Is there a feminist argument for sex in public toilets?
Jenni Millbank
University of Sydney
This paper locates a discussion of sexuality and the public/private divide in the context of refugee case law from Australia and Canada. The decisions examined are potent evidence of the public/private divide in Western refugee receiving nations. What is and what isn’t protected conduct in the decisions effectively decrees what is and is not proper for lesbians and gay men to do, both "here" and “there.” The result of this projected sense of the public/private divide is to trap applicants in a tightly woven paradox: if they are too public they are transgressive, repellent and in danger of being rejected as deserving of the abuse they have experienced. If they are too private, they risk their claims not qualifying as persecution; it is merely private and/or readily avoided.
This paper focuses on the "problem of the public toilet" as an example, exploring the contorted and uncomfortable manner in which decision makers have responded to the presence of prohibited sexual activity in sites which are presumed to be public but which, when examined, slip and slide along the public/private divide.