I am not a touchy-feely person. If I were a real live serious blogger, I could go back and find past writings where I have stated this, and link you to them so you could go and read my explanation of the whole thing. I’m not, though, so you’ll just have to believe me.
So here in Ohio (the in-between land that is neither the East Coast nor the Midwest), it sometimes gets hot. Really hot. When it’s hot, I believe in ice cream. (I also believe in ice cream when it’s cold, but that’s another story). On on particularly hot summer day, two years ago, I picked up SC from the sitter and we went down to the local UDF to get something cold and sweet. Of course there was a long line, so we dutifully stood at the end. The guy working was new, so the girl working had to help him, and we were in line for a very long time. SC was being good, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. That is, until I noticed the people in front of us.
The girl was about 20, with a long, skinny nose and short brown hair. She was tall – taller than me, anyway – and cute in a brainy sort of way. Her boyfriend was about her age, in the white uniform of the nearby Honda plant. He was grungy looking, and he resembled a person who wrote a lot of angry poetry in high school. He was rubbing her back in small circles. I thought to myself that it was awfully hot to be touching, but whatever.
I averted my gaze and continued playing with SC, who was running in circles.
A few minutes later, I looked at the couple again as we moved forward together in line. Now the boy’s hand was lower on her back, still rubbing. They chatted and she flirted and giggled. Because UDF is tiny, we were very close to them in line. SC was directly behind the girl, but he didn’t seem to notice the back rubbing going on. I tried to convince SC to try something other than vanilla, and I read him some of the names of the ice cream choices. I asked him his opinion on blue moon cookie dough and he didn’t answer, so I looked down at him.
SC stood, his face inches away from this girl’s ass, eyes open wide.
(flickr horizontal.integration)
The girl’s boyfriend has his hand on her ass, and he was digging in between her legs. I don’t know if the girl hadn’t washed her ass in a few days and had an itch and he was helping her, or if the boy suddenly read the cover of the Cosmo on the newsstand and decided to try and find the G-Spot immediately, bur he was big-time groping her. I pulled SC back, and without thinking, said (in my best teacher voice) “Excuse me. Could you wait until you get back in your car to have sex? My son is only 4. He’s at least 10 years too young to watch porn.”
The guy dropped his hand from her ass right away, but they both turned and glared at me. “It’s a free country!” he said. I nodded. “You’re right. You are free to be gross in public. And I’m free to ask you to stop fondling your girlfriend in front of my kid.”
They stopped, and we eventually got our ice cream and went about our hot afternoon. But the people led me to think about Public Displays of Affection. If you have access to a bedroom, or a car, or behind the shed, then anything beyond kissing and hugging should stay there. Nobody wants to see your groping. Nobody needs to get fucked by proxy. I used to think that my opinion on this was swayed by the fact that I am not super touchy-feely – especially not in public — but that’s not the case. It’s just gross.
Next thing you know, I’ll be telling those damn kids to get off my lawn, won’t I?
Images from flickr
Good post! Whenever the PDA discussion comes up, as well as the concern many parents have over the possibility of their child walking in on them having sex, I always imagine what parental sex and privacy must have been like for most of human history. Parental bedrooms with locking doors are certainly a recent thing in human history; and over the ages most families’ were multi-generational and they lived in one room structures with little if any privacy. Lots of children were being born as well as farm animals so it’s hard to imagine there was any shortage of sex and intimacy being witnessed by children. Conversely over the past few hundred years it seems that for the most part humans have kept their children more distanced and ignorant about sex longer than at any previous time in human history. I have no conclusions nor have I read any studies about this topic; it just makes me think and wonder about our modern attitudes about sex and intimacy and the mixed signals we often communicate to our children.
I don’t know
As long as everybody stays dressed and hands stay above the dress, I don’t care. Maybe it’s being European, we seem to have much more relaxed standards here…