The residents of The Harem rarely participate in actual illegal sexual endeavors. They’re not the $lum.

“You can come to our house and not contract an STD,” said Shyam Deshpande ’11.

Deshpande, Brie Bieler ’11, Maja Gamble ’11, Lilah Melzer ’11, Mickie O’Brien ’11 and Alex Reich ’11 decided to live together because of their mutual participation in cross-country. But according to Reich and Deshpande, the ladies picked them.

“So Shyam and I are very desirable, and the point is they were the top of the list of the people who wanted to live with us,” Reich said. “Since they were four women who we knew and are very beautiful, and very intelligent, and wonderful, we thought it would be appropriate for them to be fortunate enough to be in our presence.”

The women of The Harem laughed off Reich’s reason, but Melzer did talk about how the boys live upstairs while the girls live downstairs and how the boys have the biggest rooms in the house.

“There’s like King Palace One and King Palace Two up there,” Melzer said.

They came up with the idea for their name from the off comment of an unnamed friend of Reich’s. Last year, his friend asked who he would be living with next year, and when Reich told him, his friend said, “Oh, so you’re going to have a harem?”

Thus, the name stuck.

Because all of the residents if the house are on the cross-country team, they are all familiar to each others’ schedules.

“Sometimes when you want to get drunk on a Saturday, [Reich and Deshpande] are like, ‘No, I have a race,’” Melzer said.

Since they are all teammates, they have quite a bit of sibling love (and rivalry). They have house dinners periodically, house fetish costumes, and group naps on Gamble’s bed, as well as mounting. “It’s definitely a house bonding activity,” said Deshpande. They also tease each other endlessly, with Melzer as the butt of most of the jokes. “They always make fun of me,” she said.

Some of the more competitive activities come from a daily contest. Each day, the residents contribute pieces of paper with their ideas for challenges to a box, then pull one out that they must complete. They also take part in the Five Minute Challenge, in where they have to do one action that someone tells them to do for five straight minutes. Some memorable challenges are reading the Bible at dinner in the D-Hall, tying a bicycle to a tree with string and eating a chair.

Though The Harem hasn’t been host to too many parties, the residents are impressed with the scale of the parties they have had. Some have gotten crazy at times.

“The furniture used to be a lot classier before an unnamed freshman girl put her high heels through the couch cushion,” Reich said.

The residents are sure to decorate for any parties that they throw. Part of this entails creating a party ambience for the room.

“When the red bag goes over the lamp, that means it’s party time,” Deshpande said.

But they have unexpected guests sometimes. They have a mouse named Bruce living in their kitchen cabinets and a possum named Sam who knocks over the trash every day.

“I’ve had a few hissing matches with him, and he wins,” O’Brien said.

The residents are most looking forward to a party they’ll be throwing, dubbed “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” which may be recognized as the name of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, but by no means is it a Red Hot Chili Peppers party.

Either way, come in a costume, and they’ll be glad to have you—as long as you don’t ruin any more of their furniture.