All this talk about Sen. Larry “my toilet or yours” Craig has me thinking about the level of public sex right here in DC. I don’t know any gay people who don’t look down on such behavior. My friends seem intent on creating a new gay community that doesn’t furtively scavenge for sex in parks and bathrooms, but strangely, there is still a part of the local community that condones it, or at least, refuses to condemn it.

I haven’t been down to the P Street beach at night in some time, but years ago I drove past Badlands/Apex between 2 and 3am, and a friend pointed out the long parade of cars that snaked along the park and the number of men that walked the street brazenly hunting for dick. Coming from the deep south, I’ve seen how men would frequent public parks and restrooms, but I thought that this was a function of place and oppression, and wouldn’t be replicated in a place like DC. Obviously, I was naive.

The crusing in the park itself was also heavy, and remains so today. Once, my second year in the city, I made the mistake of taking a Sunday stroll in the middle of the afternoon along the P Street Beach hiking path, which was like walking into a gay version of the video game “Doom”, only without a machine gun and with monsters that want to eat your ass instead of your soul.

Fortuitously, I found a 2004 article in the Washington Blade about residents in the area that complained about public sex and the “dozens of discarded condoms that turn up each weekend in the playground at Francis Junior High School, which borders the woods at P Street beach”, one woman complaining that her dog “choked on a condom that had been discarded in a recreational area behind her apartment building”, and a school principal reporting “finding as many as 30 discarded condoms along the rear of the Francis School building”, and how he has to explain them to questioning children. The Park Police continued to arrest men for lewd act and indecent exposure, but the local cops stopped doing so after pressure from gay activists who apparently don’t understand the difference between public and private space. I haven’t heard much lately about public sex in DC, and I’m curious if things have changed much since that article. I’m betting against it.

Granted, straight people do dumb shit too. Look at Sen. David Vitter cheating on his wife with DC and NOLA prostitutes. However, HE went through a service and fucked privately. All too often, when it’s about gay people’s sexual faux pas, it too often happens in public.

Until we as a community decide that we’re tired of having our sexuality identified among the mass culture as something that typically finds its expression in parks and restrooms, I don’t think we’re going to make much headway as a community. We’ve done a good PR job in that everyone wants a fabulous gay friend, and now people respect us for our ability to make everything and everyone look good, but the underlying seeds of prejudice have to do with the fact that people think our sexuality is repulsive, and too many of our straight friends, if cornered, still feel this way. That won’t change if they continue to see a large portion of our community (In or Out) disrespecting the space we share with everyone–public space. We should never apologize for our sex lives or what form they take, but when you’re fucking behind an elementary school where kids and pets can find your rubbers, propositioning happily married men in airport restrooms, or in a gay pride parade with a leather strap up your fat hairy ass as you bend over and simulate humping your float while kids and their (gay & straight) parents watch horrified, you’re not doing yourself or the rest of us any favors, and none of us should be carrying water for these people, particularly gay activists pressuring cops who are trying to stop these people from unleashing their libido in our public space.

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