Five Questions for... People Who Watch Porn on Public Transport

The internet has done many things for humanity. Democratised information, given voice to the voiceless, gifted lay-people the tools to learn how to whittle a spoon out of wood. Regrettably, it has also made us impossibly horny at all times, to the extent that watching porn on public transport has become so common MPs have had to call for a ban on it.

Yesterday, a report from Westminster's Women and Equalities Committee stated that pornography viewing on public transport "has developed as a new form of sexual harassment in public". As a result, the report recommends that porn websites no longer be accessible via WiFi on public transport. To most, this will seem normal – and, dare I say, sensible. However, there is a certain section of the population who will be crushed by this news: namely, people who watch porn on the bus.

If you've ever been privy to someone watching porn on public transport, you will be familiar with the sense of terror ('Are they… wanking?') and then puzzlement ('Oh, no. So… what are they doing?') that the experience breeds. The whole thing raises a number of queries – not least: "why?" and "please, why?" – so now feels like a good time to say: I've got some questions.

Buddy, I know. I know your day has been long; that all you want to do is kick back and destress in the soft cocoon of some nice hot smut. But I must ask you: have you ever wondered if it's entirely necessary to whip out a video of two people fucking as soon as you start your journey home? Have you not learned to control yourself in the years since adolescence? Do you not realise how uncomfortable it might make the people around you? At the very least: would you not rather watch it on a better screen?

Call me a prude, but personally I can't think of anything that would make the already upsetting concept of The Morning Commute more intensely troubling than porn noises. Very seriously, if I imagine hearing sex sounds through a pair of powerful headphones at London Bridge station at 8AM, I begin to feel haunted and ill.

Maybe just try downloading a podcast?

So you're out here on the 21, watching your porn, but how did you get to this point? Both on a macro and micro level. What life have you lived up to this moment, the moment at which you decide it's chill to watch video footage of intercourse in the close vicinity of strangers? And how, more immediately, did you find yourself in this situation? Hopped on the bus, got your phone out, plugged in your headphones and opened up Chrome to your personalised homepage, YouPorn? All while old ladies mill about around you with their shopping trollies? Grow up.

What's most mystifying to most people who don't watch porn in public – the silent majority – is what exactly those who do indulge are getting out of the experience. Public transport is, I think we can all agree, famously not hot, while wanking in public is a criminal offence, which means that’s out until you’re back in your own gilded masturbation palace (also known as: your house).

So really, that leaves two options: either you’re genuinely into the aesthetics and narrative (I can believe it!), or you're getting off on the experience of watching in public. That first one: fine? That second one: not so fine! At all!

There is a culture of shame around sex in the UK, which is a true social ill – there's no doubt about that. However, I am a woman of nuance! So I do think that while the above is true, it's also objectively embarrassing to be caught watching Fake Taxi by a fellow train passenger in the middle of the day. What can I say? I contain multitudes!

@hiyalauren