Thor Swift for The Bay Citizen

Dirty seat cushions from a BART train at the South Hayward BART train yard

The Bay Citizen’s Zusha Elinson has certainly struck a nerve with his investigation of the cleanliness of BART seats. Lab testing shows that the fabric covering the seats is difficult to clean, and as a result many germs are left behind.

The story has gone viral, especially on Facebook.

But it is not the first time BART seats have received attention for gross reasons. Several years ago, I wrote about an activity on BART that was a thrill to some, but icky to many.

A friend who rode to the East Bay each day told me about a fetish some passengers engaged in while the trains were in the tunnel under the bay, between the Embarcadero and West Oakland stations – a journey participants had nicknamed “The Tunnel of Love.”

Without being too graphic, the activity involved exhibition and voyeurism facilitated by the fact that the windows turned into mirrors when the trains entered the pitch-black tunnel. People watched each other in the reflection. It happened on any of the trains, but always in the very last seats of the end compartments – so that any approaching conductors or police could be spotted.

The ride under the bay lasts only seven minutes, so these exchanges almost exclusively involved men. As my friend explained, men are more wired for gratification from start to finish in such a short amount of time.

When I first heard the story I did not believe it. Then my friend showed me a Yahoo group for participants, and it had nearly 2,000 registered members. I went to the page, noted the details (involving the most creative use ever of The San Francisco Chronicle), and just one BART ride later I had the story confirmed.

I wrote about it for SoMa Literary Review in 2003 , and the story was a sensation. Later I included the episode in the novel “SoMa” in 2007 (under my pen name for fiction, Kemble Scott), which was launched with a video about the BART activity.

Here’s that video:

The attention from the video helped put “SoMa” on the local bestsellers list its first week in stores. The BART chapter was published again in an anthology, and membership in that Yahoo group jumped to more than 6,000.

Apparently what was disgusting to some turned out to be fascinating for others.