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Yes, it certainly can be both. I used to wear a ring that had a very specific symbolic meaning to me, it was publicly displayed but I was the only person in the world who knew of its significance.
I know my sense of the dividing line between public and private is overdeveloped but private symbols worn externally aren't private unless there is a similarly small circle of people who know what it means.
Even if it is unrecognized by 99% of the people, I don't know why you'd openly profess your BDSM predilection on a car bumper sticker (and once you know the sticker you see quite a few of them out there) nor why you'd openly profess that you've vowed to wait until you get married to have sex.
To me, it is not that these things are shameful, just that they are private.
It seems to me that part of our societal change over the last 40 years has been the idea that the only reason to keep something private is shame and therefore to not be ashamed requires making it public.
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