How big is your backseat?: Sex after moving back with your parents

Guest post by Rachel Wilkerson

It's a boomerang orgy! Let's hope their boomerang parents aren't watching. Boomerangs © by mikecogh, used under Creative Commons license.
In the past few years, with the economy tanking and all, the “boomerang generation” has really made a name for itself. You go to school, leave home, and then… you come back.

That’s exactly what I did. Was it my ideal plan? Nope. Did it allow me to get back on my feet after my first job turned out to be anything but dreamy? Absolutely. I did it for a year, and would have loved to do it longer, but I eventually had to say, “See ya!” to the family.

The thing is, as much as I loved free rent, I hated the logistics of trying to have sex.

To be fair, being a boomerang kid isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s annoying, yes, and your carpal tunnel will get bad because seriously, there are no truly silent vibrators, but it’s manageable… until you meet a boomerang boy.

When you first meet one, you think it’s great! OK, I have this slightly awkward aspect of my life that I’m self-conscious about, but at least I’ve finally met someone who gets that! We’re so on the same page here! You bond over it and then… then you stop recognizing your sex life.

It’s like high school, but with way more sexual frustration — who knew that was possible? Believe me, it is. At the age of 25, you’re probably pretty cool telling guys what you want, and vice versa. And you probably just want it more than you did in high school. So just like any cute twentysomething chick, you’re getting texts saying, “I want to fuck.” And you’re responding, “OMG I want to fuck you so bad. Is your mom home?”

And then it’s like, “Ugh, seriously?? Well, how big is your backseat?”

And even if you get lucky and Mom is away, having sex in the old bedroom isn’t quite the same once you graduate from high school. You’re looking around for things to spice up the act and it’s like, “Hey, do you think we could do something with those old soccer trophies?”

At that point I had just sort of given up on the idea of having a normal relationship until I moved out. When boomerang girl meets boomerang boy, there’s very little booming out going on, and that can be really hard to deal with. And for all the sneaking around and hassle, the sex has to be pretty amazing.

I finally moved out and I’ll be honest: I’m broke. But it’s been worth it. Suze Orman might disagree, but there simply comes a point when the need to get laid is greater than the need to save money.

Alright, Homies. We know a lot of you are living with parents. What are your tips for stealth-mode sexy times? (Or do you figure “we’re all adults here!” and have given up trying to hide?)

Comments on How big is your backseat?: Sex after moving back with your parents

  1. I pretty much went the “we’re all adults here” route right from the get-go when I had my serious boyfriend come home from college with me my freshman year. Been doing it there ever since. I think it helped that, after I moved out, my room was converted into no-longer-a-bedroom, so when I moved back in, I had a mattress on the floor- a lot less noisy than boxspring and bed frame. I dunno, I would try to be quiet, but figured it was no big deal, especially since I occasionally heard my parents going at it, too. The only awkward moments came when we were being TOO quiet, and my dad would knock on the door wanting to talk to me or ask me a question!

  2. I’ve never had much problem with having sex in a house with parents or housemates. The bedrooms have doors. The other people involved know how to knock. If they didn’t, a lock on the door would solve the problem. We keep our voices down. It all works out fine.

    But, for those whose parents are less laid back than my (admittedly very laid back) parents or who are just uncomfortable having sex in their parents’ house, I’d like to point out that one night at a mid-range hotel (clean, but not fancy) can be had for $50-$60 (probably less if you live in a less expensive area than I do!). Not an option if you are seriously broke, of course, but if you’re working but not making enough to pay rent, then renting a hotel room with your sweety now and then may be worth the cost.

    • I totally agree on this front.

      My boyfriend and I had just moved back into the country last Christmas. Because it was the holidays, we were continually going back and forth between his mom’s and my mom’s house. It would have been not a good idea to have sex with so many visitors staying over. Thus, we stopped at a “trucker” hotel for an afternoon. Best 40$ every spent, and we were a lot nicer to our families and to each other because we weren’t going through the entire holidays without getting laid 🙂

  3. I was living with my fiance before we were a couple at his mom’s house. Once we started dating, I insisted on moving out within 2 months of the relationship starting due to how weird I felt having sex in his mom’s house. Now we’re engaged, have lived on our own for a year and it’s been a total disaster. We’re so far in debt I have completely given up on every breaking through. So, with our hat in hand, we will be returning humbly to his mom’s place in December after I have my bachelor’s degree firmly in hand. From there we’ll have to rebuild our finances, plan a wedding, plan our sex life (we learned to have sex in the morning so it’s easier to avoid family hearing), and once I have a job, plan a baby. It’s going to be crazy but I’m so glad we have the support of his mom because otherwise, we’d REALLY be screwed.

  4. Living at home with my fiance (almost husband in 30 days!), quiet sex isn’t really a problem. I’m no screamer but we have plenty of sex. My mother is pretty understanding, I guess you could say, but the only time us having sex becomes a problem is when we wake her up. Which isn’t often, and even when we do, she just teases us about it. We have a strange family! She understands our needs and respects them, if there was ever a problem with our sex life, she would let us know (as far as being loud, etc.).

  5. My now fiancé first brought me to meet his parents in Germany when we’d only been dating for a couple of months. He’d never brought a girl home to meet his parents before and I was sure that things were going to be super awkward. While on the phone telling his parents the news about bringing me his father casually asked if we needed a double or wanted separate rooms (and it wasn’t like they had heard so much about me! He didn’t even tell them he was seeing anyone until he sprung the news on them that he was bringing his girlfriend home to Germany for Christmas). And the rest his history. His parents are so super chill, it’s awesome.

    Now going to stay with my family is another story. That’s completely awkward. The first time he visited me when I was vacationing with my family, we were on the sleeper sofa in the living room… And the arrangements have only gotten worse.

    What we found to be a problem when we weren’t living together wasn’t parents, it was roommates! Led to us moving in together fairly quickly (about 6 months after we got together), but lucky for us we’re perfect for each other.

  6. I could totally see this happening to my fiance and I after we get married… I have a very large family (ten younger siblings!) and my parents are very conservative. I can just see T and I trying to get it on while visiting my family and being walked in on by my four year old sister…. O.O Literally, I may have nightmares about this now. lol Well, we’ll just have to be very careful!!!

  7. I live with my parents (along with seven other people, four of whom are 12 and younger) while my partner lives with his mum and brother. Both of us are in college and simply don’t have financial means to support school and rent. We also both have jobs and other passions that devour our time. So while we technically manage to spend quite a bit of time together, it’s rarely undividedly focused on each other. The point I’m trying to make: Regardless of whether my parents or his mum are okay with us making the sweet love, we do. Not that we don’t respect our parents and their comfort levels, but we also respect each other, ourselves, and our relationship. At my house (where they still think I’m a virgin and would be livid if they knew otherwise), we are quiet, discreet, and generally only have sex at night when others are sleeping. Thankfully, though, his mum allows us to be a young couple in young love who are looking forward to a life-long relationship. The negative side to this: I spend much less time with my family. The positive side to sticking to this: My parents have quickly realized that I won’t bend in something as important as spending time with my partner and have therefore loosened their rules, thereby allowing us to actually sleep in the room together, though they still prefer the door left open a crack. A few nights ago we actually even graduated to sleeping under the same blanket! Woo! More importantly, they treat me and my opinion as much more important than they ever have before since they know now that I will stick to it.

  8. I never really thought about my family being particularly liberal-minded about sex, but it’s never really been an issue for me. Maybe that’s just because I was a fairly late-bloomer, or maybe my mom just learned from my aunts’ examples (all my cousins are older than me). Plus, I’m not exactly the loud type. My first serious relationship occurred while I was still in college and the only stipulation at my house was we had to sleep in the guest room. My parents were paying for my birth control so they generally knew it was happening, but they gave us our space. I still wonder if my dad was really so oblivious to not realize why we tended to stay in bed ’til noon even though I’m not one who tends toward sleeping in. At his house as long as he assured his parents we were being safe they didn’t care. His mom even walked in on us watching a movie in our undies once (which made me incredibly uncomfortable but the two of them didn’t seem to care).

    I met my current boyfriend, the love of my life, about a year after graduating college when I was still at my parents’ house. He’s 5 years older and was boomeranging at the time after the company he worked was suddenly bought out and closed. The first few months of our relationship we spent more nights together at one anther’s houses than separated, and frankly our parents didn’t bother us one bit about it. Funny thing is, gentleman that he is, he made a point of taking things slowly (especially because I had some past relationship/sex baggage) and I remember once my mom making an offhand comment about my sex life to which I shocked her with the news that we weren’t doing it yet.

    We have since moved into our own place where we’ve been for about a year and a half, but we’ll soon be moving into his parents’ winter home, which we’ll be sharing with them half the year, but I’m not anxious about our privacy. Even if they cared (which they thankfully don’t) their bedroom is on another floor at the other end of the house.

  9. I am SO not looking forward to this! I’m moving back to the US for grad school after living in China for 2 years with NO SEX!!! And I’ll be living with my mother for about a year. Luckily I have a very accommodating good friend with a spare bedroom, otherwise I’d lose my mind! My FWB is in an even more uncomfortable situation so his place is not an option.

  10. To be honest, I don’t really see what the problem is. Unless your parents are very conservative, of course. When you’re having sex at your parents’, you just need to be a bit more discreet.

    I don’t refrain from having sex just because I’m in my old room at my parents’ house. My parents didn’t (and probably still don’t) stop having sex because my sister & I were/are in the house. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t even have siblings.

    I’ve been having sex in my teenage room since I was 15. I moved out at 18 but now, at 33, my room is still my room and I can stay over whenever I visit, with or without boyfriend/girlfriend. My parents gave me a double bed in my early twenties, to make things a bit more comfortable.
    I think they preferred me discovering & having sex in the safety of my own room, instead of improvising & doing quickies in public places. I’m grateful for that, because I’m aware not everyone has had that chance.

    When I was 19, I lived in South America for a year, and things were very different there: no boys allowed in my room or even in the house. So during that year, I could only have sex at my boyfriend’s place or at holiday homes during beach trips (which was a weekly thing anyway…). Over there, most young people have to resort to hotels. Luckily I only had to do that a couple of times.

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