A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I caught the train to the city to meet some friends for dinner. As we presently live in different states, much of our time together is spent ignoring what is happening outside of our couple-bubble. But on this particular train ride, we were abruptly alerted to the presence of three teenagers who sat down a couple of metres away from us.
‘So I was going down on Ben, and he said…’ began the pink-haired girl, cut off by her friend who pointedly motioned towards us.
‘I don’t care,’ she continued. ‘They don’t know me.’
Her observation was correct, but it also meant that by the time we arrived at Flinders St station, we knew the intimate intricacies of the sex life of someone we didn’t know.
My boyfriend thought this was weird, and kind of uncool. I agreed, but my tendency to (over)analyse things prompted me to question what exactly had caused my discomfort. Was it inappropriate of her to explicitly detail her sex-capades in public? Or was it just that I wasn’t used to hearing such controversial subject matter openly spoken about on an innocent train trip?
With the amount of sexual content readily featured in films and on television, not to mention the various discussions I’ve heard amongst my friends, it’s not as though this girl brought up anything I hadn’t heard before. But even when such conversations are depicted on screen (which is, by definition, a public forum), they’re typically not taking place in a fictional public arena. There have been a lot of benefits in bringing sex and sexuality further out into the open, particularly for women being “permitted” to explore and enjoy sex, but that doesn’t mean that social conventions have altogether dissipated.
Most of us would agree that there is a time and a place for things, and this is especially true when it comes to sex. My general openness about sex is still something that I will only share with certain groups of people and within certain social settings, both of which also dictate how much I reveal.
Perhaps it is a level of prudishness that makes me think that talking about sex isn’t always appropriate, but isn’t the relegation to a private domain some of its appeal? I suspect that the knowledge that it’s only two (or three or four, etc) people partaking in whatever might be your sexual activity of choice plays at least a small part in why it’s often perceived to be something special or exclusive, and just telling someone else about it allows them some access into your private life.
Even so, when my friends tell me about the depraved things that they’re into, it’s still the result of some kind of selection process within their social sphere; they don’t tell me because I happen to be around, they tell me because they deem me an appropriate person to tell.
Granted, this girl on the train wasn’t “telling” us about her exploits, but it was nonetheless pushing something that would typically be considered as part of one’s private life into a public domain.
Ultimately though, maybe she was kind of right. Why would you censor your conversation or care if you don’t know the people who are within hearing distance?
Well, one of them might write about it.
(Image credit: 1.)
Good article! You make a really good point that sexual encounters are mentioned so much in the media, films etc and if it was any other topic (politics, obese americans, carbon tax) then it would be discussed a lot more openly so by that train (pun intended) of thought it is odd that its not the same with sex. But similarly there are topics that like you say you only discuss with friends and not in such a public place.
All in all the scenario made me wonder if she would have been as vocal if you guys had a four year old traveling with you.
Then again it was the Glenn Waverly line, you probably got off quite lightly and are lucky you didn’t hear/see more hahahaha
[...] Some time ago, I was privy to more private information about a girl whose name I don’t know than many of my close friends, simply because I was sitting near her on a train. [...]