Loud Sex Complaints – But Was it Louder than a Leaf Blower?

Loud Sex Complaints – But Was it Louder than a Leaf Blower?

– Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com Porn For Women

Last Saturday, I awoke to the sort of persistent whine, buzz and whoosh combination that can mean only one thing— my neighbor indulging in his favorite summer pastime, using the leaf blower at 5am.

Shortly after realizing what I was hearing, the noise stopped. It was then that I realized my husband was not in the bed next to me. And at 5am on a Saturday, there are only two things in this world that my husband will get out of bed for: watching Liverpool Football Club matches and threatening a leaf blower-using neighbor with physical violence if he doesn’t turn that damn thing off, right the fuck now.

I actually sort of enjoy these occasional Saturday confrontations, because they remind that, in the long list of movie scenes that cover in one way or another the phenomenon of dealing with very noisy neighbors, my favorite one doesn’t depict such a confrontation, but merely describes it.

In Her Defense, The C-Word is Kind of a Regional Dialect Thing

It’s a scene from Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia, a brilliant one-man show put on by Gray and shot by director Jonathan Demme. In the scene, Gray describes his method of dealing with his loud neighbors in New York as being one of ‘Buddhist tolerance.” His girlfriend, Renee, has…. Well, a different approach.

“Renee is not practicing Buddhist tolerance,” Gray explains. “She’s walking up and down, she’s got steam screaming out of her navel. Renee’s father was in the Jewish Mafia. She knows the language. She grew up in the streets of New York. She calls her up and goes: ‘BET YA WANNA DIE, RIGHT, BITCH? CUNT, I’LL BEAT YOUR FUCKING FACE IN WITH A BASEBALL BAT! BITCH! CUNT! DIE! DIE! DIE!’…. Music goes louder. Renee figures the woman’s a masochist and is getting off on the language.”

Less “Debbie Downer,” More “Debbie Decibels”

In my past dealings with noisy neighbors, I’ve adopted an approach that is neither Buddhist tolerance nor New York-style threats of violence. I’d describe it as passive-aggressive, with maybe a bit more emphasis on the “aggressive” part.

As the long-suffering wife of an electric guitar enthusiast who owns both guitar amplifiers and home stereo equipment capable of truly paint-peeling, flesh-melting volumes, I strive to not only drown out the noisy neighbor in terms of what I can hear inside of my home, but drown out the noisemakers in their own home, as well.

This is sort of a modification of the approach advocated by The Bold Italic’s Chin Lu, which she dubbed the practice of being a “Debbie Downer.” 

“Crank the volume on the most depressing song you own,” Lu recommends. “I suggest something by Bright Eyes, as the dude practically cries through most of his songs. Or play the national anthems of select countries…. NOTE: Do not play angry rock songs, as those may inadvertently turn your neighbors on.”

I Must Have Missed that Part of Leviticus

Honestly, I’ve always cut my neighbors slack when the noise in question is noise from sex, particularly if it’s a woman making the noise, in part because the last thing I want to do is disrupt another woman’s sexual pleasure in progress. It’s hard enough for us to find good sex, after all, so we should be permitted to indulge in full when the opportunity arises.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say now, separated as I am by a good 50 yards from my nearest neighbor. Admittedly, I felt different about this back when I shared a wall with someone who seemed to relish in reminding me that she was having a great deal more sex that I was at the time.

Thinking back to that sub-optimal set of living conditions, I can understand why, a couple years back, a lot of New Yorkers were calling the NYPD’s non-emergency line to complain about their neighbors having loud sex.

“Listen I am a Christian woman,” said one caller, per the Post. “Help this girl stop having loud sex before God does.”

That’s odd; I don’t remember there being any sort of “thou shalt not have loud sex” commandment in the Old Testament. Either way, I do hope the police suggested that she try praying louder.

Come to Think of it, Several of My House Plants Do Occasionally Drop Leaves…

The most recent loud sex in the news to catch my eye comes out of the UK (where else?), where Lydia Barker and Billy Brown are alleged to have engaged in sex “louder than a lawnmower.”

As it turns out, the louder than lawnmower claim, in this instance, is meant to be taken literally.

“I was mowing my lawn at about 12.30pm one Sunday and I could still hear them,” claimed one nearby resident. “I had to go and get my earphones.”

As a resident of southern Arizona, I must admit my experience with lawnmowers (or with lawns, for that matter) is mercifully limited. Around here, the loud yardwork device of choice is the one referenced at the beginning of this post – the nigh ubiquitous leaf blower, the bane of would-be sleepers all over the Sonoran Desert.

Based on my own observations, one of two things is true here: Either leaf blowers are significantly louder than the lawn mower used by the aggrieved neighbor of Lydia and Billy, or their neighbor is indulging in severe exaggeration.

Wait a minute, maybe I’m on to something here: To drown out loud sex (or loud anything else) from your neighbor’s place, simply run a leaf blower in your own home!

There may be a downside to this approach but thinking more about it will have to wait; it seems I’ve just blown my favorite sugar bowl into the den.