He is complaining that Southwark council has tried to prevent gay men from having sex in burgess park. For those unfamiliar with the area, Burgess Park has play areas, sports facilities, a cafe, a lake etc. It's the biggest green space in a very built up area.
Is there some particular reason gay men need to have random encounters in bushes? Is that what he's arguing?
Theres no reason why gay men, or anyone other groups of people, need to have sex in the bushes. Get a room. We don't need to see them and not do our children. No doubt there is some element of pleasure for them in the thought that they might be seen. They can fuck off.
I think this way of thinking comes from the perspective which says that promiscuity is an integral part of gay sex, and things like cottaging are an important part of gay cultural expression.
People like that don't take the view that the decriminalisation and public acceptance of homosexuality should be about gays being just like heterosexuals except same sex attracted - interested in LT relationships, settling down, family life, etc in similar proportions. Rather they felt that all kinds of sexual activity that people would have considered questionable, mentally and physically unhealthy, socially dangerous, or even downright deviant, ought to become widely accepted, including gay sex.
I don't think it's the dominant view by any means in the gay community but there is certainly a group who basically takes that view and even see the normalisation of gay life as taking away from what it is really about.
He has said this for years. Reasonable to expect the same disapproval of a man and woman having public sex as if it is two men or two women, but not reasonable to condone public sex.
So sad. I used to idolise Peter Tatchell. Now I dread to think that some people may still think “If Peter’s in favour of XYZ, there must be some good in it.”
This complaint was tried a few years ago in Bristol when the council wanted to trim up the bushes on The Downs. It’s 2020 ffs, nobody needs to cruise for sex anymore, if you want an illicit shag, get a burner phone and download Grindr, not make yourself a public nuisance. 🙄
Ridiculous. Nobody, gay or straight, needs to have sex in bushes, has he not heard of these buildings that let you rent a bedroom for just one night??? (I even here in some places they let you rent one for shorter periods of time )
If any group of people wish to engage in activities not compatible with public spaces they should open a private members club with tall fences. "Saunas" exist in most larger towns already, anyway with grinder who needs random???
Cutting down bushes is quite often done to reduce crowding and allow the remainder enough space to grow, and/or allow light to the ground. Was it actually done to reduce cover for people having sex outdoors?
" And there were marked differences between the focus of women and men within the movement; as Stonewall co-founder Pam St Clement pithily noted in 1994, "the women were into politics and the men wanted to cruise." " (my bolding).
There's a whole cliff in Brighton dedicated to outdoor gay sex. Whatevs. In many ways I don't care. Or I didn't until so many members of the gay community turned out not to be the feminist allies I thought they were. Can you imagine if the same existed for women? It would be surrounded by wanking men and women quite simply would not be safe.
Love his implication that well, exhibitionists are just going to have sex in the space where the bushes used to be anyway, and if anyone sees it, then it's the council's fault for cutting the bushes down. HOMOPHOBIA!!!
I was wondering if this came from a homophobic parody account, at first.
* There is no reason for it now. Get a room, please! Because other people may not like to see public sex acts.*
Or to be wary of rustling in the undergrowth.
Bushes and trees in public places should either be left to wildlife or available to kids to make dens in, play hide and seek etc. They shouldn't be finding discarded condoms let alone people (of either sex) in flagrante.
As a bisexual I don't want my attraction to women, an unchangeable orientation, to be lumped in with exhibitionist fetishism. Same sex attracted people have been fighting for ages to not be considered fetishists (or those that are, it's incidental to their orientation) and this just drags us right back to it. It's like conservative extremists say "LGB people are all pervs!"; liberal extremists say "LGB people are all pervs, and that's a good thing!" No, I don't want any part of this at all, I just want same sex relationships to be held to the same standards as straight relationships.
)