<p>I agree with corranged. Some of the participants may be sex addicts but I wouldn’t say all of them are.</p>
<p>Just wondering – Would anyone post something about the VA Senator who went to prostitutes with the title “This does not reflect positively on the straight community”?</p>
<p>There are lots of straight, married men who go to prostitutes, but somehow we don’t describe them as examples of a “straight community.” IMHO, having a shared sexual orientation with others does not make one part of a common community.</p>
<p>Regarding his nocturnal activities in north London, he said: “I don’t know anybody who actually goes to Hampstead Heath at two o’clock in the morning for anything other than the reason of playing about with another member of the human race. If they are there, then they are a little bit strange or they just don’t know the local area.” He went on: "A very large part of the male population, gay or straight, totally understands the idea of anonymous and no-strings sex.</p>
<p>Michael and Goss recently marked their 10th anniversary as a couple. “The fact that I choose to do that on a warm night in the best cruising ground in London - which happens to be about half a mile from my home - I don’t think would be that shocking to that many gay people,” he said. “Until such time as the straight world is not attacking people for cruising, I’d say the gay world could actually keep that to themselves, just for a little bit longer.”</p>
<p>higherlead,</p>
<p>Gay men aren’t more sexually charged than straight men. The reason that gay men have more cruising grounds is that it takes two to tango. Gay men just need other gay men while straight men need straight women. When my straight coworkers make the comments or even hit on girls, they were just as “ready”, only to be ignored as always. LOL! It’s a matter of convenience and being men, not “gayness”. You don’t find news like that concerning gay women. </p>
<p>When it comes a time when gay/bisexual men are truly universally accepted and there’s no such thing as being in the closet, I’d think this sort of cruising would decrease dramatically as they have just as many socially accepting, open, healthy outlets to meet others as the straight ones or anyone.</p>
<p>LOL @ the ad of the “Real Jock gay fitness community” to the left.</p>
<p>Anyway, to SmileDarling:</p>
<p>I have a good reason to be nitpicky about the definition of “community.” According to the definition you provided, all men, all Hispanics, all X (people who make up some ultra-large group) comprise a community just because they share some characteristic in common. You might agree with that definition, but I don’t and neither do the sociologists I cited (the definition, btw, did <em>not</em> come from a SOCL 101 but a 300-level class. your false accusation is unwelcome; and so what if it came from a SOCL 101 class? what matters is that I used a scholarly definition). The logic of the thread title suggests that just because certain men or certain Hispanics did something (let’s say, some men molest children and some Hispanics migrated here illegally), this action should reflect on ALL men and ALL Hispanics. It’s good you acknowledged that this liability issue shouldn’t be the case, but the title of this thread suggests that it <em>is</em> the case for gay people. You asked why the definition of “community” is important. The reason is to avoid this kind of misunderstanding and, essentially, in this case, to avoid the perpetuation of homophobia. </p>
<p>To be honest, I wasnt trying to accuse you of being racist. Rather, I was trying to warn you that your logic could lead you down a slippery slope if you apply it to, say, black drug-dealers. Should their actions reflect on blacks as a whole? Absolutely not. It was truly you who came up with the conclusion that I talked about before.</p>
<p>
Do blacks make up a community? They don’t make up the majority of society. Also, according to your definition (which doesn’t take into consideration size), all straight people would make up a community.</p>
<p>
The gays and lesbians who support, participate in, and sustain those festivals could be argued as being members of the community: the community of people who support, participate in, and sustain in gay and lesbian festivals. The gays and lesbians who do not support/participate in/sustain those festivals are not part of the said community. See the difference? I didn’t just lump both groups into the “gay community.”</p>
<p>
The CC is a community because they are united by their desire to learn more information about colleges and college admissions (mission), the camarederie developed and the reassurance sought as students await rejections/acceptances (emotional connection, needs fulfillment), the desire to seek and provide information (influence, reciprocal responsibility), and their general contribution to and presence in the forum (membership/sense of belonging). I would not consider all college applicants as part of a community.</p>
<p>Ah George Michael is in a long-term relationship and he is not in the closet. Still he feels the need at least occassionally to cruise through the public parks looking for a pipe to smoke.</p>
<p>Now I couldn’t possibly care less who or what George Michael has sex with. It is no skin off my back and homosexuality is not a catching disease - at least not among adults. However it is absolutely disgusting that people are turning our public parks, rest areas, and lavatories into their personal bawdy houses. That is as true if they are engaging in heterosexual sex as sodomy. But the thing is it is almost invariably and exclusively homosexual liasons that are causing the problem. Start a police crackdown on public lewdness and it will be that homosexual community that doesn’t exist per an earlier poster that will be lobbying the city council, state legislature, and local papers to have an end put to it.</p>
<p>If homosexuals want more acceptence from the wider society then they ought to be leading the charge to clean up the parks and rest areas. You will get more respect when you behave more like responsible citizens.</p>
<p>
I agree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As someone pointed out before, the fact that most bathrooms are same-sex makes homosexual sex in public bathrooms more prevalent than heterosexual sex.</p>
<p>
From what I gather, gay rights activists (who make up the community of gay rights activists and not the more general “homosexual community” that you speak of) are just as concerned about how the police are making arrests as why they are making those arrests. It is without question that many police officers are physically and verbally abusive to arrestees (see Amnesty International’s [Stonewalled</a> Report](<a href=“http://www.amnestyusa.org/LGBT_Human_Rights/Stonewalled_A_Report/page.do?id=1106610&n1=3&n2=36&n3=1121]Stonewalled”>http://www.amnestyusa.org/LGBT_Human_Rights/Stonewalled_A_Report/page.do?id=1106610&n1=3&n2=36&n3=1121)). While I support the arrest of people engaging in lewd conduct, the police better be sure they’re not practicing any sort of profiling, selective enforcement, or discrimination. </p>
<p>
The people who engage in such conduct should be responsible for themselves.</p>
<p>higherlead,</p>
<p>Since when George Michael is representative of everyone that cruises in the restroom? Is Bob Allen the same as George Michael? Of course, there will always be people doing these, no matter what the circumstances are; what I was saying is if we live in a world where gays are truly accepted, at least we probably won’t less people like Bob Allen who lives in the closet and probably find restroom sex as the only outlet.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Did I not explain to you already some <em>men</em> (gays and straight) just like looking for sex in public places provided they have the opportunities. Opportunities are much more readily available for gay men than straight. When I was in HS, the straight oens sneak out their dorms in the middle of the night and have sex in the classroom building; even most girls in general don’t do this, there were couple needy ones that met the guys’ needs! Like 'tisthetruth said, the people who engage in such conduct should be responsible for themselves. This is not an excuse for you to disrespect gays and lesbians; apparently, you seem to try to justify your dislike (or even hate) with a very convenient excuse since you know it’s impossible to completely eliminate the action by a subgroup of individuals. What about the lesbian couples? They are half the gay community too; shouldn’t you at least respect them?</p>
<p>Is the view better up there on your cross Sam? “Woe is me I am persecuted because I get more sex than heterosexuals.”</p>
<p>I brought up George Michael only because somebody was off claiming all the butt burglars lurking around the parks were closeted Gays trapped living an outwardly straight lifestyle and that real Gay men if there were any involved were only doing it because the law wouldn’t allow Gay unions. Since George was an out of the closet Gay man in a longterm ostensibly stable relationship he seemed a fitting example to explode or at least call into question an unsupported claim.</p>
<p>The problem here is homosexuak men having sex and cruising for partners in an inappropriate setting. Do all Gay men do it? I have no idea. Do a lot of Gay men do it? Yes. Is it a problem for everybody? Yes. Are there organizations that represent the Gay and Lesbian community? There certainly are organizations that purport to represent that community in their public documents. Do those organizations lobby against using law enforcement to clean up the parks? Yes. Is that one of the reasons why Gays are not as respected as they feel they should be? Almost certainly. Do those facts make me a homophobe? I doubt it.</p>
<p>
Huh. I really don’t recall this post. Care to quote it?</p>
<p>Also, I wouldn’t call someone a burglar if they’re taking what’s freely offered. </p>
<p>
I think the problem is with people having sex in a public places. People can look for partners wherever they want to.</p>
<p>A friend who worked as a security guard at Macy’s while in school told me it was part of his security detail to rouse gay men from bathroom stall trysts. One guy would stand in a Macy’s shopping bag to hide the extra pair of feet in the stall. </p>
<p>The idea of sex in a public restroom makes my skin crawl.</p>
<p>“I think the problem is with people having sex in a public places. People can look for partners wherever they want to.”</p>
<p>Spoken like a man whose parents met at a family reunion - not that there is anything wrong with that. It must be really romantic to approach someone for sex in a Port Authority urinal or a Lowes bathroom stall.</p>
<p>Get a room or go to jail.</p>
<p>corranged,</p>
<p>Thanks for catching higherlead’s lie. It’s annoying to see someone resort to doing it. </p>
<p>This is another (shockingly) good one from higherlead:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>higherlead,</p>
<p>You really have no idea if ALL gay men like having sex in the public restroom? Were you playing dumb just so you could get your insult across? Yet, you <em>know</em> a lot of gay men do it? Just how do you know? Did you try to look for them in public restrooms? Were you looking for something too? As the article implied and as other CCers said here, people wouldn’t notice them if they don’t pay attention. Maybe I didn’t hit the “hot spots” but from my experiences, pretty much all the public restrooms look pretty normal to me. Somehow you know and noticed something? That just makes me wonder about you.</p>
<p>
Uh, I don’t really understand your point here. Do you have one?</p>
<p>You said something to the effect that that having sex in the public places mentioned is inappropriate. I agreed.</p>
<p>You said that looking for a partner in these public spaces is inappropriate. I disagreed. I don’t care where people meet their date for Friday, husband, wife, long-term partner, or evening hook-up. Why should it bother me that they met at a park or store? Why should it be illegal for two people to meet in a park, if they don’t have sex there? Why should it be our business where two people meet?</p>
<p>I’m not really sure what the point of your ad hominum attack is. Are you trying to insult the South? Me? My family? All at the same time? For your information, I’m a woman, my parents met through work, and we live in New England. Satisfied?</p>
<p>what I think is so fascinating about this whole thread is the assumption that only men are doing these ‘sordid’ things, i.e. having sex in public places. I, for one, have witnessed several times, teenage couples coming out of department store dressing rooms… with looks of mischief on their faces. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac with no houses around the curve part due to a small pond surrounded by a walking path. I’ve never seen homosexual couples taking advantage of the privacy this property provides. But I can’t tell you how many hook-ups between boys and girls have occurred here, amidst the overgrowth of reeds, etc.</p>
<p>coarranged my point was that there definitely are places where it is inappropriate to look for a sex partner and a family reunion is one of them unless you are in to sleeping with relatives or inlaws. Is that clear enough?</p>
<p>“but from my experiences, pretty much all the public restrooms look pretty normal to me”</p>
<p>They may to you. I guess it all depends on your definition of normal. The glory hole busted in the stall wall, the graffitti, the guy perpetually lurking in the hallway may be normal to you but they aren’t normal to me.</p>
<p>Are you going to answer my previous questions? </p>
<p>See my question for you in post #50. You stated that a previous posted had made a number of claims. I asked you to please quote the post where someone made all of those claims.</p>
<p>Also see my post #54:
</p>
<p>I hate to step into this cr**, but I have to make this point. It’s not so much a matter of “meeting someone” somewhere. Of course, you can meet someone by kismet anywhere, go off together into the sunset…
It’s when people are cruising around places (not ordinarily associated with pick up joints) actively trying to get immediate sexual gratification that’s kind of creepy. </p>
<p>An example, I’d hate to go to a grocery store and have some guy/s lurking in the doorway to the women’s room looking me up and down, in search of an anonymous hookup. That’s gross. Why? because it’s not ordinary, it’s out of the realm of expected experiences. I expect to go to the store and be able to innocently shop without that kind of bs.</p>
<p>I used to hate it that the undergrad library in college had turned into a pickup joint. You couldn’t go in there and study without someone throwing a balled up paper at your head with a proposition written on it.</p>
<p>In the same vein, I’d like to think I could go to the local riverside park and fish with my kids without seeing a bunch of grown men loitering around trying to pick up other guys (or women, doesn’t really matter).</p>
<p>New Orleans has a pretty open gay culture. When I was waitressing in seafood restaurants in the French Quarter back in the college (the 80s), men having sex in the bathroom was never an issue. I cannot remember one instance.</p>
<p>The manager sometimes had to bang on the door to roust hetero couples who were both in the ladies’ room and obviously involved, and a couple of times we called the police over people using cocaine in the bathroom. And one night near Carnival, a female customer from New Jersey got up on top of the table between her appetizer and her salad and stripped right in the middle of the dining room. (I still have no idea why). But we just never ran across an instance of gay men having sex in the bathroom.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are clubs in the Quarter where men do go to the bathroom for encounters. Which is probably why they have no discernable interest in having one at Home Depot or in a restaurant.</p>