The Couple Having Lots of Sex Next Door

The apartment we are living in is, unsurprisingly, very close to the apartment building next door, since city living views "space" as "money lost". What this means to those of you who currently enjoy "space", is that it is never completely quiet--there is always some outside noise. As a long-time city dweller, I have gotten used to this, and perhaps a bit attached to it even. 

I remember one year when I spent a week in a mountain cabin in Idyllwild, CA, and found it difficult to get to sleep because it was too quiet. When it is too quiet, my mind has nothing to focus on, so it starts jogging in place. 

But this post is not about sleeping, because in our apartment we manage just fine with the help of a table fan and a white noise machine (did you know there is also brown, red, and blue noise?), Headspace Sleepcasts, and the occasional nip of nighttime Nyquil. Instead, this essay is about how the lack of space in the city means that one inevitably shares the private moments of others, whether intended or not. 

The hetero couple next door to us have lots and lots and lots of sex. In fact, if I were keeping track, I would say that they have sex one to two times a day, but I am not keeping track. I know they have lots of sex for the simple reason that their bedroom window is only ten feet from our bedroom window, and I regularly hear them. In fact, I heard them just before I sat down to write this essay. The first indication is hearing the woman moaning--you know, the goooood moan. When they talk about women faking it during sex, they are not referencing this moan. The second indication was the man's moan, you know, the orgasm moan. I listened to this sequence of moans because what else would you expect of me? 

Even more interesting to me than the sex sounds are the conversations I often hear this couple have in the bathroom afterwards. It seems that they are fond of this post-sex routine: he showers, she hangs out in the bathroom while he showers. The other day, I happened to overhear them talking, post coitus, and the woman asked the man, "Do you like having sex with me?" He responded, "I love having sex with you." And then they went on to discuss the rest of the day, with the agreement that they would meet up at 11:15 after a meeting he had to go to, and they would work out together, or maybe go to the beach. I am on pins and needles wondering which they settled on. Wouldn't it be crazy if they did both???

The most striking thing about this overheard bathroom conversation was that the woman was actually wondering if the man liked fucking her! I thought to myself, how could she not know that he likes this? Isn't it amazing that we can have an experience that feels ecstatic, but still doubt the authenticity of it? 

As a therapist, I also know that with couples, there are often two realities occurring in one relationship. I also know that most women feel that there is a difference between being desired and being loved. I suspect that what this woman was asking, legitimately, was less about his enjoyment of the sex, and more about whether or not the man likes her. 

But maybe that is just me, being me. 

***

Anytime a couple is having regular satisfying sex, I am happy, because this is one less couple that is disconnected. My mind wonders about the couple next door--are they in a relationship? Are they married? Are they hooking up? There is a casualness to their bathroom conversations that demonstrates the postmodern sexual world we are living in: sex is still important, but our partners are less so, because  the partner is just a means to the end. It is as if, in deconstructing romance and the narratives about love, young folks are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, treating every interaction as only moderately significant, or worst yet, as currency, rather than as the building blocks of a relationship with another. 

Is this how far we have come? Is this how far we have fallen? I hope not. 

My hope is that the couple having lots of sex next door actually, and genuinely, care about each other. That their overheard orgasm moans are a celebration of their mutual willingness to be vulnerable with each other and an exercise in relationship building. Or, at the very least, that it is an example of mutually consensual pleasure exchange, done respectfully. That they are treating each other as an end, and not just as a means.

That is my hope. 

And given the fact that the choices of next door noises currently available are either a couple fucking everyday or a toddler melting down in the apartment below, I will take the fucking sounds hands down. We should all be so loud during sex.