Years ago DCHS was a lot less crowded. On one off-season visit, I was with a girlfriend in the Arizona pool. We were the only ones at the springs except for one leering single guy. He got in the pool with us. His stares at my girlfriend's breasts made her uncomfortable, so she put on her bathing suit. Eventually, we went up to the womb, got in, and my girlfriend removed her bathing suit. In a short while, he dropped himself into that pool with us too.
By referencing "privacy" in my post, I did not mean sex. I just meant time alone, romantic time, maybe kissing and caressing, enjoying the silence or soft whisperings between lovers. Can't do that very well with a single guy, whose horny energy you feel, sitting a couple of feet from you looking at you either directly or semi-surreptitiously from the corner of his eye. I used to be able generally to find that privacy at DCHS, years ago. But even with the new crowds, I would hope that the current etiquette would allow just a few minutes of privacy to a couple who desires it. The idea that THEY should have to leave, rather than expect a single guy to give a couple any alone time, seems a bit upside down to me. At least it means that private romance in or around the pools is all but gone. But even still, I would think that if etiquette has any rooting in the Golden Rule, a person having any sense of the Golden Rule would see DCHS as, sure, a "public place" but one where there are yet corners for couples to be left alone sometimes. Freeways, after all, are also public places, but courteous drivers give other drivers the right of way, they don't tailgate, etc.
By the way, at Sykes hot springs in Big Sur, the hike is a difficult 12 miles in. It is not a day hike. Oddly, at least in the off season, the people there all seem to give each other space in the pools. There are four pools, and there might be 35 people camping near them, but somehow people get on some kind of wave length where they share and rotate times in the pools; they are not all there at the same time. It works by some kind of osmosis. But I also think it works because the only people willing to hike the difficult 12 miles are people who feel and share the kind of etiquette I am talking about. And Sykes is a public place too.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2010 12:57AM by mellowguy.