An Open Letter to My Neighbors About Your Really Loud Sex.

Hi. 

You may not know me, in fact I'm sure you don't, but you live on the other side of the wall and your bed is about four feet away from my head right now. The only thing separating us is some bargain-bin plasterboard and paint. It's a pretty cheap apartment, to be sure, and I know the builders couldn't be bothered with soundproofing or insulation, because that would have raised this place to a level of "slightly more luxurious than a cardboard box" and no student can afford that extravagance. But I'm not here to talk about property values.

I want to talk to you about sex.

Specifically, yours. The noisy kind that you seem to have a lot of.

Surely you've noticed that the walls are so thin in this building that you can hear every cough, sneeze, fart, and conversation from your neighbors. I know you can hear my TV, my music, and my toilet flushing, because I can hear yours. I know when you shower, I know you watch cartoons on Thursday afternoons, and I know you two were arguing last week about flowers. That's how thin these walls are. (And that's why try to I confine my own conversations to the kitchen, where we don't share a wall.)

And I know that you have a LOT of sex. I don't want to be a buzzkill, but I really don't appreciate being woken up at 6AM by your grunting and moaning. I don't look forward to coming home at lunchtime and hearing your bedsprings creaking for over 20 minutes (although I do admire your stamina). I'm not sure if you realize that your bed sometimes bangs against the wall while you're banging each other in the evening, and this is, to put it mildly, somewhat of a distraction as I'm trying to read and get my work done.

Now, maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe your grunts and moans are part of some primal scream therapy you're using to uncover some repressed trauma. Maybe the squeaking I hear is just you working out on an exercise trampoline. Maybe the bangs on the wall are your attempts to communicate "Howdy, neighbor!" in Morse Code. I doubt this, though, because the one time I banged back, you responded by kicking the wall so hard I thought the ceiling was going to come down.

So maybe you just like having loud sex and don't give a shit.

But you have to know that I can hear everything that happens on the other side of the wall, four feet from my head. And since you don't seem to be discreet or concerned about who hears you, I'm going to presume you're open to criticism and critiques of your performance. Surely you wouldn't mind some running commentary, play-by-play as the action unfolds:

"Johnson's giving it everything he's got, he's heading straight for the tight end....there's the hand-off...yep, yep, it's gonna be a pile-driver...and GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!"

(Disclaimer: I'm not really sure how sports work.)

Or I could go the MST3K route:

"Watch out for snakes!"

"Push the button, Frank!"

"The HORRORS of Spider Island!"

And some other possible commentary:

"I'll have what she's having."

"5/10. Very difficult to masturbate to."

"Hey, she sounds better than the girl you had over yesterday!"

*****************************************************************************

But seriously, stop with the loud sex.

Your neighbor who would like some peace and quiet.