Imagine sitting on the secluded seventh floor of McKeldin Library around 9 p.m. pulling an all-nighter for your final exam the next day.
As you leaf through the pages of your textbook, some bookshelves near you begin to rattle. As you get up see what the fuss is about, you hear panting coming from a few stacks over and you see clothes strewn in the aisle. And then, all at one, you realize: People are having sex in the library.
This is exactly what senior biology and English double major Alex Lehukey said happened to her during her freshman year at the university when she was studying for her classical mythology exam.
“It was my first time immersed in finals and I was overwhelmed…I initially thought someone was having an asthma attack or something,” Lehukey said.”I ran back to my books and grabbed everything and ran out of the library as fast as I could. And, to this day, [I] have apprehensions about being on the seventh floor of McKeldin.”
But the sex is not limited to McKeldin. Junior environmental science and technology major Keeva Shultz said she was meeting a group to study in Hornbake Library when she encountered a couple having sex on a table in a small study room.
“I looked in the window and it was dark so, I went it,” Shultz said. “When I walked in, I saw these two people on top of each other on one of the tables, and then the guy jumps up and the girl looks at me. I’m like ‘oh, sorry’ and close the door and walk away.”
“They didn’t come out for like a half an hour,” Shultz added. “After that I definitely would not touch that table.”
Both students agreed that walking in on others doing the deed put them in a very precarious position.
“I mean, what do you do in that situation? Do you say ‘Can you please stop having sex, I’m studying?’ or ‘Are you okay? You both sound like you’re in pain.’ Or do you just run away and ignore it? So, I just ran away,” Lehukey added.
Sex in McKeldin is so popular that a Facebook group, “People Who Have Had Sex In McKeldin Library (or Want To)”—which currently has 58 members—developed a forum for students to post their favorite spots in the library to do the nasty.
Among the alumni who posted on the group wall were Bill Brandwein, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center stage manager, and Jay Libou.
“I have had sex in McKeldin Library mad times,” LiBou wrote on the Facebook group wall. “I’m telling you….The 5th floor (Asian studies section) men’s bathroom stalls are the spot!”
This is not the first time McKeldin has been in the spotlight for kinky affairs. In 2008 a man was reported masturbating in the reference stacks of the library and exposed himself to a female student. The McKeldin Masturbator, as he was called, fled when the female went to alert library staff.
“It wasn’t the fact that people were having sex that freaked me out, it was just that it was in a public place,” Lehukey said. “To put it in display for everyone and open it up to the peanut gallery, I think, is just not the best option.”
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