“We rapped about what a bitch it is to live alone, and I said that one particular guy was trying to get me to live with him, and why I wasn’t ready for that, and how I had been thinking about getting a roommate but I didn’t really think I would like to live with another girl. And he said he couldn’t live with a girl because he wasn’t into sex and didn’t want to live with a guy because of the whole gay scene, and that even living with a straight guy would probably be a hassle. So then I said something about how we ought to team up, and we both laughed our heads off over the idea, and then talked about it some more, and to make a long story short (if it isn’t already too late for that), we decided that he would move in with me on a trial basis. The apartment was perfect for privacy. The door leads into the kitchen, and there are two rooms leading off it, one on either side of the kitchen, so I could have anybody in my room without Roger being in the way. He could have company, too, but as far as I know, he’s never brought anybody home with him. I don’t know if he ever has sex or not. It’s possible he would do things and not tell me about them. Actually, we don’t really have that much communication.
“People always are struck by the strangeness of it. I know it’s strange in that very few people live this way, but all it amounts to is that we’re roommates who happen to be of different sexes.
“It’s particularly good because we can each play out our sexual roles the way two roommates of the same sex couldn’t. For example, I do the cooking and the light cleaning and take care of decorating the place. Roger does the shopping and the heavy cleaning and goes out for anything we need at night, which is an important safety factor in a neighborhood like this one. I think it’s basically more healthy for a man and woman to live together, and it’s a much easier relationship to maintain when there’s no sexual feeling between you.
“Occasionally we joke about sometimes going to bed together, but those jokes seem to make us both uncomfortable lately. I’ve never had any desire to ball Roger. If he’s had any desire for me, he’s kept it a secret. If the desire came about, I think I’d suppress it. I suppose Roger would react the same way. Out of fear that anything sexual might screw up what we’ve got going.
“If Roger really wanted to ball me, I guess I would go along with it, however I felt about him. Because I like him — I would have to say I’m closer to him than to anybody else at the present time — and so I would want to do it for his sake. I don’t think he’ll want to, though.
“Also, I have the feeling that if we ever did go to bed together, it would be something that wouldn’t happen more than once. Whether it was good or bad for both of us, I can visualize us getting up the next morning and acting as if nothing had happened and going back to the way things are. Maybe this is a fantasy of mine. Maybe I do have a desire to ball Roger and would want it to work out that way...
“In a way, he and I are very much alike. I’ve just begun to realize it lately. I always thought our getting together was a perfect example of the attraction of opposites. The promiscuous girl and the asexual boy. But we’re both outsiders, and neither of us is very good at relating to other people. My reaction is to spread sex around, while Roger’s is to shut it off entirely. I think that’s nothing but two sides of the same coin.
“I know he’s worried about being gay. I don’t think I’m worried about becoming a lesbian, or being a latent lesbian or anything. I can’t remember ever being attracted to a girl. I see girls and regard them as attractive, but not as attractive to me the way I do with men. Sometimes I think about having sex with another girl because it’s something I haven’t done. I imagine if the right girl made the right play for me at the right time, I might give it a try. I’ll probably never know — no girl has ever made a pass at me in all my life.
“I can’t imagine myself kissing a girl on the mouth. I could imagine going down on another girl, but not kissing her on the mouth...
“If my folks had any idea of my life style, it would utterly freak them out.”
JWW: I won’t comment on Sue’s personality here; I find the way she has resolved her sexual and emotional nature fascinating, but in this context we are more specifically concerned with her particular living arrangements.
It certainly seems to work for her, and for Roger as well. She is able to play a female role with Roger, while she is unable to play such a role with her male sexual partners, preferring to “take sex like a man” and drawing amusement from their confusion.
I doubt that living arrangements of this sort are common. Young persons frequently live in communal arrangements of one sort or another, often without any of the commune members being sexually involved with any of the others, but such communes function either as extended sibling groups or off-campus coed dormitories. I presume the platonic cohabitation of one male with one female is rare; this is the sole instance of which I have firsthand knowledge. But I would not be astonished to see such unions become more common in the future. If society is prepared to accept unmarried couples living together and having sexual relations together, surely society would be equally willing to accept a similar liaison with the sexual element omitted. God knows there are enough married couples around who cohabit without having sex together!
Through Sue, I met Roger and expressed a desire to discuss their living arrangement with him. He was acquiescent, if not enthusiastic, and we talked together one afternoon. He was not able to talk about his background or his sexual orientation, and his observations on his life style with Sue were limited to an abbreviated version of the facts she had already discussed with me. So it goes.
“There’s something my father said to me once before I went away to school. He was always very open with me about sex. He didn’t question me about my own experiences — which spared me a lot of embarrassment, since most of my experience at that time was with Mother Five Fingers — and he didn’t lay down rules. He would just sort of make observations. One of the things he said that summer was that he thought it was unwise to have sex with any girl unless you were prepared to marry her if you had to. No, I got that wrong. Not ‘unwise.’ I don’t remember the word, but the idea was that this was a moral thing rather than a pragmatic one. ‘Unethical.’ That was the word. He didn’t mean that you had to do the gentlemanly thing and marry a girl if you knocked her up, but that you shouldn’t fuck her in the first place unless that was how you felt about her, not that you would want to marry her but that you would be willing.
“I’m afraid I didn’t take his advice. When I was in college, my criterion was that I wouldn’t have sex with a girl unless she was willing. If she had a vagina and if she would hold still for a second, I was game.
“There was another thing he told me. He said I should try not to mistake an erection for love. I’m afraid I wasn’t too brilliant at following that bit of advice, either, but the line would come back to me from time to time and help me put some of my furious love affairs in proper perspective. Or a little closer to proper perspective, anyway. When you’re that age, it’s hard to be very balanced about sex.
“Lately I’ve thought about my father’s main sexual ethic, though. I think it made more sense years ago, when pregnancy was not only more of a possibility but more of a disaster. Between the pill and legal abortion, pregnancy just doesn’t seem like a legitimate line for determining whether or not a girl is one you should sleep with.
“Sexual ethics interest me. A friend of mine was very pleased with himself when he made the decision that he would never ball a girl unless he wanted to go down on her. He felt that if he didn’t like her that much he had no business getting in bed with her. I can relate to that...