Failed Relationship Plan no 1

I remember when sex in public toilets
was the only sex I could have. In my youth
I did it a lot, at times because it was illegal.
But I was as safe from arrest as everyone
I did it for, purely on the pragmatic grounds
that it was a place where I felt safe from society.
The most important reason I was not arrested
was that the profits of the pubs where men got pissed
would drop if their best customers were arrested,
and allowed out only when chaperoned by their wives.
A second would be that there would be public questions
around why such late arrests were happening
when the laws under which they were made
had been operational since Victorian times.
Finally there would be the shaming of the families
of the men who waved their willies in such forlorn hope
-too many shamed families and it would no longer
be newsworthy, the local press liked smaller shocks
with which to press people into to buying local news.

Since sex frequently proves unmemorable
after, and even sometimes during, the event
what I recall the best was the consistent grubbiness
of being there, which put off most people's interest.
Collective denial made it impossible to stamp out,
and unacceptable to mention, never mind
that it normalised hastily sought very bad sex.
What those who denied it also denied
was their contribution to its appeal-theirs
was the secrecy that bound the strange mix
of sleaze and glamour together, such that
nobody understood how they became combined.