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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think having really loud, noisy sex when your children are just a few feet away is creepy and wrong?

171 replies

ManonBlackbeak · 06/10/2019 17:57

Im working through a few unresolved issues relating to my childhood at the moment, and this is something that's suddenly come to the forefront of my mind. Im firmly prepared to be told that Im being unreasonable or stupid.

Throughout my childhood and teen years my parents would have really loud sex at night when DB and I were in our rooms just a few feet away. I'd love to say that they assumed we were asleep, but often they knew full well that I was not as they'd pop their heads around the door to say goodnight before getting down to it!

Im not one of these people who thinks my parents never had sex, or should never have done it but there was very little in the way of discrete. We are not just talking the sound of a headboard banging against the wall either, we are talking about full on loud porn movie like shrieking from my DM.

The more I think about it the more weird and sort of off it seems. I don't have kids, but if I did I'd be horrified if they ever over heard me having sex. Actually I'd be pretty red faced if anyone did. But then the next morning DM would face us as always with zero embarassment.

Without drip feeding. DM is difficult, Im starting to believe my upbringing was a bit toxic. I believe she has undiagnosed mental health problems, and she was unpredictable, moody and emotionally unavialble to me. She also didn't respect my boundaries and would barge into my room without knocking, look through my things etc.

I cant get my head around it. The more I think about it the more I feel it wasn't right IYSWM?

OP posts:

TwatCat · 06/10/2019 19:49

This comes from the NSPCC site:

I can remember a similar instance where I went away on a holiday to a caravan with my dad, his wife and their friends and their two friends had very loud sex the whole time. I was a young pre-teen and I actually despise caravans because of this. It really does affect you.

To think having really loud, noisy sex when your children are just a few feet away is creepy and wrong?

MabelMoo23 · 06/10/2019 19:49

I only heard my parents once, I was in my early teens, 13 I think, and I woke up with a terrible headache, managed to drag myself out of bed to go and see them as felt so unwell, but from outside the door I could hear them having sex and I was too worried about knocking so went back to bed.

Next morning I couldn't get up, was in terrible pain and had to be rushed to hospital with lights and sirens as it turned out I had meningitis. Spent a week in intensive care.... I was very lucky

I've never told them the reason I didn't come and get them was because I could hear them! I wouldn't put them through that.

CinnamonMentos · 06/10/2019 19:50

No it’s definitely not on. Dh and I are very discreet and make sure we dtd quietly, even though ours are still very young. And we make sure they’re asleep.

I’ll never forget once I woke up in the middle of the night and needed a wee but heard my parents at it. They obviously thought I was asleep, and I didn’t want them to know I was awake, so I stayed in bed for ages bursting for a pee. It was awful! Thankfully that was the only time

Elyat · 06/10/2019 19:51

I'm really interested reading this thread both in how many people have experienced this and how many feel it's inappropriate.

My DM did it with a particular boyfriend. Really, really loud, bed really banging against the wall. She moved her room around at some point so her bed was against my wall too, which was even worse and I still can't fathom how it couldn't have been deliberate. She was sexually abused as a child and generally very protective which makes it even weirder.

The boyfriend worked in a sex shop and brought mountains of toys and... costumes I guess home, I found them all in her bed drawer one time. Shouldn't have looked but I was just a kid and the latex-y smell was very strong. The sight and smell of them still makes me feel weird.

She and him used to get extremely stoned in the evening so they could barely move on the sofa. They had friends in another town and we'd go stay with them sometimes and they'd all start smoking weed about 9am. One time when we were there, her and the boyfriend decided during the day to go out to his van "for a cuddle". I had what can only be described as a tantrum but they still did it.

She'd say now she was in a bad place after her break up with my stepdad but I feel like it was all on some level abusive. Still not sure though, I was so much her good little girl that I can't tell what was awful behaviour and what wasn't iyswim

RhinoskinhaveI · 06/10/2019 19:51

My mother was a bit like that when she got her new man, flaunting her sexual prowess in a way that felt as if it was designed to let me know that she's the alpha female, the one with all the sexual power
She was* very controlling
(*not dead, but dead to me)

blackcat86 · 06/10/2019 19:54

I was in the same situation. In a home as a tween and teen where personal boundaries and my thoughts/feelings/wishes were of no interest. My DPs would have loud, rough, BDSM sex that was at night but that we could clearly hear as it was so loud. They really didn't care. I honestly can't imagine doing the same with my toddler in the house (who wouldn't understand) let alone two teens.

chocolatebuttonsandcheese · 06/10/2019 19:55

I had this, I have memories of it from a very young age and used to think my dad was actually hurting my mum which always upset me. I would never do it now I have children.

NaviSprite · 06/10/2019 19:56

I’m normally fairly laid back about sex and do think it’s something that needs normalising at the appropriate age with children - BUT deliberately loud sex in full knowledge that your children can hear is very poor behaviour from parents.

My mum had various fuck-buddies (she of course introduced them as friends or boyfriends) that she’d swan in and out of my life with (I was raised by my Grandparents) and I do remember when I was around 4-5years old my brother and I shared a room. We had bunk beds on one end and in the middle was a double bed in case visitors had to stay over (we had a lot of DV in our family so my aunts frequently stayed). Well my mum took that as permission to bring a complete stranger into our bedroom and proceed to have sex with him multiple times in the night. She started when DB and I were asleep, the noise woke us up. I asked what she was doing and she told me to go back to sleep. I couldn’t and neither could my brother (I only learned the next day that he’d woken up at all). It altered us as children as we were exposed to something we had no concept of what was happening or that it was wrong.

So I’m in agreement that it’s behaviour that should be considered abusive.

That’s not to say parents can’t have sex, but decency and awareness should always be on the forefront of their minds.

My DH’s Mum considers herself rather free spirited and when he hit puberty she would deliberately flash him after coming out of the bath or shower. She thought it was hilarious and admits to it and says it was all harmless fun. It wasn’t for him...

DustOffYourHighestHopes · 06/10/2019 19:58

As a PP said, it is now a form of non-contact sexual abuse to intentionally make a child witness (aurally or visually) sex. And I think that’s absolutely right.

Accidents happen but the line isn’t that grey - most of the examples above show extreme levels of selfishness and bad parenting.

Original poster

ManonBlackbeak · 06/10/2019 20:01

How interesting you say that Rhino. Ive felt for a while that DM is jealous of me, she has always competed with me and tried to keep in my place. As a child I was very much a Daddy's girl, and I wonder if on some level she felt threatened by my closeness to him? Im not absolving him here obviously, but it also makes me wonder if it was yet another way of letting me know that she was the alpha female in the house?

OP posts:

PhilSwagielka · 06/10/2019 20:05

Ewwwww.

You've reminded me of the time when my mum was with my ex-stepdad and one of my former stepcousins gleefully told me how loud Mum was and how he could hear her and my ex-stepdad having sex. DO NOT WANT.

justasking111 · 06/10/2019 20:09

Jesus these stories, what were your parents thinking, it is abuse. I caught my mother late at night in the sitting room topless and thought it odd was a few years later I realised why. I suspect my parents had sex downstairs for reasons of privacy. We always had a bedroom that was not connected by a wall to our DCs were quiet, god I hope they never heard poor loves.

TheCatsACunt · 06/10/2019 20:10

Yes, I think it’s wrong. It sounds very exhibitionistic and weird.

@ManonBlackbeak Can I ask though. You say that your parents did this, but a lot of your subsequent comments relate to your mother, not your father. Do you think they played different roles?

LemonSqueezy0 · 06/10/2019 20:13

This kind of behaviour could be construed as illegal, if they got sexual pleasure from believing you heard/saw them. Its not on, you aren't a prude or in the wrong...

RhinoskinhaveI · 06/10/2019 20:14

DM is jealous of me, she has always competed with me and tried to keep in my place
Oh yes I'm very aware of the various ways she used to assert her dominance over me, sexual abuse too is about power and dominance, mother was very threatened by me

Original poster

ManonBlackbeak · 06/10/2019 20:15

All the noise seemed to come from my DM TheCatsACunt. I don't ever remember hearing my Dad at all, just DM shrieking and wailing like a banshee.

OP posts:

IsItChristmas · 06/10/2019 20:16

I dunno. I heard my parents too but we lived in a flat and now that I'm not sure that it was possible to have any kind of half-decent sex without us kids hearing. It wasn't intentional obviously.

Everything else is very similar though. When I was 14 my mum found and read my poems of very explicit nature and was pushing me to, ahem, open up about it . It scarred me for a long time if not for life that she chose to invade my privacy in this way.

Watching this thread with interest.

Neron · 06/10/2019 20:16

In a sad way, I'm glad I'm not the only one. There's a thread currently running about having time to have sex, and it's so interesting with the number of posters DTD whilst the kids are awake and mocking those who didn't agree. I'm not judging either - but now wondering if the people who don't agree are those who've had to experience what we have so we will always see things like that in such a warped way.
I'm not having children, partly because of how I was dragged up that I cannot bear to be responsible for any one else but me

justasking111 · 06/10/2019 20:17

A neighbour who had kids our age used to wander around the house naked, upstairs, downstairs and thought it was good for her DCs to see the human body was nothing to be ashamed of. I thought it was wrong.

PumpkinP · 06/10/2019 20:19

I never heard my mum. I don’t think it’s abusive I think they probably just didn’t realise how loud they were.

SomewhereInbetween1 · 06/10/2019 20:23

Our neighbours used to have very VERY loud sex multiple times a night, and even as an adult, I felt beyond uncomfortable, bordering on harassed. They KNEW they were loud enough for others to hear and being forced to be an unwilling participant because people get off on knowing you can hear is abusive. It's just not on.

WitchySWorker · 06/10/2019 20:30

I'm sorry this is your experience.
It's always awkward hearing other people having sex.. and as a child you'd be confused as hell.
It's disrespectful BUT NOT ABUSIVE on its own.
My parents had an attic bedroom in Italy.. houses are made of stone so you can't hear anything lol

Now you are an adult.. surely you can rationalise it?
My partner has to remind me how loud I am, (cover my mouth or I put a pillow on my head lol) because I orgasm so hard every damn time multiple times. It's not something I can physically control. It's like I'm on another universe and I forget about planet earth..
Now I have a child obviously I keep her in mind and have my ways of staying quiet. But I can understand others that can't or maybe their partners thought it was a good thing.

RhinoskinhaveI · 06/10/2019 20:30

When I was 14 my mum found and read my poems of very explicit nature and was pushing me to, ahem, open up about it
that sounds intrusive/domineering, she must have known you were very uncomfortable, sounds like an attempt to expose & humiliate?

RhinoskinhaveI · 06/10/2019 20:32

because I orgasm so hard every damn time multiple times
you sound like my mother when she was bragging about her sexual prowess

ooooohbetty · 06/10/2019 20:33

I can hear my neighbour shagging and I hate it. I think hearing your parents as child must have been absolutely terrible and I feel so sorry for you OP. I can't imagine why they thought it was okay. It's weird.

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