Loo talk

Here I sit brokenhearted.....

No, No, No! Not at the moment, anyway.

Last night I awoke with a thought in my head. I had a recollection of this rhyme that I first came across over 45 years ago. A mildly bawdy rhyme, it appeared on public toilet walls at the time and I suspect still does on older toilet blocks.

Why was a 12 years old gay boy familiar with bawdy rhymes found on the walls of euphemistically named public conveniences? Well, let's not go there, sufficient to say I was responding to strong feelings arising from puberty that at the time I little understood.

But that rhyme intrigued and shocked the naive boy I was then.

There was no shortage of public conveniences in Sydney in those days. Every main street shopping centre, beach, public park, railway station and the like had it's conveniences. They were often left open 24 hours a day.

At the time, not only was homosexual activity illegal but it was also illegal to loiter or even to solicit for a consenting partner. There were no sex on premises venues in those days either nor, of course, the internet with it's dating services. So public conveniences were a meeting location for men seeking men. Their walls were the noticeboard for bawdy messages as well as for messages of availability for sex.

This led inevitably to complaints from those innocently using the conveniences for their intended purposes only to be exposed to men in various stages of sexual innuendo or behaviour. Operators of the conveniences responded by closing the conveniences, firstly in the evenings and eventually altogether. They made public conveniences inconvenient.

In subsequent years, homosexual activity was decriminalised, sex on venue premises legalised and other avenues for meeting same sex partners evolved. Those inconvenient public conveniences began to reappear but not in their old form. Now they appear as sterile, stainless steel futuristic time machines designed to discourage sexual and multiple use.

The walls no longer accept the bawdy rhyme and invitation but graffiti artists manage to overcome impediments to leave their distinctive marks.

Now, when one needs to spend a penny, this is what confronts you.

And for those who don't know the bawdy rhyme, here it is. Skip the next paragraph if you are of sensitive disposition.

Here I sit brokenhearted,
Paid a penny and only farted.

And why did all this come into my sleepy mind at four o'clock this morning? I have not a clue.