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It is a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon so my partner and I decide to walk to the beach for a swim, heading through town on our way. She is wearing a beautiful airy summer dress over her swimwear which flows effortlessly in the breeze, I am wearing my swim shorts and a t-shirt so that I can get straight into the sea when we find our spot on the warm sand. The sun is beaming in a cloudless pale blue sky giving us a skip in our step and a light feeling in our souls. We happily chat away as we stroll along the busy pavements, chuckling to each other at the holiday makers stopping dead in their tracks in-front of us, oblivious to the ‘people-jam’ that they create as they peruse shop windows for treasures and trinkets to take back home to loved ones; maybe an I love Paignton t-shirt or key-ring, possibly some fudge for grandma. We continue on our way holding hands, exchanging glances and little kisses as we go. We are in love and its plain to see.
Approaching the beach excited screams of children can be heard amongst the talking and laughing of people enjoying the bright summers day. Families are covering the green beside the beach playing and laughing in the midday sun. A group of boys are playing a tentative game of football, aware of not kicking the ball into one of the groups dotted around them. As we reach the sand wisps of smoke from sizzling barbecues punctuate the sprawl of people and the sounds of children playing becomes louder. The beach is full of mums, dads, grandparents, teens and children enjoying their day off in the Devon sunshine.
My partner and I aren’t stopping at this beach though as there are way too many people for us. We much prefer a smaller crowd. Thankfully we know of a smaller less well-known beach around the other side of the harbour. Passing the groups of people enjoying their dose of vitamin D and fun we continue our conversations on life the universe and everything, holding hands and enjoying the walk.
We arrive at the beach and set up our temporary camp, kicking off our shoes and stripping to our swim wear eager to get into the sea and have a much-needed swim in its cooling crystal waters. The beach is busy but nowhere near as busy as the stretch we have just come from. A few families are dotted around us and a group of teenagers’ laze on the periphery with their music playing softly, only just audible over the lapping of the sea upon the shore. Marvelling at how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the world, we enjoy our beach day together. A couple very much in love and happy in the moment.
This sounds amazing doesn’t it? In all honesty reading this back it sounds like a Hollywood romance film, but it’s not a fictionalised account, this is true life. I am not saying that every day is like this, we are a real couple. We love one and other and as any couple does we have our moments, but this is a real account of how we would spend a day together in the beautiful seaside town that we call home.
What I haven’t mentioned here is an unfortunate ugly truth of the things that happened during our pleasant stroll to the beach…. The stares, comments and actions of men, adult and adolescent, that were encountered on this day and in all honesty a great many other days; The man holding his wife’s hand who stared at my partners body so hard that he missed what his own partner had said. The nudges of twenty something guys to each other who say “Whoa, check out that!”. The guy stood with a beer in his hand who moved so that he could get a better look at my partners behind as we walked past. The guy who looked into my partners eyes grinning hungrily as we walked past him. This is not a joke or an exaggeration and is the pinnacle of disrespect towards my partner, me and our relationship.
On one occasion when I wasn’t with my partner an elderly man who was pushing a child in a stroller through the park that she was walking through actually stared directly at my partners crotch as he walked towards her. Not even her face, her crotch! She has been beeped at, whistled at, shouted at, and had crude gestures or words aimed at her. The amount of times that we have been holding hands together on a walk such as I described previously men have stared at her as we walked past, they have checked out her behind and I have seen them whispering things to one and other. For me, the worst culprits are those holding hands with their ‘beloved’; how must your partner feel if you are holding their hand, telling them that you love them, showing the world that you are together, yet you are staring unabashedly at another woman? What kind of man could do that? Normally when one of these ‘men’ notice that I have seen what they are doing they become red faced and look away quickly, avoiding even a glance in our direction again. If what they are doing is innocent, why would they feel the need to do this? If my partner should catch them in their moment of voyeurism, they either look away sharply or smile suggestively. An almost palpable over confidence that she is thinking the same about the. Can I tell you something guys, she is not.
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