Friday, March 19, 2004
Fucking in public - to get a room or not get a room? A couple of months ago, I was going home on the tram and out the tram window, I happened to glimpse a couple fucking in a park. The guy was black, the chick was white. She had her knees up, and he was lying on top of her shagging away. I happened to spot them at the exact moment he kind of collapsed onto the chick in that way men do when they've just come. Of course, they could just have been dry-rooting. But anyway.
It was surreal to see. It was a bit like that scene in The Shining where they're running around this haunted hotel and through a doorway, they briefly spot some guy in an animal mask sucking off this other guy. This was in a highly public park, right on a main road, and the couple were in the middle of an open space right near the road.
This disturbed me at the time, but I only really put my finger on why last night, when me and Gemma were walking through the back streets of Carlton on our way to a t-shirt launch. For some reason a lot of streets in Carlton have wide grassy median strips and roundabouts, and there was this couple lying on one of them snogging. There were some other people walking just ahead of us, and they sniggered and made some comment like "Check that out!" and I said ostensibly to Gemma, but really to the couple, "God! Get a room!"
What made me say that? Was it that their 'private' behaviour in a public space made me uncomfortable? Was it that those two were getting some while my own sex life is sadly hypothetical? The answer occurred to me almost straight away - I was repulsed because they were ugly! They reminded me of fantasy fiction aficionados. The guy had glasses and that long curly hair that when pulled back in a ponytail, looks like a squirrel's tail. He was wearing an iron-on logo t-shirt that had once been black, but was now grey. The chick was wearing a daggy long floral skirt. She had long lank dirty-blonde hair.
As I said to Gemma at the time, what does it say about me that public sexual behaviour is acceptable to me as long as the people in question are good-looking? Is it a voyeuristic streak? (Pun unintended, for once!!) That made me realise why the previous couple in the park had disturbed me so much. There was something vaguely erotic about having spotted them, but it was the same kind of contrived, panoptic eroticism that you get on trashy reality TV shows like Paradise Hotel. The people know they could be watched, and that's exactly what turns them on, and there's something unsettling and perverse about your own voyeuristic desires being harnessed for someone else's pleasure.
As a footnote, this incident occurred at around 6:45pm. When we were heading back at around 8pm, it was getting dark and I jokingly wondered to Gemma whether the couple would still be there. She went home another way and when I walked past alone, there they were, still lip-locked! I sent a text message to Gemma. It said "They're still there! Ugly! Ugly!" She replied: "Ewww!"
It was surreal to see. It was a bit like that scene in The Shining where they're running around this haunted hotel and through a doorway, they briefly spot some guy in an animal mask sucking off this other guy. This was in a highly public park, right on a main road, and the couple were in the middle of an open space right near the road.
This disturbed me at the time, but I only really put my finger on why last night, when me and Gemma were walking through the back streets of Carlton on our way to a t-shirt launch. For some reason a lot of streets in Carlton have wide grassy median strips and roundabouts, and there was this couple lying on one of them snogging. There were some other people walking just ahead of us, and they sniggered and made some comment like "Check that out!" and I said ostensibly to Gemma, but really to the couple, "God! Get a room!"
What made me say that? Was it that their 'private' behaviour in a public space made me uncomfortable? Was it that those two were getting some while my own sex life is sadly hypothetical? The answer occurred to me almost straight away - I was repulsed because they were ugly! They reminded me of fantasy fiction aficionados. The guy had glasses and that long curly hair that when pulled back in a ponytail, looks like a squirrel's tail. He was wearing an iron-on logo t-shirt that had once been black, but was now grey. The chick was wearing a daggy long floral skirt. She had long lank dirty-blonde hair.
As I said to Gemma at the time, what does it say about me that public sexual behaviour is acceptable to me as long as the people in question are good-looking? Is it a voyeuristic streak? (Pun unintended, for once!!) That made me realise why the previous couple in the park had disturbed me so much. There was something vaguely erotic about having spotted them, but it was the same kind of contrived, panoptic eroticism that you get on trashy reality TV shows like Paradise Hotel. The people know they could be watched, and that's exactly what turns them on, and there's something unsettling and perverse about your own voyeuristic desires being harnessed for someone else's pleasure.
As a footnote, this incident occurred at around 6:45pm. When we were heading back at around 8pm, it was getting dark and I jokingly wondered to Gemma whether the couple would still be there. She went home another way and when I walked past alone, there they were, still lip-locked! I sent a text message to Gemma. It said "They're still there! Ugly! Ugly!" She replied: "Ewww!"
