Can you believe the Internet — THE INTERNET!! — is being used by homosexual men to arrange and learn where to score sex? I know! I am as surprised as these North Carolina newscasters, who report that police are definitely on the case of CruisingGays.com, a site with “fine print” (which is perfectly legible to us) describing yet another park that’s been taken over as a hot spot for anonymous sex. Thank goodness there is local superhero Brian Lutes, who leads the Stonehaven community patrol, and is willing to increase his visits to James Boyce Community Park in southeast Charlotte for the sole purpose of running these men out of the woods, and definitely not spying on or engaging with them.
Kev C
Chasing gays is one way for cops and reporters to lose weight.
PopSnap
I dunno… on one hand, don’t the cops have anything better to do? On the other, yeah… I don’t think it’s a particularly great thing for our community when we become known as “ew those nasty gays, they have sex in our PARKS!”
Fitz
It doesn’t impinge on my civil rights to stop park-sex. I wish him good hunting.
Steve
Did I miss the memo explaining why having sex in a public park is sexy?
Paul A.
Thanks Queerty for bringing this up.
I am disgusted by this awful alliance between straight media, straight parents and the police.
Leave us alone!
I’m fed up with the repression. Cops are not our friends. The police shows itself as what it is, a heterosexist, militaristic, homophobic institution. Off our backs!
Cruising is a human right.
Mikey
Why are you making it seem like the cops are the bad guys here? When is it ever OK to have sex in a park? It’s not like they’re raiding a gay bar. They’re trying to make sure little kids don’t catch a glimpse of two men fucking where they shouldn’t be fucking. Pick your battles, Queerty.
tallskin2
Mikey, what on earth is wrong with kids seeing men fucking men or men fucking women, or women eating out other women??
Jeeeez
You really are a christian!
greenmanTN
I’m not a supporter of park/restroom sex but I doubt they’re having sex on the teeter-totter. If two men fuck in the woods and nobody witnesses it (or has to literally beat the bushes to find them), who exactly has been harmed?
The thing that pisses me off about these stories is they’re presented as “Gay Men Are Having Sex In Our Playgrounds!!!” when the truth is usually “Married, Straight-Identified Men Caught Cruising For Dick!”
A married man committed suicide in a town near me when his name was printed in the paper after getting caught in one of these sweeps. Yeah, cruising parks and restrooms is pretty skeavy but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for them too.
Tyler T.
I definitely don’t like the representation they pass off as straight parents being threatened by the radical gays, but I will say to @tallskin2….I don’t want to see random have sex outside all the time. Call me traditional I guess, but I think the majority of the human race is with me on that one? There is a problem with the media here, but cruising needs to stop. It’s bad for the public health, and public image of gays, and it still represents a deeply closeted, deeply stigmatized society.
JAW
@Paul A.:
I hope that you are saying that to be funny.
A parent should not have to worry about taking their kids on a hike in a public park, without finding couples involved with having sex.
be it m/m or m/f.
Gay men have plenty of places to go for sex besides public men’s rooms, parks etc. The straight guys are the bigger issue… they run out on their wives looking for a quickie. Get on their case.
kae
there are plenty of straights having sex in public places; I know, I caught a young couple at it in a field last summer and they weren’t exactly hiding. I don’t know about the US, but over here in the UK there are plenty of notorious “dogging” spots i.e. places ppl go for public sex; ppl of all sexual persuasions are welcome apparently; in fact, they believe its a god given right.
Kev C
A lot of police are reading these cruising sites – on the world wide web – looking to bust misdemeanor crimes. Frankly, gays also pay taxes and I don’t think they want their money wasted on fat, fanatical cops bent on hunting gays. Let it go, donut boy.
ForeverGay
I 100% agree with Paul A.
Vern
@GreenmanTN: Well put.
Luke
Just watched the news video and it looks like the arrests were made late at night. Hmmmm… don’t think any “good parent” would let their kids roam around in the woods that late.
In my home town of Bakersfield CA I see straights meeting up to have sex in their cars in the park’s parking lot. Police will drive by and not even take a second look and this is during the day! If the police saw two men in the car they will approach you and you will be arrested.
I see straight couples making out, lying on top of each other grinding and etc in the parks during the day with children around playing and again, the police do not stop to ask them to tone it down or anything.
However, if that were two men I guarantee you that you would probably be arrested!
I am not condoning park/trail sex, but I am very offended and outraged that there is a prejudice toward gays.
Troix
Funny that straight people are not arrested only us. I guess we are second class people to the police.
Paul A.
Cruising is part of our culture.
bobbyv
I’m all for equal rights, not special rights. It is against the law for anyone to have sex in public. So sorry, that includes us gays too…and this guy.
Franky
I agree with Bobbyv. It’s illegal to have sex in public, therefore we shouldn’t be doing it. If we start asking them to leave us alone then we’re asking for special rights. I’m still a touch annoyed that they never seem to go after straight people having sex in public but that doesn’t make what we’re doing any less illegal.
Also, part of culture? Maybe when we had to run around and hide what we were doing from everyone but I’m pretty sure there are better places to be doing this nowadays…
Paul A.
Why is it illegal to have sex in public? Because “sex” is supposed to happen in a conubial bedroom. These laws prohibiting sex in public are just here to redirect sexual urges towards hetero, marital sex. They’re homophobic! I had sex with men in public parks at night and I’m proud of it.
Paul A.
@ Franky
You’re talking about “better places” to do it. Are talking about for-profit venues? Crusing in parks is FREE of charge, whereas “sex clubs” are very expensive. Cops and bosses working hand in hand to make us pay.
greenmanTN
@Paul A.: “Cruising is part of our culture.”
Yes and no. I’d say it’s more a part of our history, an adaption to oppression and the culture of shame and hiding. And really that’s still what it is because there is still a LOT of homophobia out there. Even in cities with large, visible gay communities there might be parks, restrooms, and similar places where men meet to have sex and some of those people are openly gay. But a whole lot of them are either completely closeted or don’t identify as gay and they don’t intersect with the gay community in any meaningful way. Even if there are gay clubs in town they aren’t going to go there and even going to gay “dating” sites requires them to be too honest with themselves about what they want. A tea room or park pick-up is immediate and somewhat spontaneous, not as overt as going to a GAY bar or a GAY website. They can still dismiss it as just “something that happened,” something they DO, not something they ARE.
The gay community gets a bad rap over this but I’d argue it has less to do with gay sexuality than it does with MALE sexuality. It’s not that straight men are somehow morally superior and would never do something like this, it’s that women won’t participate unless money or goods changes hands. The straight analog for gay cruising is prostitution. In both instances the man just wants to get off, find immediate anonymous sex. The difference is that other men will usually do it for free because they just want to get off too. A woman will go along with it and pretend she’s into it but you’ve got to pay her first; that’s why prostitution is “the oldest profession.”
justiceontherocks
@Paul A.: Fine, cruise all you want. But get a room.
nineinchnail
America – the land of the free. Yeh right.
The Artist
Statistically this type of venue is for married men who want to get their rocks off, not gay men! PEACELUVNBWILD!
Shannon1981
I don’t advocate public sex, but if anyone is going to be arrested, then EVERYONE should. Stop outside any college bar on a friday or saturday night, and you see straight people doing it too. Do they get into trouble? No. So gays shouldn’t either.
JM
@Paul A.: Dude, gross. Why can’t two people looking to hook up find a motel room somewhere to fuck? Are you in a rush to get back to your wife? Seriously, people should be able to control themselves, just a little bit. By all means, get nasty with total strangers, but for fuck’s sake do it somewhere with four walls and a door that locks.
Paul A
@ JM:
Why can’t two people looking to hook up find a motel room somewhere to fuck?
>>>> Well, they can’t because they don’t have the money! Do you realize that motel rooms aren’t for free, whereas public park sex is? Some people just don’t have the money. Having sex shouldn’t be reserved for well-off or middle-class peeps.
JM
@Paul A: Well, everyone lives somewhere, don’t they? Unless these park-fuckers are homeless, they have at least two choices for their hookups: their place, or the other guys’.
ShawnsterBear
Although I don’t do my business in parks in fear of officers like the one described in the article, and the many other policeman that love to go to parks, get bjs, then handcuff the person that gulped them down, I do understand the thinking that a lot of gay men have about anonymous sex.
Unlike straight people, we can’t pick up someone to have sex with in a grocery store, or in church, so we have to find other places, besides the bars and clubs with all of those pretentious people.
So to wrap things up, I think the cops should just leave the gays alone, and the parents who want to shield their kids should check these cruising sites out before going out on the family picnic.
Little Kiwi
here’s some food for thought – parks with gay sex are less likely to be parks with pistol-packing drug dealing gang activity.
just saying.
while vice cops and other “concerned citizens” are out worrying about what gays are doing in parks, children are being kidnapped, abused, violent crimes and thefts are happening and so on and so on.
does this mean it’s ok to be fucking in parks? no. but that doesn’t mean that the focus is decidedly warped. it’s like how The Catholic League is always so busy looking for books and films to be “offended by” that it doesn’t notice all the children being fucked by their own priests.
Ronin of Rouen
we have the same problem at a park in mesa az. the ‘fags’ are absolutely arrogant, they seem to think they have a right to have sex in a restroom less than a few yards from the picnic areas and a playground. there are two known level three child molesters in the mix, and the police don’t do much of anything about it. hate to bring in vigilantes that would also target whatever well behaved gays might be using the park for legitimate things, but i’m at the end of my rope trying to protect the kids. it seems the police have given up, they say the only thing mesa az police are good for is suicide by cop. i’m starting to believe it.