The woes of sexually active—particularly voraciously sexual people—with kids, is a staple of blogging, tweeting and other writing and video venues. It’s a good topic; don’t get me wrong. But I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything about the woes of trying to be sexual when you have teen-aged and/or grown family members in the house.

Because believe you me: It can suck.

No matter how much you like having them around otherwise, and no matter how respectful they are of your space.

I’m not discounting the hassles of trying to get it on when you have a small child. I have a nearly six-year-old who co-slept with my wife and breastfed for the first couple years while I was mostly relegated to the guest bed for practical reasons (my wife is already often a part-time insomniac—she didn’t need an extra person rolling around to keep her awake). Then when the sleep deprivation from constant night-nursing started to turn my wife into the Linda Blair character from “The Exorcist,” I slept on a makeshift pallet, on the floor of what would be my little girl’s bedroom one day, next to our little girl for about a year-and-a-half thereafter because she wouldn’t take to a crib.

I don’t regret any of that—she was a kid who needed lots of contact and proximity from us early on, and you do what is necessary. But I preface my upcoming rant about older house inhabitants and sex with that bit of exposition to let you know I understand and feel the pain of people who were forced to be quasi-celibate for years after welcoming a child.

But the truth is that many of the suggestions of those who write about such challenges do have value, and having sex with an infant, toddler or young child around can often be quite manageable. Quickies during naptime, or sex in a room far from the kiddo’s at night. Taking advantage of any chunk of time you have if the child is in daycare or preschool. Copping a feel out of sight while Elmo, Dora, The Wiggles, or someone else is mesmerizing the child on-screen. Looking to places other than the bedroom for satisfaction (really, you should do that anyway, but that’s another topic).

There are others I’m forgetting now, I’m sure. But the point is, I can work around a toddler or young child, whether for team sex or solo satisfaction. My nearly six-year-old still has a baby monitor in her room, precisely so I can bring the receiver downstairs and know when she’s on the move. If my wife and I are busy smearing maple syrup over each other in the kitchen or we’re doing a 69 in the living room, at least there’s enough time for one of us to get partly clothed and run interference. And a sleepy child wandering downstairs probably won’t notice much. More importantly, at her age, she’s generally dead to the world at 10 or 11 or midnight or whatever, so she never does come down to begin with.

Try sticking a baby monitor in the room of your teen-aged kid (or even a tween) and see how far that gets you. The palpable telekinetic waves emanating from their indignant glares will probably force you to remove it. And even if you want to stand firm, how do you explain why you want it there to begin with?

Not to mention the fact it would be useless. At that age, the kid is going to wake up reasonably alert, will be on the move quickly, will likely NOT makes tons of noise on approach, and will understand fully what mom and dad are up to no matter how many clothes you slap on, or how many sex toys, lubes and other accoutrements you slide under a table or couch before they enter your immediate vicinity. The embarrassment and shame is likely to cause at least one person to be scarred for life (or at least the next season or two) and might induce a lethal aneurism in at least one of people present.

Needless to say, this puts a damper on things.

A totally grown person in the house isn’t much better. My father-in-law spent more than a month living with us. He’s a widower. He’s not really supportive of sexual experimentation. Oh, and he’s a fairly fundamentalist preacher.

Yeah, that’s a big buzz-killer for sex at all, even the bedroom, but it means anything particularly fun, noisy, messy, etc. in non-standard rooms or using objects/substances not normally associated with sex is out the window.

Still, you try.

Or at least I did.

I figured even if I couldn’t do freaky things with my wife since she couldn’t even work up libido much with her dad under our roof, perhaps I could do some freaky solo things. I like to watch hot videos on my desktop or netbook while jacking off, and I like to indulge my fetish interests by smoking, shoving an ass-appropriate item in my nethers, getting something slimy or sticky to smear on me, or whatever.

At one point, my father-in-law having been with us a week or so, and me knowing what his habits were sleep-wise by that point—and his room being above the kitchen—I thought I had a plan one night. I could shut the door to the kitchen, put the netbook on the counter, light up and do my smoking fetish masturbation thing.

Not as comfy as doing it while seated in my office or something, but workable. If he got up, I’d hear him above me, and I’d definitely hear him coming down the stairs, and that would give me enough warning to pull up my shorts, slap down the netbook cover and slide it out of sight. The smoke in the air would require explanation, but I’m a grown man and he’s a smoker, so telling him I partake sometimes would be simple enough.

Worked like a charm the first time.

Tried it again another time, and shortly before I reached Nirvana, I got a text from the wife saying, “I smell smoke.” Insomnia for the fail! I text her back, “Everything’s fine.” Of course, now she’s fully awake, thinking her dad is smoking in the house (she is a light smoker, I only smoke for occasionally fetish gratification, and we don’t want the kiddo exposed to it, so her dad, a pretty heavy smoker, was only allowed to partake of the vice outside).

Needless to say, by the time I’ve let my wife know via text messaging that it’s me smoking and everything’s under control, she’s wide awake and pissed off for being in that state, and I’m the bad guy.

By the time I figured out a workable way to get any kind of kinky action (since action with my wife wasn’t happening much during this time) while the father-in-law was around, by creating a little quickie space for myself in a back hall that connects the kitchen to the attached two-level barn (although it’s in-town, it’s a really old house)…well, it was a moot point because shortly thereafter he had moved out and back to his original spot hundreds of miles away because he decided he hated our state.

Now, I realize my kink areas (smoking, dress-up, wet-and-messy, etc.) are a little more intensive than some people’s and are harder to keep on the down-low when someone’s in the house. But the point is, once the housemates and houseguests aren’t all kids, things become more complicated for anything but basic bedroom nookie, and you really need to shoo them out to get any super-fun action going. But that’s awkward in itself.

When my stepson came home from college recently, I realized I was kind of screwed, especially with the smoking fetish stuff. He doesn’t know I smoke at all, and I’m not interested in him finding out I started doing so a year-and-a-half ago at the tender age of 42, because it’s just too fucking hard to lie about why, and I’m sure as hell not going to traumatize him by being truthful and explaining my fetishes to him. I love him, and we’ve gotten along great since he was 4, and I’m happy when he’s around because I have some testosterone support to balance out all the estrogen in the house, and he and I can talk about nerdy and geeky and philosophical things in which my wife has no interest.

But all that said, when I’m feeling like doing the nasty to myself, I really wish he were out carousing with other youths, or that I had an air-conditioned shed out back of the house or something. Because he keeps late hours—and this is coming from me, a guy who often stays up until 2 a.m. before going to bed to get up at 7:15. He is known to come downstairs and cook meals at midnight or later. His room abuts right up against my office, and he sometimes needs to pass through it to get to the back stairs so he won’t wake up his sister or his mom by going downstairs.

This is difficult to the Nth degree compared to navigating a young child who sleeps like the dead and still doesn’t know how to thwart toddler door-knob guards.

It’s gotten better since I’ve developed new strategies. He helps his mom out most mornings at the non-profit she operates, so if it’s not a day I have a lot of deadlines or research to do for my paying gigs, I can indulge my fetishy vice before needing to pick up the little girl from summer day camp. Or, when my stepson heads out of town for various things (he’s got a busy summer this year) I can have the privacy of my office again and plenty of time to air things out and clean things up.

Now, again, I have to acknowledge that my main kink is pretty hard to camouflage, and therefore many of you might not feel my pain. But there must be some folks out there who like to whip out leather or latex outfits or wield a flogger or roll around in baby oil or vanilla pudding who understand just how much their style can be cramped when highly mobile, grown-up, perceptive, sex-aware people are in the area.

And probably some slightly more vanilla folks who hate being denied the ability to have a loud orgasm because the guest room is too close to the master bedroom or something.

Now, I know this article has been long on storytelling and kvetching but short on advice.

That’s because I don’t have much.

Although I will say, as I’ve obliquely hinted at already, that you might want to plan ahead. Before your adorable child becomes a tween (or even a pre-tween), have some strategies for how you’ll carve out time for sex you truly want or need instead of “make it do” sex. If you’ve discovered your kinky side later in life, as my wife did recently, start figuring out ways to keep the filthy activity alive while navigating the life of your teenager(s). If you know you’re going to have a long-term houseguest, figure out how to keep that person far enough from your sex life—or convince them to take long day trips—so that you don’t end up so backed up that your gonads explode.

Yeesh.

Just writing about this is enough to make me long for the days my wonderful stepson was a wee lad—but only temporarily. They all grow up eventually, and you adapt.

Just don’t take your potentially sex-laden private time for granted, folks, and don’t pass on the opportunities when they come your way.

Otherwise you might get so desperate that you throw caution to the wind one night—and have to endure the eternal shame of seeing your grown or nearly grown child witness you pegging your husband while screaming you’re the cowgirl who’s going to break his stubborn ass.

And who needs the cost of the therapy that will require in subsequent years?