The public bathroom, a ubiquitous amenity spread throughout the city; a slightly dank underworld where those unable to find anything else make use of the ablutions. However within these
unassuming walls, a secret world emerges, outside the margins of polite society; this is what Laud Humphreys described as the “tearoom trade”.
Uniformed business men, along with vagabonds, the unhappily married and those just curious, descend down the grated stairs, in to the gloomy interiors. Skirting around the pools of light cast by those few fittings still working. Words are hardly spoken, instead furtive glances dart their way across the other faces cast in darkness; until... eyes lock, gestures are exchanged, and a party of two, three, or more, proceed rank and file into the next
vacant cubicle.
​
They come to fuck, to get fucked, and to watch’s others fucking. This anonymous game exists on the edge; where men of all types collide together, not caring about position, salary, or status. This is a purely aesthetic trade, where looks determine your value within this underground marketplace.
​
Goodbyes are not exchanged, instead the muffled click of a door lock opening, sounds the end of this lascivious rendezvous; with those sharing nothing but a backwards glance before parting ways resurfacing to street level, these participants in casual copulation, return to their own lives, inconspicuous except, perhaps, for a tie left askew or a shirt hurriedly tucked back in. These actors then desperately try to assimilate back into a world that always seems to treat them as some sort of other; and yet as they their minds wander as they drift off to sleep, they find themselves dreaming of when they will next return to the Public Bathroom, and its salacious tearoom trade.
