Sunday night I was out with the Russian lover and a friend of ours. Said friend is uninhibited; or at least, she becomes uninhibited when were are out together. And the Russian lover and I are never inhibited, so the three of us together can become quite the bawdy ruckus.
We went for dinner at a famous sushi place in New Jersey, and the hostess seated us in a tucked-away corner booth. We opened a bottle of wine, and soon we were swapping sordid stories. The Russian lover was just about to explain something useful about men and their responses to the proposition of a blow job when a woman in the booth next to ours turned around and snipped "Excuse me, you are being very inappropriate. You are out in public, you need to stop talking about things like that."
We'd been so caught up in detailing exploits, we had not even noticed a table being seated next to ours. The snippy interruption came as a suprise, so instead of returning something witty, I only managed a raised eyebrow in amusement while the Russian lover countered with "Oh really? Is that so?" At which point the man sitting next to the snippy woman turned around and stared intently at the Russian lover while removing his glasses the way a father does when he wants you to know that he is Very Serious About Disapproving of Your Behavior. "And? What do you want to do it about?" the Russian lover asked. The man turned back around.
Nothing irritates me more than prudish Americans getting snippy with sexually well-adjusted adults, as if they are entitled to neuter the public sphere. I know that these people probably don't have sex, or have religion and therefore have weird guilt about sex, and so they don't have patience with anyone who not only has sex but is also able to openly express their enjoyment thereof. The group of adults in the booth next to us looked like the kind of people who take sex Very Seriously. Hearing people laugh and joke about all manner of sexual behavior offended their sensibilities; apparently, sex is supposed to be a humorless Friday night fifteen-minute missionary-position appointment, not a rich dimension of one's life and self.
They don't like overhearing attractive young people talking about sex while they're eating in a restaurant? Well, I don't like having to look at ugly fat miserable people while I'm eating in a restaraunt. But that's life, and that's the risk you take when you decide to leave your house. I'm so polite as not to interrupt your table and announce that your appearance disgusts me; maybe next time you could return me the courtesy and keep your disgust with my conversation to yourself.