UK Gay Group Says Destruction of Gay Cruising Area is Discriminatory
A gay rights group of the Bristol City Council is opposing the council's plans to clear undergrowth from an area near the UK city known as the Avon Gorge (above), which is reportedly an area where gay men go to cruise and have sex. The group says that by doing away with the 'meeting area', the council is discriminating:
"The dramatic Avon Gorge is an area of is home to various species of rare plants and wildlife, but councillors said it had become overgrown over the past 20 years. Thick bushes cover the secluded area next to Circular Road, where gay men have been caught cruising for sex. The £20,000 five-year maintenance scheme was approved in January 2007 and work to remove the bushes will begin in the next three months. Tory councillor Peter Abraham hit out at the anti-gay accusations as 'offensive'. He said: 'How can it be discriminatory to clear land that might stop what is an illegal practice? 'We need to manage the Downs properly. For a long time we have been told that the scrub land needs to be opened up. 'I find it offensive to suggest that by taking this action - which might stop people collecting to carry out what some might describe as illegal acts and certainly offensive behaviour - you are being discriminatory.' The Rainbow Group refused to comment yesterday but said they stood by the comments made in the report."
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Posted Jul. 7,2008 at 10:03 AM EST by Andy Towle in Discrimination, Great Britain, News | Permalink
If my tax dollars go toward maintaining public parkland, I want to be able to take a peaceful walk there without seeing people fucking. Is that TRULY too much to ask?
If police are only arresting gays having public sex, then that is a problem. However, the solution is to enforce the law for BOTH heterosexual and homosexual sex, not to cut the law out all together.
Posted by: scientitian | Jul 7, 2008 1:38:38 PM
Charles, if you really don't think sex laws are enforced differently for homosex and heterosex, I have a bridge I can sell you for cheap. For years the sodomy laws that could be interpreted to apply to both homo and hetero oral or anal sex were used to round up ONLY gay men.
Derrick and I have both witnessed guardians of the moral order paying no attention to straight sex while targeting gays, and there is ample evidence of that if you just pull your head out of the straight people's ass -- the ones you want so much to please and be accepted by -- to see it.
And for the record, I DO protest this publicly and not only on blogs.
Once again, for those of you who protest "but it's illegal!!!" -- did you really not have sex before the Lawrence decision in 2003 when sex between men was illegal in many states??? If you happened not to be in one of those states, still: what WOULD you have done? Obeyed the law? Please!
Posted by: Kevinvt | Jul 7, 2008 1:45:31 PM
I would venture that a large portion of this debate is generational. I think younger out gays just don't understand the need for anonymous sex with men who often don't identify as gay. Such hookups hold zero appeal for me, and younger gay men who are interested in them are probably more likely to just find someone online than go to a public place.
Posted by: Paul R | Jul 7, 2008 1:48:39 PM
Scientitian: if you want to walk without seeing people fucking, then you should be against cutting down the bushes! Cruisers do not choose bushy isolated woods so that casual walkers can see them.
And again, there are many other places people can go if they don't want to "stumble upon" cruisers. Straight people just want to own and preserve for their exclusive use not 99.9% of all the planet, but 100%, and some puritanical gays are happy to help them in that endeavor.
Posted by: kevinvt | Jul 7, 2008 1:50:26 PM
In other news from Bristol, a black community group has demanded that the city council convert the cruising park into a watermelon patch.
"Watermelon-eating is an essential part of black culture!" exclaimed the group's spokesman in a press conference Monday, "So it's discriminatory to deny us our simple pleasures!"
The interviewer made no reply, simply turning to the camera and blinking slowly before beginning to read the weather report.
Posted by: thin mint | Jul 7, 2008 2:07:32 PM
My thoughts exactly Paul R. I really can't comprehend the need or appeal of cruising for sex in public places.
And KevinVT, thats a bit of an oversimplification to compare sodomy laws to fucking in public. There is a big difference between outlawing sexual acts two consenting adults do in their own home and outlawing sex in public places. And i would hardly call agreeing with a ban on sex in public "puritanical."
Posted by: Noah | Jul 7, 2008 2:11:18 PM
THIN MINT,
I was told that white folks loved watermelons too. Well, they will, now that the watermelon is competing with Viagra. That's what you call a rhetorical device, aint it? Who you call yourself messin' with, child?
All right, here it is: men who have sex in public parks are sometimes very macho trade, or on the "down low", or closeted. You aint gonna' find them in a gay club. Some of us find those kind of men to be exciting. And it is dangerous to bring some of them to your home. Now, that's not the only reason some gay men frequent these places--but it was surely mine.
PAUL R & NOAH, make an important point: it is generational to an extent.
All KEVENVT and I are arguing is that law enforcement not be so blatantly unfair and selective in how the handly homo public sex compared to hetero public sex.
CHARLES,
do really think that the average policeman feels no differently when he runs up on two guys having sex than when he runs up on a heterosexual pair. The two guys may end up being arrested. With the straight couple the cop may do as I used to do: stop, watch and enjoy.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jul 7, 2008 2:47:31 PM
THIN MINT, thanks for making the point that gays are equal to straight people...in this case bigotry and hatred.
I don't get your joke.
Posted by: Mark | Jul 7, 2008 2:58:20 PM
Derrick, I absolutely agree that the cruising practices you found exciting are a function of the closet, and are part of an outdated and destructive culture of sexual shame.
I don't think that makes me a puritan. I think it makes me someone who loves and respects my body and my gay sexuality.
Mark, while it's true that my joke was in poor taste, my idea of black people defending an ancient and empty racial stereotype about themselves was intended as a comment on the gay men in this thread defending an ancient and empty sexual stereotype about themselves.
Posted by: thin mint | Jul 7, 2008 3:16:49 PM
THIN MINT,
Of course, we knew what you were trying to say with your comparisons of steretypical behavior. But use some other group next time--we blacks get picked on enough with these comparisons. Use Mormons next time.
"outdated culture of sexual shame"
No, THIN MINT, for some that is true. For others, it is just FUN!
You know, there were gay guys who sometimes came to the park who very much involved with the gay community politically and socially. They weren't regulars, but they visited every now and then. And of course, there were gay guys who worked for the HIV outreach agencies who came to hand out condoms and share information about safe sex. It wasn't just the closet cases who visited these parks. (I use the past-tense because our park has been gentrified--it's dominated by WHOLESOME straight folks now...God Bless 'em...should we still hand out condoms to their kind?)
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jul 7, 2008 3:35:10 PM
"All right, here it is: men who have sex in public parks are sometimes very macho trade, or on the "down low", or closeted. You aint gonna' find them in a gay club. Some of us find those kind of men to be exciting. And it is dangerous to bring some of them to your home. Now, that's not the only reason some gay men frequent these places--but it was surely mine."
That's your argument? You have a fetish for sex with dangerous, closeted, rough-trade and so you disrespect the rights of anyone else who is trying to enjoy a public place just so you can get off. You're an asshole, I mean, I already knew that, but, you're still an asshole.
And PS- I'd say this to your face any day, anytime.
Posted by: D.R.H. | Jul 7, 2008 3:39:35 PM
"For others, it is just FUN!"
The same is true of the street kids on Haight Street near my house. Some are actually homeless runaways, while others are just middle-class kids who enjoy slumming on the streets and panhandling for a few days at a time. When they get tired of it, they call Mom and she comes and picks them up.
This doesn't mean that homelessness is actually awesome, or that people trying to end homelessness are discriminating against bored teenagers.
Posted by: thin mint | Jul 7, 2008 3:47:32 PM
D.R.H:
"...trying to enjoy a public place"?
At three in the morning?
"...to your face."
Oh, please, D.R.H., you're not "dangerous, closeted, rough-trade"--why the hell would I let a you come near my face? Silly, fop.
And if I'm an asshole, darlin'-- I'm still cleaner than your filthy mouth.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jul 7, 2008 3:58:26 PM
Yes, the generational comment is probably right, but it doesn't work for the reasons you think it does.
I was out well before I started enjoying outdoor sex. It's not that that's all there was when we were in our formative years. Rather it's the fact that some of us came of age at a time when all gay sex, like gay identity, was unacceptable and marginal, which allowed us to look critically at the way the world is run.
Now that pioneers have established a place for gay youth to be out at ever earlier ages, now that liberal parents approve of their children's coming out, gay kids seem to believe they're really no different from their parents, so they accept heteronormative ideology uncritically. Many don't even think there's any need to learn about gay history. Somewhere down the line that ignorance will bite them in the ass.
"There is a big difference between outlawing sexual acts two consenting adults do in their own home and outlawing sex in public places. And i would hardly call agreeing with a ban on sex in public "puritanical." -- I would argue that the only difference is that you like one and not the other. Anti-sex between consenting adults in anti-sex between consenting adults. This is not "public," this is in the bushes in the woods in a secluded isolated spot.
Posted by: kevinvt | Jul 7, 2008 4:21:57 PM
"Having gay men lecture me on sexual morality..."
Derrick, it's not morality, it's just common sense. And a few paragraphs aren't a lecture, but then you know that since you went to college, right?
Nobody is going to convince the other side on this stuff, but it's still interesting and somewhat silly to see how many will defend their idiocy to the hilt.
Sorry, sex is a private thing in my book, not a public one and if it's in a public park, even behind some bushes, it's on PUBLIC land. It's not meant for parks unless it's YOUR own private park.
Sad that the people making a stand for this behavior here do it so crassly and without any class at all. Much like the behavior they so strongly favor.
Posted by: johnny | Jul 7, 2008 5:11:13 PM
I take issue with you calling that "heteronormative", KEVVY. I'm not willing to hand dating and not having sex in public spaces over to the straights. If anything, not having sex in public is anti-masculinist, since men of all creeds are willing to take 'It' wherever and whenever they can get it. It's women who tend to be more selective.
Posted by: chas | Jul 7, 2008 5:12:06 PM
"Wake up people! When did that suddenly become OK for us? How do you expect to get ANY respect from the straight community when you defend this kind of risky, dangerous crap?"
Oh, please. The Ivory-pure straight community might disapprove of some pervy fag shenanigans and deny us their respect forever, gasp! Frankly, I don't care what happens to a patch of woods in the UK, so I'm not going to defend its existence, but some of the moralizing here is ridiculous. If straight men could find anonymous pussy in the wilds, the woods would be crawling with them. It just so happens that for women, meeting up with strange males in the woods doesn't work out so well for them. (The straight men go to whores for their anonymous sex.) For some gay men, closeted and very uncloseted alike, anonymous encounters in secluded natural spots work out well for them. Just as bar and online hookups--which are hardly risk-free, by the way--work out well for others. (Memo to the youthful doubters: I have seen young guys in the woods, and I have been one. Some of them DO like it, just as some old guys prefer their cozy bedrooms.) If you're opposed to cruising, it's easy enough to avoid it. But quit with the apologetic begging for straight respect whatever your opinion on public sex. We deserve respect because we're human, not because we conform to each and every heterosexual norm.
Posted by: Ernie | Jul 7, 2008 5:43:44 PM
No Derrick, you and the likes of you, are assholes because of what you're doing to the rest of us. Your behavior demeans us all and the very fact that you defend it makes you an asshole. I should have clarified that for you. My sincerest apologies.
Posted by: D.R.H. | Jul 7, 2008 5:48:20 PM
"Heteronormative" my jargon-ridden ass.
The bathrooms and the bushes were the places assigned to gay sex in the era of the closet. You're absolutely right that this once-secret grief must be remembered as a part of our shared history.
Posted by: thin mint | Jul 7, 2008 5:50:23 PM
Derrick, you're destroying the gay community with your dirty public sex acts!!! WHAAAAAAA!!! Mommy!
Posted by: John in Manhattan | Jul 7, 2008 5:54:01 PM
Read Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex.”
She shows how the charmed circle of normal vs abnormal works to the advantage of the powers that be. Approved forms on the right hand side – because they’re right:
Homosexual : heterosexual
In sin : married
Promiscuous : Monogamous
non-procreative : Procreative
for money : free
alone or in groups : coupled
casual : in a relationship
cross-generational : same generation
in the park : at home
pornography : no pornography
with manufactured objects : bodies only
s/m : vanilla
According to Rubin “hierarchies of sexual value… function in much the same way as do ideological systems of racism, ethnocentrism, and religious chauvinism. They rationalize the well-being of the sexually privileged and the adversity of the sexual rabble.” – that rabble would be me, Derrick, and a few others here…
No, I did not make up "in the park" -- that's there in her ground-breaking feminist and sex-positive article.
Posted by: Kevinvt | Jul 7, 2008 5:54:27 PM
I've read enough Towleroad comments to know that there are indeed assholes here on occasion, but Derrick? Honey, that's blasphemy. I've never had the privilege of meeting Derrick in the flesh, so to speak, but he is royalty here, and one of the most humane voices around. Shame on your ignorance, and, shoo.
Posted by: Ernie | Jul 7, 2008 6:14:05 PM
Have any of you seen the commercial for Verizon about the importance of your text messages going through? In the ad it's important because otherwise your crazy dad will be out looking for you with a flashlight at Lovers' Point, shining it IN CAR AFTER CAR OF HETERO TEENS HAVING PUBLIC SEX!!!! (The girl had texted her father to say that she was sleeping over at a friend's, but he didn't get it). This sort of "rite of passage" for heterosexual teens was treated as the ABSOLUTE NORM!
But if two men are doing it, it's "filthy, demeaning, and part of a shameful history".
Go blow it out your ass (only in your bedroom with the lights out, of course)....
Posted by: jmg | Jul 7, 2008 6:19:57 PM
Have any of you seen the commercial for Verizon about the importance of your text messages going through? In the ad it's important because otherwise your crazy dad will be out looking for you with a flashlight at Lovers' Point, shining it IN CAR AFTER CAR OF HETERO TEENS HAVING PUBLIC SEX!!!! (The girl had texted her father to say that she was sleeping over at a friend's, but he didn't get it). This sort of "rite of passage" for heterosexual teens was treated as the ABSOLUTE NORM!
But if two men are doing it, it's "filthy, demeaning, and part of a shameful history".
Go blow it out your ass (only in your bedroom with the lights out, of course)....
Posted by: jmg | Jul 7, 2008 6:20:27 PM
Kevin, I am already familiar with these once-fashionable ideas. They are bullshit, like most ideas about human behavior that can be reduced to two-column chart form.
As one example, the dominant socially-enforced form of heterosexuality -- marriage -- was in its roots primarily and continues largely to be something done "for money."
As another, "cross-generational" relationships have historically been the heterosexual norm -- something that sharply declined when women became freer to select their own partners.
Posted by: thin mint | Jul 7, 2008 6:21:29 PM