Some laud new sex policy, but most do not feel its effects

When the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) implemented its now-infamous sex policy, it had people exactly like Arturo Gomez Toro in mind.

Gomez Toro, a sophomore, says he had a number of unfortunate experiences last year while living in Tilton Hall.

"I did not enjoy having to step out of the room simply because my roommate found it acceptable to have sex during broad daylight, several feet away from where I was standing," he said. "I felt a mix of anger, embarrassment and disgust as I had to cover up the phone on a long distance call with my mother so she wouldn't hear the noises coming from four feet away."

ResLife's new regulation prohibiting students from engaging in sexual activity in dorm rooms while their roommates are present has garnered an array of student responses. Many have said the policy went a step too far by interfering in personal issues, but others consider it reasonable.

Click here to see a Tufts Daily video a week after the sex dorm policy

"I think it's an intelligent way to enforce the overnight guest policy because, as nice as someone may be, nobody wants the [girlfriend, boyfriend] or hook-up buddy of their roommate treating [the] room like a honeymoon suite," Gomez Toro said. He believes that problems arise often enough to warrant a policy clarification.

Additionally, he said, societal norms have shifted so that nowadays "there is no shame in having a third party in the room while engaging in what has traditionally been a private act."

Gomez Toro's freshman year roommate declined to comment for the record.

Many students do not see as much of a need for the new policy. Sophomore Sejal Soni called it "ridiculous" and "impossible to enforce." Soni believes that it has received a disproportionately large amount of attention relative to its importance. She said it has brought the university unneeded negative publicity.

Carrie Ales-Rich, ResLife's assistant director for community and judicial affairs, said that the Daily's coverage of the policy brought it into the spotlight and sparked reporting by national and international news sources, but that the roommates problem is no more prevalent at Tufts than it is at other schools.

"We do believe that the reaction from the media was perhaps a little exaggerated. We don't necessarily think that this is more of an issue at Tufts — it is happening in other schools at well," Ales-Rich said.

Ales-Rich said the policy is not meant to be actively enforced, but to spur more open discussion and communication between roommates.

"We hope that if a resident finds him/herself involved in this kind of situation, that resident will feel empowered to have an effective conversation with their roommate in order to resolve the conflict," she said.

Jeff Prunier, a junior who transferred this year from George Washington University, said the new policy "absolutely changed" his perception of Tufts in his first few weeks on the Hill.

"Coming from another school, we didn't have any policies remotely like this one at all, so it was definitely a shocker," Prunier said. But eventually he realized that only a small percentage of students engaged in sexual activity with a roommate present, and he said he was reverting to his "original opinion of the kids here." Comparing Tufts to GWU, Prunier noted that there were not profound differences between the two student bodies.

"There wasn't anything here that would make me think this school needed this policy more than others," he said. But he said that the rule's media repercussions were exaggerated, noting that even a Belgian news source had published a story on it.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Burris, a junior who served as an RA in Bush Hall last year, believes that a more pressing inter-roommate problem lies in the issue of "sexiling," which the new rule does not confront directly. Burris said that as an RA, he did not hear from students about inappropriate conduct while roommates were present, but he did receive a number of complaints about students who were continually being forced to leave the room so their peers could have sex.

Part of the ResLife policy does state that sexual activity should not deprive a roommate of "privacy, study or sleep time."

Burris said that instead of expressly prohibiting sex while roommates are present, ResLife should take more direct steps to "promote conversation" — a tactic Burris considers more effective.

"It's up to the roommates to come up with a solution as to when and where they can have sex," he said. "I don't think that policy was necessary at all — Tufts now has an image of oversexed students that don't care about their roommates enough to set up a time for sex."

The overall feeling on campus seems to be that the media outburst was unexpected and an ultimately invalid reflection of the students at Tufts. In fact, many felt that the massive popularity of this news item revealed more about the entire country than about students at this university.

"I think it's natural that any policy having to do with sex at a prominent university would receive media coverage, especially in a sex-obsessed society like the one in which we live," Gomez Toro said.

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Giovanni Russonello contributed reporting to this article.