Screaming Orgasms & Silent Crushes

Dear Jen,
My roommate and I have lived together for about six months, and everything was going great until recently when she hooked up with this new guy.  I'm now kept awake night after night by her screams and yowls of pleasure.  I want her to have fun and feel free in her own home, but I also want to get some sleep and not have images of her doing the nasty burned onto my brain.  My questions is this:  is being loud an uncontrollable part of sex for some people?  I realize I make some noise sometimes, but she sounds like she's getting murdered in there.  Can I ask her to tone it down, or should I go out and get myself some earplugs?
- Sleepless In Silverlake

Dear Sleepless, 
Oh god, is there anything worse than listening to other people getting all beasty?  Everyone who's ever had a neighbor or a roommate has some awful story about it - "she sounded like a dying ox" or "I could hear them high-fiving after they came together."  I had a neighbor who only got it on at three in the morning, or on Sunday afternoons when I had my knitting group over.  She'd moan at the top of her lungs for a good twenty minutes, like she was getting serviced by The Tongue Machine.  My neighbors and I would marvel at seeing her freshly-scrubbed, wimpy little boyfriend leaving the house, unable to believe that THAT was what all the commotion was about (really, the guy looked about twelve.  He was always eating candy, too). 

Meanwhile my neighbor, dubbed The Orgasmatron by everyone within a five mile radius, was a soft-spoken, fluttery-eyed, shy little thing.  Did you ever notice that?  It's always the quiet ones, the ones who leave parties and drive all the way across town to their own houses should they need to take a poop, that have no problem bullhorning their way through sex. It made it real hard for me explain to her that she made my nights sleepless and my knitting groups extra-spinstery, so rather than deal with it like a grown up, I stormed out onto my front steps one frigid evening and screamed in my best trailer-park holler for her to shut the fuck up already. 

Which is not my advice to you, even though we never heard a peep again.  But it does prove that people can indeed get off without sharing their passion with an unwilling audience.  Your roommate included.  I'm sure if she was spending the night at grandmas with her man, for instance, and was feeling a little frisky, they'd find a way to pull it off without scaring the nice old lady.  So it's not that she can't be quiet, it's that she's too inconsiderate to make the effort. 

It's not fair of her to put you in this uncomfortable position, but perhaps she's unaware of how loud she is.  I doubt it, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt since she's been good up until now.  I'd have a little roommate "us talk" and tell her what's up.  If she's as good a roommate as you say she is, she'll be embarrassed and apologetic and tone it down.  If not, it looks like you may just get caught up in a moment of passion of your own and start blasting Houses of the Holy at three a.m. when she's trying to sleep.   

Dear Jen,
What kind of signs should I be looking for to tell if a woman is into me or not?  There's this chick that I'm head over heels about, and I know she's dated women ( although I think she dates guys for a cover up), but with me, she just stares ( a lot), makes jokes ( about sex!!), and we have fun but she never makes a move.  And I know she knows I like her. And I also know, or rather feel, that she doesn't see me as just a friend.  So how do I develop this radar? I really don't have it! God!!!
- Blind as a Bat

Dear Bat,
Are you serious?  You basically just told me that this woman flirts with you, stares at you, LIKES you as more than a friend, but that you just don't know if she's into you?  "One time, she asked if she could sit on my face, but I'm not sure, there really wasn't anywhere else to sit.  Plus my face is really comfortable."

I'll tell you what you really don't have: cojones.  You have every sign you need, minus a signed declaration of her lust for you.  Ask her out already.  Plant a kiss on her.  People have gone forward with far less to go on and have succeeded.  Your risk factor here is weensy.  Your weenie factor is huge.  Get on with it, woman!