned.