TOTW 01/08: Do you think Jack was murdered or was it an accident?

[Artiste]

Then since you ask someone if he is gay or hint that of you, when you are say in line for a theatre or cinema, then police should arrest you?

Is that to become a standard for cops too, Scott?

May I dare ask you and to all others too??

Hugs!!

[Scott6373]

To Scott--I understand where you're coming from in regard to public sex acts (though personally I would like to see society evolve to regard such acts as licit forms of expression), but it's important to make a distinction between attempts to hook-up in public and actually engaging in sexual acts in public. My friend did nothing more than essentially reveal an interest in hooking up, yet was treated just the same as someone who had exposed himself or more. I definitely see the actions of the police in this instance as homophobic.

That's why I didn't include that portion of your post.  The fact that these types of behaviors are still happening (and believe me they are), makes me madder than a NY Yankees Fan in Fenway Park.  How are we going to gain the respect of society when this still occurs?  No, not the random public come on line, or the wink and a nod.  Everyone, gay, straight or whichever sexual strip you wear engage in that.

[Jeff Wrangler]

To Scott--I understand where you're coming from in regard to public sex acts (though personally I would like to see society evolve to regard such acts as licit forms of expression).

I'd love to see some elaboration on this point. You're saying you'd like to see society "evolve" to where sex in public places is legal?

You mean--to put it crudely--you'd like to see it legal for people to screw in public where others can see them, even if they'd rather not?

I'm not trying to argue here, just to understand exactly what you mean. 

[moremojo]

I'm not trying to argue here, just to understand exactly what you mean. 

Yes, I would like to see public consensual displays of sexuality (including intercourse) decriminalized and rendered socially licit. Essentially, I'm envisioning a world where the sight of coition would arouse no more opprobrium than seeing two lovers holding hands on the street does now.

[serious crayons]

Yes, I would like to see public consensual displays of sexuality (including intercourse) decriminalized and rendered socially licit. Essentially, I'm envisioning a world where the sight of coition would arouse no more opprobrium than seeing two lovers holding hands on the street does now.

Scott, could you elaborate still further? Why do you feel that would be a good thing?

(Note: I'm reluctant to encourage further off-topic posts. But my entreaties so far to start new threads don't seem to have been effective, the murder vs. accident debate seems to be winding down, we have a new TOTW, and I'm curious.)

[moremojo]

I know we're veering way off-topic here, but as long as no one complains, I don't mind elaborating further.

I see sex as a very natural and inherently beautiful component of life. American culture (among many others) is heir to life-destroying notions of shame regarding the body and its natural functions, including sexuality. Part of the legacy of this shameful impulse is to push sexuality into the shadows, to render it as something fit for only the most private sphere of life. Even openly discussing sexuality was, until quite recently in American culture, something quite taboo.

Eros is an extremely powerful force, and all recorded human societies have sought ways to control and channel it. I think this is probably an unavoidable part of being human, and living in a collective human setting. But other primates evince behavior in which sexuality is an openly celebrated and frequently used tool for cohesion and mutual pleasure. I'm thinking specifically of the bonobos, which, like chimpanzees, share some 98 percent of their genome with human beings. Bonobos use sexuality as means to resolve conflict and tension, in greeting and sharing resources, and in solidifying bonds between members of one community and even those of others. Apart from humans (with their culturally conditioned shame), bonobos are probably the sexiest apes around.

Why can we not foster a culture that looks more like bonobo society? I think it would be lovely to see people resolve tension through the pleasures of the flesh rather than fighting and vituperation. This is the basis of my argument in a nutshell. Time constraints prevent my adding on at the present moment, but hopefully this may serve as some guide to my thoughts on this matter.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Do straight people hook-up in public places.  Of course they do.  They do it all the time.  And straight people have sex in public places, too.  Every hear of The Mile High Club?  Straight people brag about belonging to that all the time.  Is there any shame attatched to it?  No.  At least not a lot.  There is some residual prudery that might apply.  But that prudery comes down heavy on gay men.

In John Irving's book The Hotel New Hampshire an American couple takes their young daughter to a hotel room down the hall when they hear a woman screaming.  They think the woman is being murdered.  When they find out that the woman is merely having sex with a man they're horrified and they make a big scene, and complain about the innocence of their child being violated.  Irving observes that only Americans would take their child to see a murder, and be shocked when all she sees is sex.

Irving's point about American attitudes toward sex compared to American attitudes toward violence is valid--but I don't see it as support for legalizing consensual sex in public places.

I'm an almost-50-year-old childless gay man, but if I had a child with me on an airplane, that child needed to use the restroom, and I opened the door to find a couple--gay or straight--having sex, you bet I'd complain. Discreetly, but I'd complain. If that makes me a prude, so be it, I guess.

[Artiste]

Very well said all of you!!

May I relate the latest news to that of the thread: murder of Jack or not... by another example which relates to  these last comment(s) by you, somehow. I will try to connect this thread!! As I often did connect... it seems evident to me!!

Murders in  parks happen  often. Too often in some. Even for gays who got murdered there in known parks... that police know about!! But straights have sex there too?? Yes!! What is the difference? Jack would have went to such a park? Yes! In a way, Jack and Ennis had sex in a park called Brokeback Mountain, which was heaven, but it became brokenback to both after that descending into so-called civilisation!!


In the last city I lived in, a gay man was murdered, no question about that from even the murderers who said so!! But the police did nothing to find out about it - said secretly a policeman to my friend. The police detectives did nothing: not even follow the blood trail from inside the building to outside along the sidewalk; neither did they check with taxis drivers since the murderers had taken eventually a cab went the blood stopped; plus other things they could have investigated, but did not; why, because the murdered man was likely known as a gay man born there??  You want to know further, that even even one of the two murderers got away with it, unfortunately to us gays??

That murder was in a huge bar, which was formerly a  grocery store chain one. So after that murder, people went more to that bar and filled it!! - Why?? It was not a gay bar. So why would straights go now? Because a gay man got murdered there? Why? For comfort, a straight or straights can think to be... or for domination of gays, or for what reasons?? Usually in the past, if there is a murder, no one goes and that bussiness fails!!

Unsual? For Jack to be murdered... no!!

Much can be said still about this thread...

hugs!!  May gay be safe!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Jeff, I didn't mean to put you on the defensive or to label you, or anyone. 

Don't worry, I don't feel that you did.

[serious crayons]

Do straight people hook-up in public places.  Of course they do.  They do it all the time.  And straight people have sex in public places, too.  Every hear of The Mile High Club?  Straight people brag about belonging to that all the time.  Is there any shame attatched to it?  No.  At least not a lot.  There is some residual prudery that might apply.  But that prudery comes down heavy on gay men.

Well, I'm just speculating here. But I would guess that this discrepancy isn't purely the result of homophobia. It might also involve the differences between typical straight public sex and cases, such as Larry Craig's, that involve soliciting sex with strangers.

Straight people -- or gay people -- who belong to the Mile High Club usually aren't just fellow passengers who happened to be seated together, strike up a conversation, and decide to head back to the restroom. They're usually couples. Same thing when straight people have sex in parks or cars. Couples can be discrete and careful and avoid being seen. They can't be entrapped by plain-clothes officers.

Straight sex is much less likely to involve total strangers for one big reason: women are much less willing to have sex with strangers. I'm sure it happens sometimes, in nightclubs perhaps, but rarely if ever in parks or planes or airport restrooms. The one exception is prostitution. And as someone said, in prostitution cases, straight men and women ARE arrested, shamed, entrapped, etc.

Otherwise, straight women almost never solicit sex from strangers. I don't know firsthand, but I would guess the same is true of lesbians. That's just how women tend to be, probably for obvious evolutionary reasons.

So perhaps this double standard isn't entirely a matter of gay vs. straight. It's also a matter of couple vs. stranger, and men vs. women, and under what circumstances they'll choose to have sex.