On the unexpected
Is there anything more erotically charged than the unexpected? Than stumbling across a hidden corner, a nook, in the middle of London, which just begs to be explored? Or discovering a brand new place just ripe for fulfilling your desires, that very second? Inspired by my love of uncovering the erotic in the everyday, I present a (far from exhaustive) list of tantalisingly wicked – and perhaps a little surprising – London locations that never fail to fire my imagination:
As any literary-minded pervert will tell you, there are few things more stimulating than the hush of a library. But not all libraries are created equal in this regard. For unrivalled sex appeal, look no further than the London Library, which has both an unusually high quotient of attractive members, knockout babes on the front desk and an abundance of discreet reading rooms to lose yourself in. Exhibitionists ought to head straight to the back stacks, where the metal grilles on the floor leave one wondering who’s on the floor below looking upwards, or peering secretly through the gaps between the shelves. Let’s meet by the continental philosophy, somewhere between Kristeva and Lacan – Because no one does it quite like the French.
For the more extroverted – and decadent – among us, where better to surrender to your passions than a box at the opera? This is an art form that lends itself to unyielding intensity. I’d suggest the baroque splendour of the Coliseum as our backdrop, with a glass of champagne in the American Bar to start. I want to feel the crackle of electricity between us as the lights dim, my hand reaching out for yours in the dark. Once the performance begins we’ll do our very best to keep quiet, but our attention may not always be on the stage. Which rather begs the question: what can we get away with in the packed auditorium, and who might be watching us rather than the show?
Next, the Rothko Room at Tate Modern, which houses the Seagram Murals. The space is uncharacteristically dark for a gallery - the low light is needed to preserve the paint’s rich pigments - and each piece pulls you into it as if devouring you whole. You can (and I have) spent far too long simply staring into these reds -allowing yourself to be overtaken by their intensities, feeling them pulse and ebb like the blood in your veins. John Banville once described the space as “one of the strangest, most compelling and entirely alarming experiences to be had in any gallery anywhere” - and if that isn’t a basis for a potent and unexpectedly erotic experience, I don’t know what is. An additional entry within the visual arts category should also include the ceramics galleries at the V&A, which is always completely deserted and therefore ideal for passionate kissing.
As you may have noticed from my not-so-subtle hints, I like trains. Sometimes I like them for their invocation of an older, more romantic mode of transport, or for the view they afford you of beautiful landscapes. Other times I like them for the deep and meaningful conversations they facilitate with your travelling partner. But occasionally I like them because a train carriage - especially an almost empty train carriage at night - can be a deeply charged space. Perhaps it’s the sense of ‘in between-ness’ they prompt - London’s skyline flashing past outside as you fly through space - but I’ve always been turned on by the idea of locking eyes with a stranger across the carriage, an unspoken frisson taking us both over. And maybe it’s why once, when finding myself alone on a delayed train stuck between stations, I used the opportunity to get off early, so to speak.
Let’s move from the furious rush of a train to the cold, crisp darkness of a night in the cemetery. Sex and death remain each other’s eternal counterparts, our two fundamental drives if Freud’s to be believed. Perhaps that’s why the city’s cemeteries were historically gay cruising spots, most notable Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, with it's lush overgrowth and dark, winding paths. Call me a traditionalist, but my personal favourite has always been Highgate - London’s “great garden of death”. It’s a beautiful, sprawling place, with a heavy, blanketing stillness, ancient trees to lean against and its impressive register of famous inhabitants to bear silent witness to our indiscretions. Let’s meet in the dusk by Marx’s tombstone and get lost from there.
How slow can we go, I wonder? Jem Finer’s Longplayer is a composition designed to continue for 1000 years, which is playing at Trinity Buoy Wharf on the River Thames. The 20-minute long piece of music loops via a computer algorithm, and if all is equal it will play throughout the entirety of the 2000s. There’s something so tantalisingly erotic about this - an eternal return, a looping score, playing frequencies that reverberate through the body and through time. This is yearning and vibration on an epochal scale, housed in a strange little pocket of the river and next door to London’s only lighthouse. Let’s meet at the top.
Finally, my absolute favourite – the weirdest, the most secret, the most underground of all. You might not know it but underneath Finsbury Park lies an enormous, abandoned Victorian reservoir. It has huge, vaulted ceilings and tunnels that stretch as far as the eye can see. I’ve snuck in before for the occasional illegal party, and each time I feel a shudder of something thrilling and a little terrifying, which, if you’ve delved into my blog archive, you’ll know is psychological catnip for me. Hence why I’m desperate to go back – but I need someone brave enough to accompany me. We’d have to stay close; if you wander off, you might never be seen again. I want to know what my sighs sound like reverberating off these walls.
Those are some of mine. Now, you tell me yours.