If you watch a private video of two ordinary people having sex, it’s you who’s twisted, and not them

Malta’s backward-mountain-village attitude to sex is usually restricted to surreptitious viewing of the worst kind of porn, trying to recreate those scenarios with a variety of strangers who are paid for it or with somebody on the side who doesn’t charge, and to posting porno-inspired remarks about women journalists and other critics of the government on internet comments-boards and Facebook.

But over the last few days it came to the fore as a video of two private Maltese citizens having sex in the back of a van went viral on Facebook and was viewed avidly by gangs of people who emailed it to each other. You’d think Maltese people are desperate or had their minds twisted on the subject of sex by systematic religious indoctrination over their formative years. I can’t think of any other explanation.

I have not seen the video and do not have the slightest interest in doing so. The thought of sitting down to watch two ordinary people having sex, even when they want to be watched let alone when they are so anxious not to be, is – quite frankly – revolting.

This is one of those moments when my fellow citizens make me feel ill. Are they actually normal, or are they now so hooked on porn that they can’t distinguish any longer between normal and abnormal behaviour? Spying on people having sex is not normal, even if it is done via video. I am disgusted by the people who sought the video and watched it, and by those who put it in the public domain and continued to spread it around.

I am not in the least bit amazed that two ordinary people had sex in a van. People don’t always have sex in a bed, so I really don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Back in the day, when bloody foreigners wished to insult the people of this island, they would call them “Maltese goats”. Today, I feel like doing the same myself.