The Guide to Getting It On (74 page)

Arriving with Pets

The difference between the family pets you grew up with and the one (hopefully it’s one) that you are moving back home with is that you and your pets are now guests.

In time, your family might grow to like your pet as much as they like you. Maybe more. But if your pet is so obnoxious that your former roommates tried to donate it for medical experimentation, you’ll need to become super responsible. Pick up the pet’s poop before it hits the ground, or make sure its litter box looks like the sand traps at the Pebble Beach Golf Course. If it’s a dog, be sure it gets enough exercise and slap a no-bark collar on its neck if it won’t stop barking.

Good luck if you’ve got a large dog that likes to occupy your dad’s favorite chair or bares its teeth at your mom’s yappy Pomeranian.

Strategic Room Choice for Better Sex

If sex in your parents’ home is a possibility and you have a choice of rooms, place acoustic considerations at the top of your list. While you might love the room in the attic, think twice if it’s directly above your parents’ bed. And even if it’s smaller, a room at the opposite end of the hall from your mom and dad’s bedroom might make for a better sex cave.

Another massive plus is having a separate entrance. This means you won’t need to introduce hookups to your parents, which can save all kinds of embarrassment if you can’t remember the hookup’s name. A separate entrance can help eliminate other embarrasing situations, as well.

The ultimate situation is a guest house or a converted garage, but you already knew that.

Loud Music Is Not the Answer

Your mom to your younger sister:
“What’s Kyle doing?”

Your younger sister to your mom:
“He just turned up the music, so he’s probably having sex with Carrie.”

Seriously, do you think that cranking up the volume is going to fool anyone? Turning up the music announces your little fuck fest to the world. Instead, try pushing a towel against the bottom of the door if it leaks sound. It won’t keep the smell of pot smoke from escaping, but it can shave a few decibels off cries of “Oh God, I’m coming!” and “Harder, Shawn, Harder!”

Vibrators

If you use a vibrator, try to find a model that doesn’t shake the house off its foundation. If you are penniless and your parents will pay for it, consider trying a famous-brand pulsating toothbrush that’s battery powered and usually sells for around $6 to $8. A lot of women say this micropulsating toothbrush vibrates at a perfect frequency and gets more off than the plaque on their teeth.

Signals

Parents tend to worry about their children no matter how old they are. So it could be in everyone’s better interest to work out a way of letting your parents know if you are coming home later than planned. Calling or texting are the usual standbys, but maybe something else that will work better, especially if it’s late and you are worried about waking your parents. Turning off a certain interior or exterior light that they can see from their bedroom sometimes works, although there’s not much point if the family dog starts howling the second you open the door.

The Three Talks — “Barging In,” “I’m an Adult Who Has Sex” and “How To Tell a Lover You Live at Home”

Moving home can be particularly traumatic if your parents and siblings are barging into your room at all hours of the day and night. If that’s the case, you might try reminding your parents that you don’t barge into their bedroom without knocking, but don’t mention the reason is because you’d rather not see your parents doing something that might result in your needing years of therapy. Use a respectful tone when asking that they not enter your room without knocking unless the house is on fire or your dad is having a heart attack. Keep in mind that your parents are on solid ground to enter when necessary if your housekeeping habits are causing the rodent population in the neighborhood to double.

At some point, you may need to have the “I’m not a child anymore, I like sex!” talk with your mom and dad, but it’s usually best to save it for a few months down the line after you’ve demonstrated how helpful, responsible and adult-like you are. One possible approach is to say “You did your job and did it well. You raised a responsible, caring young adult who, like other responsible caring young adults, has friends he or she spends the night with. It’s a normal, natural, biologically okay thing when you reach my age.” Then see where it lands.

If you are embarrassed about living at home and are sheepish or apologetic when you tell a partner, then that’s what the take-home message will be. But if you confidently explain that your parents are good people and you moved back home for good reasons, then that’s probably how it will be received.

Not Being Able to Have Fights with Your Lover

Even the most perfect of lover has habits that will eventually get under your skin. That’s why fights are necessary. But how do you have a good fight when your parents are in the next room?

It’s a sad but true aspect of human nature that learning to have sex quietly is way easier than learning to have a good fight quietly. The same is true with texting: it’s easy to text seductive messages, but good luck trying to text a fight! Finding a private place to have a fight can be as important as finding a private place to have sex.

Breaking Up

When you break up with a partner who has gotten to know your family, your family might react in one of two ways: with grief or sorrow, or with quiet cheers and high fives. If they genuinely liked your former partner, be sensitive to the impact that your break-up will have on your family.

Common Sense Considerations When Having Sex at Your Parents’ Home

• Don’t ever flush spent condoms or period gear down the toilet. Condoms, tampons and sanitary napkins will cost your parents $300 or more in plumbing bills. You don’t want to be around when the plumber tells your mom or dad what caused the backup in the line.
  
• Unless you have a private bathroom, don’t allow a partner to sneak out of your room naked or in their underwear. Sweats, pajamas, flannel nightgowns or robes that go below the knees are essentials if you or your partner need to leave the bedroom when not fully dressed.
  
• It’s your job to help your partners have good conversations with your parents, so have a list of family-socialization tips for new lovers. For example, “My mom had an affair with the tennis pro, so tennis is a sore subject with my dad,” or “When my little brother isn’t beating off to porn, he plays soccer and he’s had some epic kills in World of Warcraft,” or “The sewing stuff belongs to my dad, and the guns are my mom’s.”
  
• Parents like to meet a partner who is respectful, helpful, at least somewhat engaging, and who doesn’t try to sneak off into the bedroom without saying hello.
  
• If you use the family car for sex, be sure to pack out what you pack in. Never leave a used condom, condom wrapper, intimate apparel, a roach, or anything else related to what you’ve been doing in the car. Semen stains and wet spots on the upholstery are especially bad.
  
• Never bring a last-minute hookup home for sex. Only bring home sexual partners who you know and can trust.
  
• When possible, schedule sex during parental time away.
  
• Make no mistake about it, your family dog will find used condoms in the trash can. This is certain to cause a gross family moment. But at least the family dog has an excuse. It’s not beyond some parents and siblings to check your trash for spent condoms. If this is a potential issue, create a secure place for used condoms that you can empty right before the garbage is picked up.
  
• Never, ever have sex in your parent’s bed.
  
• Parents tend to hate it if you text at the dinner table or while having conversations with them. Once you move home, texting should be like masturbation—mostly done behind closed doors. This will make you seem more adult than your younger siblings or the children of your parents’ friends.
  
• If you are the athletic type when making love, try toning it down when your parents are home. While everyone in the house knows what’s going on, there’s no point in making the picture frames shake on the walls.
  
• It’s never good to leave wet spots or other spills on the mattress. Buy a mattress-pad cover that’s waterproof. The better ones don’t make crinkling sounds. Be sure to wash it and the sheets yourself.
  
• Lubes that contain silicon can leave wicked stains on the sheets.
  
• Get a big, soft, reddish-colored beach towel to put down on the bed before having period sex.
  

Noisy Beds—Signs of Studliness at College, Not So at Home

Intercourse can turn a bed into a battering ram. The entire bed will sway toward the foot with each out-thrust and toward the head with each in-thrust. If it’s hitting the wall, try moving the bed away from the wall. If that doesn’t work, stabilize it by cramming pillows or gasket-like material between the headboard and the wall.

A frequent culprit is the frame. If it’s metal, consider putting oil on the rivets or where the pieces of the frame join together. If it’s bolted together, undo the bolts and see if inserting plastic washers might help. If the bed has a headboard or footboard, check where the side rails connect to it. Tighten anything that can be tightened. Try shoving material in areas where metal might be rubbing against metal. Check the lateral or side-to-side support on the frame. You might need to add some boards or extra slats between the side rails.

If the box springs are a source of noise, make sure the mattress is centered on the box springs. You can also try putting a piece of foam or plywood between the mattress and box springs.

Squeaky box springs can be insidious and require surgery. If so, carefully remove the cloth cover on the bottom of the box spring. If you find a broken spring, cut it out. There are usually more springs than you need, so no one will be the wiser. If the springs are being held in place by screws, try tightening them. Lubricate squeaky springs with a spritz of WD-40 or vegetable oil, but be careful not to overspray or stain the fabric.

Don’t ignore where the frame meets the floor. If that’s a source of noise, put large rubber caster cups under the legs so there’s insulation between the legs and the floor. Also, the floor boards might have become soft or squeaky in the area where the bed is located. If so, it’s time to rearrange the furniture.

If all else fails, try putting the mattress on the floor or invest in a platform bed. Then again, if you tormented your mattress mercilessly as a kid by jumping on it every day, it might be getting revenge, and nothing short of a trip to the dump will do.

Moving Back Home When You Have Your Own Kids

This is such a complex topic it would require its own chapter. Be sure to do research on the kind of issues that can come up. Talk to your parents about what they expect of you, and what you should or shouldn’t expect of them. Unless there are good reasons why you should no longer parent your kids, don’t dump them on your parents.

If you are having casual sex, figure ways to do it away from home. Otherwise it will just confuse your children. And if your child is living with the other parent, no one will be impressed if you aren’t involved in his or her life. Moving back home with your parents is not a free pass to be a deadbeat parent. One of the most difficult but important jobs in life is to be there for your children when they are young and need you.

Moving Into a Multigenerational Home

The chances are good it won’t be long before your grandparents need extra care. In some situations, this means they, too, will be moving in with your parents. It’s not difficult to see how this can be overwhelming for your parents. Maybe you can help.

Having sex in a multi-generational home can be an extra challenge unless the house is large. On the other hand, it can be a helpful acoustical diversion if your grandparents snore loudly. Fortunately, there are many multi-generational households where it’s one big happy family and everything manages to work out well.

Alternate Arrangements—Like Living in a Van

Since the first vans were created, surfers have lived in them for months on end if not longer. Living in a van is still possible in some locations, assuming you can join a gym or someone has a shower you can use. As for having sex in a van - why do you think vans were originally invented?