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Strangers in the
Stonewall sexual liberation. Nowhere is that
philosophy more evident than in the Sex Panic
movement. T he organization was formed on the
notion that gay liberation began with sexual lib
eration as well as with civil disobedience.
Activist Rex Wockner recently criticized the
gay lobby group Equality Colorado for helping
the police discourage cruising and public sex in
Denvers Cheeseman Park. He writes: “Equality
Colorado may not be happy till we are all living
monogamously in the suburbs raising hard-to-
place adopted babies— till we are exactly like
our straight neighbors except for what we do in
bed (which is distasteful to discuss anyway).”
For some gay men, the separation of love and
sex is as sacred as the separation of church and
state. Take Mike and Lex, for instance, a Port
land couple who cruise together: “W e’re men,”
they say. “We like to hunt.”
Or Adam, a twenty-something who tells me,
“It’s like that song. ‘You and me ain’t nothin’ but
mammals / So let’s do it like they do on the Dis
covery Channel.’”
Josh, a graduate student, adds: “Public sex is
just so convenient. I go to the beach, I read my
book, 1 get a blow job, I go home.”
He calls it the peeing-in-the-woods syn
drome. “Men have sex outdoors for the same
reason we pee outdoors: because we can.”
T he Sex Panic philosophy is perhaps best
summed up by pom actor and writer Scott
O ’Hara. In his essay “Wholesome and Natural,”
he writes: “Sharing my body with another per
son was an affirmation of everything positive in
life; and making a public display of that sexuali
ty was one of the most basic ways in which I
could improve the world. So I had sex in all the
places we’re not supposed to do it: parks, beach
es, bathhouses, bars, back alleys.”
O ’Hara died from A ID S complications in
1998.
Night
Cimtrmu'd from P age 2 3
A youthful-looking 48— “I stay overweight
because it stretches the wrinkles,” he says—
David stumbled upon “fuck bookstores” after 15
years of marriage when a business colleague
invited him along while they should have been
on a sales call. W ithin weeks, he was reorganiz
ing his workday around his libido, going to the
bookstores in the morning, then hitting the
parks in the afternoon, sometimes racking up as
many as 10 sexual encounters a day.
“I thought that sucking dick in the park was
gay life,” David says ruefully. One bonus, how
ever, was that the constant action honed his
sexual skills.
“Practice makes perfect,” he says. “Now, I’m
a hellcat between the sheets.” .
“But if anything is too good to be true,” he
continues, “it probably is.... I just got tired of
the empty feelings.”
moved to Oregon to join the Living Enrichment
Center in Wilsonville and, as part of his sex-
addict recovery, won’t even go into a restroom
with a glory hole. Although certainly “no saint,”
his attitude toward sex has changed.
“Now, I want to set up house,” he says. “And
that’s just not in the cards when it’s a sport
fuck.”
Or, as Kramer wrote in his controversial
novel Faggots, “Having so much sex made find
ing love impossible.”
A rresting B ehavior
N
ot finding love might not be the worst
thing that happens to someone engaging
in public sex. Public sex acts involving the gen
itals are illegal, and the law always has taken a
dim view of them.
The 1917 Legislature enacted the law anyway.
In the next four years, until the statute was
repealed, 127 Oregon men were castrated.
Since then, police forces everywhere have not
been above entrapment of the sort that involves
sending out hunky undercover cops who not only
make passes but actually enjoy a blow job first. A
joke of the 1930s went, “It’s been wonderful, but
you’re under arrest.”
For every George Michael who is able to put
his life back together, countless others’ lives reg
ularly are ruined by aggressive police crackdowns.
And although gay men might make distinctions
between sex in public parks and restrooms— as
opposed to private commercial venues, such as
adult video stores— the police do not.
Recently, at the Adult Superstore &. Theater
in Las Vegas, plainclothes officers sat in arcades
with the doors ajar, invited men to join them,
then arrested them on the spot. And last January,
a man in Arkansas committed suicide after the
Arkansas Democrat'Gazette in Little Rock pub
lished his name among those arrested in a sex
raid. (The newspaper then failed to report his sui
cide and ignored requests from five major gay
organizations to discuss its policy of selective pub
lication of the names of men arrested for misde
meanors.)
During the debate about police brutality in
the 1993 Laurelhurst Park scandal, Ariel Water-
woman wrote in Just Out: “Though only some of
these men are self-identified as gay, they are all
perceived to be gay by the public and the police.”
Point well taken.
The plight of men, gay or straight, unjustly
entrapped by the police in gay sex raids is our
problem as a community. But the public opinion
of men who engage in unlawful or unsafe public
sex is our problem, too.
“Why do gay men have sex in the bushes?” my
exasperated lesbian friend asked me. I suppose we
do because we can. And also because we can’t.
But the more important question we gay men
must ask ourselves is: “Should we?”
During the same month David came out and
After Portland’s YMCA “vice” scandal of
separated from his wife, he also was arrested in
1912, public outcry was so great that the maxi
ooking for ove in
an Omaha, Neb., park restroom. He got off with
mum sentence for a sodomy charge was tripled
ll the
rong laces
the following year to 15 years imprisonment.
a $175 fine, but it served as a wake-up call, and
Note: Most of the names of the men inter
That same year, Oregon voters rejected by a nar
he began attending Sex and Love Addicts
viewed for this article have been changed to
ongtime A ID S activist Larry Kramer writes:
row margin a statute to require sterilization of
protect their privacy.
..¿“O nce again, this has become a battle over Anonymous. He swore off the parks and
"those
who
are
addicted
to
the
practice
of
restrooms,
instead
developing
a
social
life
civil rights rather than an issue of public
sodomy or the crime against nature, or to other
through gay bars and what he calls the “Elec
■ MARC A cito wonders whether he and his part'
health.... Why is public sex a civil right.7”
gross, bestial and perverted sexual habits and
ner are committed to fidelity for moral reasons or
tronic Park,” America Online.
Kramer, along with writers Michelangelo
practices
prohibited
by
statute.”
simply because nobody cute has hit on them.
Today, David’s spiritual life takes priority. He
Signorile, Gabriel Rotello and Andrew Sulli
van, has been doing battle since 1997 with Sex
Panic’s advocacy of unrestricted, promiscuous
free love. The price for that free love, they say,
M
seems to be increasing rates of HIV, gonorrhea
>1
*
and syphilis infections.
I spoke with several men who engage in pub
PARK
lic sex regularly (more than 25 times a year),
CLOSURE
and each one has at least one chilling story of
HOURS
ortland police again are asking for help after
city o f Portland, Multnomah County, the Portland Police Bureau and
high-risk activity he’s observed. W hat’s more, of
10.30
PM
being
alerted
by
officials
about
public
sex
the Sexual Minorities Roundtable to initiate a solution.
the 240 men surveyed, 35 percent said they
TO
acts
in North Portland’s Kelly Point Park.
Costa thinks the issue should be reported in T he O regonian, because
I
think men having sex in public places is not an
5.00 AM
On
July
11,
officer
Liz
Caruthers
briefed
the
many
of those having public sex are not in mainstream gay culture but
acceptable part of gay culture. Interestingly, 71
Sexual Minorities Roundtable about the problem.
are closeted bisexual men. He says previous coverage in Just O ut about
■mm
percent of the men who never have had sex in a
■ f
other problem areas has had limited results.
She says several complaints from elderly citizens have
™ü
public space approve of the practice, but only 61
been
made
about
public
sexual
activity
between
men.
He also approached officials about naming violators in the newspa
percent of the men who have had sex in public
She
says
pornography
and
paper
towels
with
human
per
and setting up a diversion program that would require those arrest
TV
places approve of it.
feces have been found in the area, as well.
ed to learn about sexually transmitted diseases and blood-borne
I asked David, who by his own estimation
pathogens.
Caruthers
says
most
license
plate
numbers
she
has
engaged in 2,000 to 3,000 public sex acts with
checked have been registered to two people with the
But after speaking with city officials, Costa found out those ideas
men during his marriage, why that might be.
same last name— presumably married couples.
aren’t viable— partially because of funding issues. Instead, the round
“It’s just my opinion, but I think that those
Portland
Police
Cmdr.
Greg
Clark
says
the
depart
table and police will work with the Port of Portland, which owns the
who have done it know how emotionally unsat
•vT
ment
is
looking
for
ideas
about
how
to
curb
the
prob
land where Kelly Point Park is located, and work on a poster campaign
isfying it is," he says. “W hen two people come
> :5'V Ä
to discourage public sex acts.
lem. “We’ll do anything you ask,” he says.
together, it’s like making a cake— one person
m I
But
if
the
problem
persists,
police
will
take
on
a
Costa says arrests likely will occur as well. H e’s hoping interviews
brings the flour and the butter, the other brings
higher profile and strict enforcement action will be
can
be conducted with those arrested to learn more about the problem
the milk and sugar— and they work together.
*
and how to solve it.
planned, Clark adds.
a.
Sex is just the frosting on the cake. But most
Roundtable co-chair Norm Costa says he has
people, gay and straight, just go ahead and open
Ä
■ Reported by J onathan KlPP
already taken action. He’s looking for support from the
up the can of frosting and eat it first.”
L
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