I’m amazed, but not surprised, by the amount of people here (too many to cite) that are ashamed of the most natural part and process of the human body.
And why should we hide it from our kids - doing so only instills in them our fears about sex, and will confuse them even more.
In societies where sex is an open and public practice (call them primitive if you must) there are almost no crimes of a sexual nature.
What is being stated as ‘immoral’, ‘indecent’, ‘inappropriate’ is the most natural part of being, and we are denying that. You have to ask the question what is denying who we are as sexual beings really doing to us?
Hey, kelly, I’m not calling for it not to be illegal. What would be the fun in that?
However, in my view (and I’ve only done it the once), the uniqueness is not to do with the chance of being caught. It’s to do with being in the woods surrounded by nature and all of that other tree-hugging hippy crap. If you ain’t tried it, don’t knock it.
just want to weigh in for a sec on the whole sex in public thing sorry if it’s a hijack, but folks have been sniping at each other over it throughout this thread.
my big problem with sexual acts in public is the exposure to children. children model the behavior of adults- and it is not healthy for them to act out these sorts of acts with their peers.
My wife is a teacher (1st grade), and she has had a little girl in her class who would often engage other students in very inappropriate play of a sexual nature. her background was a home where her father frequently watched pornographic films when she was there to see them. that’s pure anecdote, and i don’t have a cite, but it seems self-evident that children learn proper behavior from watching adults interact. sex in the bushes is not the sort of thing they should be encouraged to do.
and as far as billing sex acts as ‘natural’- there are laws against urinating in the streets as well, as there should be. ‘natural’ is no excuse for inappropriate behavior.
to clarify- i have NO problem with nudity. nude beaches, etc. may not be my cup of tea, but i don’t think that they are harmful. but in a public setting, parents should not have to worry about whether their kids will be exposed to it.
People in this thread keep talking about behaviors being “healthy” – I’d like to hear a definition of exactly what a healthy behavior is and how it’s identified. I don’t think we’re talking about regular cardio and salad bars here…
kabbes, I’m definitely not knocking it – I have testimony from someone who I trust a lot more than I do you that says it’s wonderful – just raising the issue of whether the thrill of doing something illegal and the risk of being caught has anything to do with why sex in the park is so alluring to some people.
Maybe it’s unique for you because you’ve only done it once. By definition, that makes it unique in your experience.
[hijack] TVAA, salad bars are far from healthy. Just thinking of how much listeria is probably lurking in the lettuce makes me ill.
[/hijack]
Can you hijack a thread that has already been hijacked so repeatedly that most of its posts have nothing to do with the topic of the OP?
About children modeling adult sexual behavior and that not being healthy for them…
There was a study done in which parents were polled about different sexual behaviors they had seen their child acting out. I was shocked to see the large percentages (I can drag out my Human Sexuality textbook if people are really interested) that had masturbated and did various other fairly sexual acts with, apparently, no prompting from adults. Kids, as much as we don’t like to think about it, have a sexuality of a sort. Just because the hormonal drive isn’t there doesn’t mean the nerve endings and pleasure centers don’t exist, and a child is a very inquisitive creature.
Yup. And I’m not even convinced the hormonal drive isn’t there. I was certainly interested in other children (and some non-children) in a “special” way long before puberty.
I’ve never really understood the squeamishness about child sexuality. Maybe it’s because I don’t have children.
While it is not a perfect term, I think “homophobia” does have merit because, in my anecdotal experience, anti-homosexual sentiment more often has an element of fear in it, as opposed to bigotry based on race, ethnicity or religion (caveat: anti-semetism often has an element of fear in it, as well).
As examples, I refer to the fear that gays will try to “convert” people, and the attitude of “gays don’t bother me, but I don’t want to share a shower/room/barracks with 'em.”
I mean, just because I have arachnophobia, it doesn’t mean I’m a horrible person or that I need radical psychiatric therapy. It just means I’m frightened of the concept of eight-legged death falling from the ceiling.
Still, one could come up with alternate candidates for “homophobe”, some more loaded than others:
Pro-hetero
Anti-homo
Anti-gay
Sexist, but in that other way (heh)
Hetero-bigot
Hetero-ist
Sex Pref-ist (might apply to lesbians who eschew bisexuals too)
Pro-stupid
Uhhhhhhhhhhh yeah - good luck with that. :rolleyes:
Regardless of whether or not the etymology of the word “homophobia” is appropriate in all cases, the fact remains that it is the accepted word, and is the equivalent of “racism,” “sexism” or “anti-Semitism:”
Imperfect, yes, but so is the English language.
Moving on - as to the OP, both situations are illegal, and for that reason they should have been punished. As a side note, is sex in public places immoral? A debate all unto itself, perhaps - I never really thought about it.
And FTR, I also read some interesting research into the sexuality of homophobic people, in the book Baiters, Bashers and Bigots*. They also found a correlation between homosexual impulses and degree of homophobia. You can take their methods to task, but it seems more than one study has coraborrated the conclusions.
Finally, can people be subconsciously homophobic? I’d say most assuredly yes, but mostly it’s just out of ignorance, or a byproduct of the way they were raised. I will reluctantly admit that there are times, in my mind, where I think some very racist or sexist thoughts (I do not, however, speak them aloud). And then I force myself to examine why I thought what I thought, and hopefully grow as a person because of that self-examination.
I don’t expect people to become less biogoted overnight, but a little self-examination never hurt anyone.
Woah, woah, woah! After all that BS about “must be literal with suffixes”, you then expect us to give YOU leeway on your brand new term? No way, buddy! A “misohomoist” is a person who hates things that are the same, not a person who hates gays.
Just deal with it. “Homophobe” means what it means. Nobody uses it to mean a “mental illness”, so you don’t need to be so phobic about that. If everyone agrees on the definition of a word, that’s what the word means, it doesn’t matter if the 'fixes connote something else. I’m not going to call myself a pedophile just because I love children, and then show them a latin book when people misinterpret me. And yes, homophobia is irrational. It may be logical that a person raised to be homophic is homophobic, but he’d still irrational. If a person was raised to be irrational, would you say that he is rational because he’s irrational?
I don’t think I’d want to say “misohomo” around homophobes. It’s pronounced “me so homo”, right?
You should have stopped after “that’s pure anecdote” and considered whether this story has any value at all. One girl frequently saw porno movies and later engaged in “inappropriate” play (inappropriate according to who? the other students?), but you don’t know whether the latter was caused by the former–even in this single case–let alone whether there’s a causation for children in general.
Sounds like arguments against violent cartoons: a kid somewhere watches Ninja Turtles, then karate-chops his friend at school. Did the show make him do it? Does that mean every kid who watches the show is going to become violent? Or was this just a violent kid who happened to like violent shows?
snort Reminds me of the time I saw Jesus of Nazareth when I was a kid, and then my cousin and I pretended to crucify his sister, using crayons as nails.
Speaking as someone who has visited cruising grounds in the past, and who wouldn’t dismiss the notion of going again, I would just like to point out that the idea is not to get caught. Everyone stays well away from public areas or walkways, and attempts to remain hidden by undergrowth. Men who visit cruising parks are not trying to shock or dismay members of the general public, their kids or even their dogs, and most would be utterly mortified at the idea of getting caught out by anyone other than a hopeful participant. It’s not something I have a particular kink about, but I have friends who go regularly and who will only stick to well-known cruising areas away from anywhere anyone is likely to take their children. And yes, it’s illegal and should probably remain so, regardless of sexuality. Scott Capurro once said (I’m paraphrasing) that if the woods were full of hot nekkid women ready and waiting for anonymous sex, the streets would be clear of straight men from that day on. I don’t doubt that’s an exaggeration, but I know the majority of my single, straight male friends would be down there like a shot. Not sure they’d make a lifestyle of it, though.
In response to the OP - There are always some people who will be saying all the right things, being friendly enough, even willing to discuss your boyfriend, how you met etc… but there’s a slight sense of distaste somehow, subtle but there. Like they’re slightly nervous or uncomfortable and are wishing very much like you would just stick to easy ‘queer’ topics of conversation such as Will & Grace or interior design. Soon as the conversation heads towards anything that could be considered even remotely sexual, they get jumpy, although they feel free to spend hours verbally drooling over the quality/quantity of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s breasts, for example. The people I know like this would be shocked and upset if anyone thought they were homophobic, hell, they even bought a red ribbon on national Aids day! But still, it’s there no matter how slight, and generally makes me avoid them like the plague as censoring myself constantly is not my idea of a relaxing time.
I’ll even go so far as to admit that I usually have big red flags go up whenever I meet someone who’s a self-proclaimed Christian. Yes, I’m going to treat them the way they treat me, and 99% of the time they treat me no differently from anyone else. But I will always have the lingering doubt that, in the back of their minds, they’re “loving the sinner but hating the sin”… and that makes my skin crawl.
