How Listening to My Neighbor Have Sex Ruined — and Saved — My Sex Life
Her enjoyment brought up mixed emotions.
I was trying to catch some Z’s when I heard it. Not a subtle scuffle of the sheets or a quiet rattle of a headboard. Explicit, loud moans of a woman having sex right by my ear.
I pressed my ear to the wall. I didn’t want to hear it but, at the same time, couldn’t stop listening. It was the first time I heard other people having sex in real life. Sure, I had heard the performative soundtracks of the porn industry and the boisterous “orgasms” of Hollywood actors. But I had never heard real people having real sex in my reality.
I felt like I was eavesdropping on someone else’s fantasy. (And let’s be honest, I was). It was exciting. With my arousal came a sense of shame. It felt like an invasion of her privacy to be listening. In the coming weeks, I would realize that the situation was an invasion of my privacy, too.
At first, it was only that one time — easily forgotten and forgiven. After all, I was a sex-positive feminist who advocated for women’s pleasure. Who was I to shun someone else's sex adventures?
In the following weeks, the action behind our shared wall picked up even more, and so did my emotional upheaval. I advocating for pleasure, but my reaction took me by surprise. When I heard her having sex, I felt shameful, violated, and aroused — all at the same time.
For a while, I assumed that she simply must not realize that the walls are as thin as they are. Because she was a new tenant, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I would later learn that she knew exactly how much was coming through and didn’t intend on it affecting her pleasure.
The first emotion: Arousal
In the beginning, I actually enjoyed listening to my new neighbor’s erotic adventures. I couldn’t help the tingly feeling I got when I heard her sighs and moans. There was something forbidden and secretive about my desire towards a couple I didn’t know. And the fact that they didn’t even know I was there, made me horny.
I have now come to accept that it is normal to feel aroused in an arousing situation — whether it involves you directly or not. Sometimes you simply can’t help it. It’s a biological response to erotic stimuli.
It was arousing to hear a woman experiencing pleasure in a non-performative way. I was sick of the mainstream media’s depictions of pleasure and loved listening to a realistic version of female desire. Later, I would discover feminist audio porn and channel this need elsewhere.
The second emotion: Shame
I was ashamed of taking advantage of someone else’s erotic energy. I felt like I was invading my neighbor’s privacy and objectifying her sexual endeavors without her consent.
At the same time, I felt shame for even being there. In my own apartment. I felt like I was eavesdropping, even though I couldn’t do anything to stop the sounds. Even earplugs didn’t cut it. I knew that hearing their sex sounds wasn’t my fault, but I felt faulty. I felt like I was overstepping my neighbor’s boundaries without her knowledge.
Women are shamed enough for their sexual desire as is, and I was only adding fuel to the fire. I was ashamed of my own arousal and shaming my neighbor for hers in the process. Isn’t she embarrassed? Doesn’t she realize that I’m right here?
The third emotion: Embarrassment
I was projecting, hardcore. My embarrassment was directly related to how uncomfortable I would be if I discovered that my sex life had been overheard. And in a way, that’s what I realized.
First, I was embarrassed for my neighbor. Now, I was embarrassed for myself. I started spiraling in embarrassment and anxiety once I realized how thin the walls truly were. I concluded that my previous neighbors had also heard everything from happy sing-song to fiery fights and make-up sex. I felt humiliated, to say the least.
My neighbor’s erotic explorations went on with more frequency and, it seemed, less self-awareness. I started to feel jealous of the freedom she had in her sexual expression. These thoughts didn’t help my own sex life, of course. Comparison, shame, and embarrassment never do.
The fourth emotion: Jealousy
When the shame and embarrassment surfaced, my own sex life fizzled out. Continually hearing all about my neighbor’s sex life made me feel like mine was in a “hearing” of its own.
I was adding pressure to my own arousal. I was comparing the frequency, perceived pleasure, and volume of moans in my sex life to someone I had never met. I couldn’t help comparing myself to the woman behind the wall, because the patriarchy had wired me to do so. We are taught to judge the women around us to prevent a sense of unity.
I was jealous and envious of her freedom, even though I was the only one standing in the way of my own. I wasn’t able to enjoy my sex life to the fullest for weeks. I started getting shy and embarrassed: Was I having enough sex? Was it loud enough? Was it too loud? Was it boring? Was it too vanilla? What did I sound like? What did we sound like? What would my neighbor think?
I felt like a failure if I hadn’t been in the mood for a couple of days. On the one hand, I felt like I was harassing my neighbor if I was having sex every day. I felt like I couldn’t make as much noise as I wanted to and, at the same time, I felt like making more sound would’ve been performative because I was so aware of it.
The fifth emotion: Invasion
I was starting to spiral. I had difficulty getting aroused and was feeling more stressed about pleasure than ever before. I had been hyperfocused on the sex-life of my neighbor for weeks and was losing the grip on my own because of it.
The “shag” that broke the camel’s back, happened a few months after she had moved into the building. I woke up at 2 am to another round of extremely loud moaning and shouting. I pushed my earplugs further into my head and tried to muffle the sound out. I managed to fall asleep again only to be re-awakened by the same circus only a few hours later. I had had enough.
I had mostly felt like I was the invader and eavesdropper until I realized how much her actions were affecting me. I understood that she was also invading my privacy with her loud noises at unearthly hours of the day. I had felt like an intolerant, unprogressive neighbor. Now I felt violated in my space.
I wrote her a letter. It was the kind of sex-positive yay-for-pleasure-but-could-you-turn-it-down-at-2am letter you would expect to receive from your pro-sex neighbor who writes about sex for a living. The last thing I wanted to do was to shame another woman about her sexuality.
The sixth emotion: Solidarity
I dropped the letter down her letterbox and simultaneously dropped my case. I had done everything I could. It was now in her hands to respect my beauty sleep.
After a while, the noises started again. While her schedule was now more accommodating to me (and thank God for that!), the sounds were as loud as ever. She refused to diminish herself. And I respect her for that.
I felt solidarity towards the woman next door. While we haven’t seen each other in the hallway yet, I feel like we know each other.
In the end, my reaction had very little to do with her. Thanks to her I had to confront the shame and embarrassment I still carry about female pleasure. It was a chance for me to dismantle patriarchal ideas that provoke me to compare myself to other women. I learned not to apologize for my pleasure.
Neighbors having sex in the background is a part of the lure of a big city. There is something intimate in living in such tight spaces. Our lives merge with one another.
She refused to apologize for her pleasure, and I learned to live with it. With her not apologizing for her pleasure, I learned to own mine. Because she didn’t care who heard her, I learned not to give a damn either. I decided that I would never apologize for my sexuality again.
Of course, there are limits to how loud you should be in the middle of the night, but otherwise, it’s part of city life. Besides, there is something freeing about the fact that I’m not the only person making noise on our floor. And that all around me, there are women that are owning their desire.
