Public displays of affection: what is allowed, frowned on or punished

What this is about

A hand held, an arm around the shoulders, a kiss on the cheek or on the lips, an embrace on a station platform: what are known as public displays of affection range from the most discreet gesture to the most demonstrative. In most of Europe and the Americas, all of this is unremarkable, and only a lingering kiss sometimes draws a glance. Elsewhere, the same gesture is frowned upon — and you will be made to feel it — or is an offence: a fine, a night in custody, and in a few countries prison or deportation. Between the two the range is wide, and it does not follow the borders one might expect.

Three things get mixed up, and are better kept apart. Custom, first: what local people do or do not do, which can be read in ten minutes on any public square. The law, next: provisions on "indecency", "outraging public decency" or "public morals", very unevenly enforced, which rarely target a kiss but allow it in theory. Circumstances, finally: a local couple is not looked at in the same way as a couple of tourists, a hotel beach is not a residential street, the month of Ramadan is not the rest of the year, and a same-sex couple does not run the same risks as a man and a woman. The page on courtship across cultures explains where these differences come from; this one explains what they change in practice.

Why it varies so much

The law of most countries contains an offence of indecency or of outraging public decency; Britain itself punishes sexual acts or nudity forced on the view of others — exposure under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, outraging public decency at common law — not a kiss. What changes from one country to the next is the line: where indecency begins. In countries whose law rests on religion, or which have kept colonial-era laws on "public morals", the line is set very low, and relations outside marriage are sometimes an offence in themselves: an unmarried couple kissing in the street is displaying, in the eyes of the law, something forbidden. Elsewhere the law is silent and social modesty governs, with its own codes: in Japan, Korea or China nothing forbids a kiss, but it remains rare in public, and the couples who do it are young people in nightlife districts, not parents outside a school.

In both cases, enforcement depends on who is watching. A police officer, a shopkeeper, a passer-by, a family member: many of the cases that end at a police station begin with a complaint from someone who felt offended, or with a video posted online. That is what makes these situations unpredictable: the same scene goes unnoticed a hundred times, and the hundred and first ends badly.

The countries where it is genuinely risky

The list below is not exhaustive, and it moves: some countries open up, others close down. It is checked whenever this page is; before you leave, the FCDO’s foreign travel advice, and its Irish, American, Canadian or Australian equivalents, say how things stand at the moment, country by country.

United Arab Emirates. Dubai and Abu Dhabi live off tourism and tolerate a great deal in hotels and leisure districts, but the public decency law remains in force: a kiss on the lips in a shopping centre, a lingering embrace on a public beach have earned tourists nights in custody and convictions, often after a complaint from a family or the circulation of a video. Holding hands is accepted, as is a kiss on the cheek. The reforms of 2020-2021 decriminalised cohabitation for unmarried couples; they did not change the rule on public decency.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman. The same logic, with less tolerance outside the tourist resorts. Saudi Arabia, open to tourism since 2019, has published a public code of conduct backed by fines: covering clothing, no displays of affection in public; unmarried couples may now share a hotel room. In Qatar, the instructions given to supporters in 2022 — no displays of affection, modest dress — remain the rule.
Iran, Afghanistan. Any physical contact between a man and a woman who are neither married nor related is forbidden in public, and the morality police see to it; tourists are somewhat less exposed than residents, but not safe. A woman must be covered. An unmarried tourist couple should not present themselves as such.
India. The penal code punishes "obscene acts" in a public place (the former section 294, carried over into the 2023 code). A kiss is not one, several courts have ruled, but couples are regularly accosted in parks or railway stations by police officers or by groups that take on the role of "moral police"; the big cities are more relaxed, small towns and the countryside much less so. Two men holding hands, on the other hand, are friends: there is nothing romantic about the gesture.
Indonesia. The country is vast and uneven: Bali is used to tourist couples, Java is more reserved, and the province of Aceh applies sharia — unmarried couples caught together there are publicly flogged. The new penal code, in force since January 2026, makes sex outside marriage and cohabitation without marriage offences, prosecuted only on a complaint from a spouse, a parent or a child: a tourist is not targeted in practice, but the law exists.
Malaysia, Brunei. The religious laws on "close proximity" (khalwat) between an unmarried man and woman apply only to Muslims; non-Muslim tourists come under ordinary law, which is more lenient, but reserve is expected everywhere outside the beach resorts.
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt. A kiss in the street is frowned upon rather than prosecuted, but sex outside marriage is an offence in Morocco (article 490 of the penal code) and in Algeria, and Moroccan hotels ask Moroccan couples for their marriage certificate — not foreign tourists nor, as a rule, mixed couples. Covering clothing away from the beaches, discretion in the old towns and during Ramadan. In Egypt, a couple showing affection is rarely a problem in Cairo or on the Red Sea; it is more of one in the towns of Upper Egypt.
Russia, Hungary, and part of Eastern Europe. Nothing forbids a man and a woman from kissing; Russia, on the other hand, has punished since 2023 any "propaganda" of same-sex relationships, a notion broad enough to catch a couple holding hands. See below.
Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand. No law, but strong reserve: holding hands and a kiss on the cheek pass, a kiss on the lips surprises, especially in front of older people or in a temple. In Thailand, touching someone’s head or pointing your feet at something shocks far more than a tender gesture.

What you really risk

In the vast majority of cases: nothing, or a remark. The cases that end up in court almost all have three ingredients — a pronounced gesture, alcohol, and someone who complained or filmed. Sentences range from a fine to a few weeks in prison, sometimes with deportation and a ban on returning; they are handed down to tourists every year in the Gulf. A consulate can visit you and point you to a lawyer; it cannot get you out.

Same-sex couples: a different map

For two men or two women, the map is not the same, and it is harsher. Some sixty countries still punish same-sex relations — most of Africa, the Middle East, part of South Asia and the Caribbean — a few of them with the death penalty; a gesture of affection there is a confession. Other countries, where these relations are legal, suppress their "promotion" (Russia, Hungary to a lesser extent) or let social hostility do the work. Conversely, some forty countries recognise same-sex marriage, and in their big cities a same-sex couple lives like any other; the page on same-sex marriage and its country pages, and the one on sexual orientation, set out the state of the law.

In practice: find out before choosing a destination (the ILGA map, the Human Dignity Trust website, the travel advice), book without justifying yourselves — two beds or a double, depending on the country, without comment — stay discreet in the street where necessary, and do not confuse discretion with giving up: thousands of same-sex couples travel every year to hostile countries without incident, because they know where they are going. In a few countries, on the other hand, the risk is reason enough not to go.

What passes almost everywhere, and what passes almost nowhere

Accepted almost everywhere: walking side by side, holding hands (for a man and a woman), a hand on the back, a kiss on the cheek, a brief hug. In many countries of Asia and the Gulf, two men or two women holding hands or walking arm in arm are friends, and the gesture surprises no one.
Accepted in the West, reserved elsewhere: a kiss on the lips, an embrace, sitting on the other’s lap, stroking their hair. In Europe, North and South America and Australia, nobody pays attention; in Asia, the Maghreb, the Middle East and East Africa, they are kept for private places.
Frowned upon everywhere, and often punished: a lingering kiss in front of children or in a place of worship, caresses under clothing, anything that looks like a sexual act. There, British law and Emirati law say the same thing.

In practice, when travelling

Watch the locals for an hour: what local couples of your age do is the only reliable rule, far more than what other tourists do.
Change register with the place: hotel complex, tourist beach and bar district on one side; old town, market, village, place of worship, public transport on the other. The same country has two sets of rules.
Ramadan and religious festivals raise the bar wherever the population is Muslim, including for eating, drinking or smoking in the street during the day.
Hotels: a request for a marriage certificate is aimed mainly at local couples; an unmarried tourist couple is rarely troubled, except in Iran and in a few Gulf countries where it is better not to insist on your status. Two people of the same sex sharing a room are friends or colleagues in the eyes of reception, and have nothing to explain.
Photos: a kiss photographed in front of a monument and posted online has served as evidence in several cases in the Gulf and in India. What you post counts as much as what you do, and the local rules on privacy and image rights also apply to photos of other people.
Alcohol turns a tolerated gesture into an incident; in countries where it is banned or regulated, it doubles the offence.
If things go wrong: stay calm, sign nothing you do not understand, ask for the consulate — the right to consular assistance is guaranteed by the 1963 Vienna Convention — and let someone close know. The page on sexual offences committed abroad describes what happens next, and the one on international couples what a spouse from the country changes.

And in Britain and Ireland?

No law in the United Kingdom forbids a couple, whoever they are, from kissing or holding each other in the street, a park or a train. The common-law offence of outraging public decency covers acts that are lewd, obscene or disgusting — a sexual act in a car park, nudity in a shopping centre — and requires that at least two people could have seen them; the Public Order Act 1986 deals with behaviour that causes harassment, alarm or distress. A kiss is neither. The manager of private premises open to the public (a pub, a museum) may ask a couple to leave, but may not, under the Equality Act 2010, single out a same-sex couple for doing so. In Ireland, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 replaced the old offence of public indecency with that of offensive conduct of a sexual nature (section 45): again, sexual acts and exposure, not an embrace. In the United States, "lewd conduct" or "public indecency" statutes vary from one state to the next, but they aim at the same thing, and none of them reaches a kiss. Couples from more reserved countries often notice the reverse: what is unremarkable in London or Dublin may seem out of place to them, and they are entitled to think so.

Frequently asked questions

Can you kiss in Dubai?

A kiss on the cheek or a held hand, yes. A kiss on the lips in a public place — street, shopping centre, public beach — is an offence in theory, and has become one in practice for tourists who insisted, drank, or were filmed. Inside a hotel or a club, tolerance is wide.

Can an unmarried couple share a hotel room?

Almost everywhere, yes, and hotels do not ask. The exceptions are Iran, where you must present yourselves as married, and a few countries where the rule targets local couples — Morocco, Egypt, Malaysia for Muslims — without touching foreign tourists. Since 2020-2021, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia explicitly allow it.

What does a same-sex couple risk by holding hands?

In the countries that recognise same-sex marriage or civil partnership, nothing more than any other couple. In the sixty or so countries that punish these relations, the gesture can be enough for an arrest; elsewhere, it exposes you to hostility with no recourse. The country pages on same-sex marriage and the ILGA map say which category each country falls into.

And on the plane, at the airport, on the night train?

These are public places subject to the law of the country being flown over or crossed, and to the carrier’s rules: reserve is called for, all the more so as the crew can have a passenger removed and the Gulf airlines apply their country’s rules on board.