Your eyes are heavy, and the room is foreign. For the brief moments that you can hold your lids open, you see a "Chat Noir" poster, several emptied Smirnoff bottles mixed with a lone Grey Goose bottle, and just below your field of vision you see hair — and you realize it’s your boyfriend going down on you, and you’re in his room, but you’re too tired to appreciate it. What’s taking him so long? It’s been such a long week and the weekend is so short. You thought you could handle both sex and sleep, but it looks like this time around it has to be one or the other. With very little energy and probably less tact, what do you say to the doer of good deeds?

Tiffanie, a good friend of mine, says to just pretend to be so drunk that you pass out. When I asked other friends the same question, their responses ranged from, "Not in the mood?" to "That’s terrible!" to "Just try to stay soft, even if your dick is in their mouth already." The situation can become more difficult if the oral sex is the result of negotiating down from penetration. In such a case, it’s your duty to orgasm.

For Communication junior Debbie Zutty, a sex tigress always willing to enjoy the small things in life, saying "no" is a thing of the past. "I’ve never said no before," Zutty says. "I said no when I did it with guys, but never with girls." For others of us, without a super-human libido, saying no presents the challenge of being true to your own needs and compassionate to the needs of others.

Personally, often times immediately after saying "no" I feel that I’ve made a complete mistake. I feel guilty for saying "no" to my boyfriend and I also feel disappointed that I’m not having sex at that moment — lucky for me, that decision is usually reversible. Sometimes however, the "no" stands, and I’m glad that I made my way to that decision. Saying no isn’t about brute force, it’s about finessing your way there; some good examples to start with are: "I’m not really in the mood, but can we cuddle before going to sleep?" and "Not right now, but tomorrow do you want to go see a movie? My treat" are good ways to say "no."

Better yet come off as the compassionate lover with this line: "I know you want to, but you don’t have to tonight, I know you’re tired." If guilt is the angle you’re working, try, "Oh (enter name here), you should have told me — I had a big lunch, and sex right now just wouldn’t be pretty." At the bottom of the barrel is cold honesty. While I am a proponent of complete honesty, I feel strongly that the aforementioned suggestions are a thousand times better than hearing, "you just can’t turn me on right now."

From personal experience, sometimes it feels great to be deep in REM cycles rather than in a lover. So take a stand and sleep soundly under the gaze of the "Chat Noir" sometime.

Weinberg sophomore Daniel Crowder is the PLAY sex columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].