Secrecy is only human nature?

Sex, money, politics - three of the easiest subjects to cause offence to almost anyone. How much do you earn? How’s the sex life? Who are you voting for in the next election? Ask five strangers this question, and if you manage to get one answer out of any of them, I applaud you. Heck, ask a friend these three questions and you will still come away none the wiser.

In reality, it’s peculiar to say the least just why such subjects are shrouded in an immovable mist. If you ask someone what their favourite football team is, or make of car, or brand name, they’d happily tell you at the drop of a coin. Yet, if you ask someone what their favourite political party is, they’ll go off you faster than Sol Campbell*, but why?
It seems that most people can only confide in one person: themselves. For some reason, I share the same mentality to most. I haven’t revealed who I’m voting for this May to anyone besides a select few, whilst I only openly speak about my sex life with a small handful of people – why should anyone really care what I get up to in the bedroom?

It’s with this mentality that most people adopt the same attitude. If, in another world, sex was openly talked about, people would be more than happy to tell anyone who’ll listen what they got up to the night before. The same goes with politics and money. If I were to walk into university right now and create a spot poll to find out which political party they’ll put their faith in for the next five years, I’ll be hard pushed to find more than ten people willing to answer my question in a day.

I remember one of our first assignments for our course, where we had to interview a professional journalist to find out what made a good reporter. Along with this, any additional information such as marital status, age and wage would provide extra marks. I remember asking Hugh Muir (the Guardian’s diary editor) these three questions, and the answers I got were, well, obscure to say the least. The first two answers escape me now, but I vividly remember Hugh chuckling down the phone when I asked for his wage. It’s almost like revealing your wage is as bad as shouting out your pin number in public.

An article earlier this week on Buzz (our University-ran website where us trainee hacks can publish our news pieces, like an online portfolio en-masse) revealed that one of the big dogs at Bournemouth University was to leave for a life in the smoke, taking a lead role at City University, London. The female journalist writing the article managed to get hold of his wage, and it was this that formed the foundations of her article. It seems as if acquiring somebody else’s wage is cause for celebration. It shouldn’t be – it’s just a number, right?

In the same way, so what if you’re a Tory. So what if you think Brown is the man to take us out of this prolonged recession. At the end of the day, we’re all entitled to our own opinions – freedom of speech and all that – so why should it matter what people think? Go ahead, be bold, reveal all. I dare you.

*Tests published by The Sun revealed that the 30-something beast of a defender is the second fastest player in the Premier League. Seriously.