End of An Era: Roommates Are Back, So No More Masturbating With Door Open

Marking the end of what has been called “the most carefree, electrifying summer of their adult lives,” thousands of young Iowa City residents bade farewell to an era in which they could freely masturbate with the door open. The Doily Allergen sought out and interviewed those most affected by this sudden need to reform their reckless habits. These are stories of an era marked by love, liberation, and going through a lot of lotion.

Eric Leery, 20

“There was never any fear or shame about what I was doing—what all of us were doing—there was this sense of things changing, the old established order coming apart. I stroked myself to full orgasm every day with that door wide open and thought, ‘this is incredible.’ Sadly of course, around August ‘19 the whole idea of whacking it in broad daylight sort of fell apart. But that same spirit lives on when I wait for my roommate to doze off so I can quietly beat my shlong.”

Shelby Lennon, 21

“You knew that there was this new thing happening and that you were a part of it. Every time I turned on that vibrater, I did it without the slightest concern of anyone hearing it loudly pleasure my womanhood, and knew there were thousands of other kids like me out there doing the same—rejecting conventional wisdom and fapping on the living room couch with complete impunity. ”

Allen Manson, 21

“Our roommates represented all these restrictions on when and how we could rub out a fat load. All that changed around the first weekend in May when events and people came together in this movement. My roommate left for Chicago, said he wouldn’t be back for months. Suddenly, half of my apartment complex was empty. No classes, no obligations. It just felt like—it felt like you were free to spend hours exploring new categories of porn, free to blast one into the shower and not worry about cleaning it up right away. I’m not sure this generation will get that chance again.”

Michelle Kerouac, 22

“It was a cool night May 2019. I was walking home from work when I saw Patricia’s bedroom light was off. All of the lights were off. I’d been seeing a lot of U-Hauls that day leaving the city. I didn’t know it at the time, but word was getting out that ‘the roommates’ were gone and that ‘something magical’ was about to happen in Iowa City. I walked into the empty house and knew right away that I was going to masturbate in there all summer without a care in the world.”

Joan Tate, 20

“What I’ll remember most about that chapter of my life is how you could walk past any young guy or girl in the Ped Mall and make a hand-signal reference to jerking it, and both of you would smile in acknowledgment. We knew one another’s story without saying a word. We were cumming every morning and night, indulging every fetish, not even bothering to delete our search history or shut the blinds. It was an amazing era to live through.”