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Thread 4433

Thread ID: 4433 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2003-01-12

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Centinel [OP]

2003-01-12 23:41 | User Profile

From The Canton Repository, available online at: [url=http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=80033&r=0&Category=11]http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=8003...r=0&Category=11[/url]

Parks and sex a good combination for some men

Sunday, January 12, 2003 By CHARITA M. GOSHAY and TIM BOTOS Repository staff writers

One thing is certain: They aren’t coming for the fresh air or shuffleboard.

From company vans to minivans; from family sedans to macho-looking pickup trucks, they make deliberate, repeated laps, trying to catch the eye of someone who’s there for the same reason.

Others simply park their cars and wait to be approached. Authorities say the manner in which they park often is a sign. After a brief conversation with another person, the drivers leave — together.

Some get out of their vehicles and loiter around restrooms. They even approach unsuspecting men who really are there for the fresh air and exercise.

On any given day, men go to parks in and around Stark County in search of anonymous sex with other men.

It’s called cruising.

Police say the practice has been around for years. But lately, men are getting bolder. It’s more out in the open.

“It’s just a vicious cycle for us,” said Canton Police Lt. Scott Beard.

Having consensual sex is no crime. It’s not like prostitution, where money changes hands.

When the sex occurs in the parks, police often can level only disorderly conduct or, in some cases, public indecency charges. They are among the least serious types of crimes in the state.

Why would anyone engage in such risky — even dangerous — behavior?

Joe Amico, an addiction specialist and co-chairman of the National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, said people look for sex at public places for different reasons.

“It’s very often people who have very suppressed sexual issues,” he said. “For example, men who are gay who may be married. When they’re seeking anonymous sex, they assume nobody’s going to recognize them.”

Amico said that not everyone who engages in such behavior is a sex addict.

“If you went to cocktail party on a Friday and saw somebody who was drunk, does that make them an alcoholic?” he asked.

Many men who seek sex with other men, Amico added, don’t consider themselves homosexual.

“There may be other issues in which people use sex to deal with it,” he said. “Some people use sex as a way to deal with stress, or to numb their pain.”

Pamela Hillyard, coordinator for resource development at the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, said accosting strangers in parks and restrooms for sex can be a symptom of a sexual addiction or of something else.

“Any one behavior does not make a sex addict. It’s a pattern of behaviors.”

Hillyard said the anonymous sex also can be a sign of low self-esteem, or seeing sex as the most important need. She added the risk of being caught can be part of the thrill.

“A lot of times, sex isn’t this issue,” she said. “It’s the means to them getting that high. It’s the high they’re seeking, not what they’re doing to get there.”

Police said a 12-year-old boy solicited an undercover officer earlier this year in a Canton park. He wasn’t charged with a crime, but his parents were notified and he was referred to counseling.

Canton’s parks are among the favorites in Northeast Ohio, according to an Internet site about cruising. Among those mentioned are Arboretum and Stadium parks.

Visitors comment on the best places in the parks for action. They also make suggestions about the best times to visit.

Here’s one comment about Stadium Park: “It is not as good as it used to be. Now you see the same people here all the time. I think they live at this park.”

Doug Perry, Canton’s parks director, said he hears consistent complaints from park users and neighbors.

“There’s not a whole lot you can do,” he said. “It’s sort of like a speeding ticket. If they don’t catch you in the act, they can’t give you a ticket.”

Police say holes in the walls of outdoor restrooms can double as lookout posts for cruisers. As quickly as authorities plug holes, they mysteriously open again.

Perry said the problem includes heterosexual as well as homosexual contact. Either way, he has some advice.

“Get a room,” he said.

Though the vast majority of cruisers are men, Amico said women also seek anonymous sex.

“Women do it in different ways,” he said. “I run (therapy) groups with both men and women. Their outlet is in a different way. A lot of women are using the Internet to meet people for anonymous sex. Then there’s the whole affair issue, and meeting people in bars. In our society, we don’t notice it as much.”

Amico said that for some people who cruise, it’s strictly about sex. For others, “It has absolutely nothing to do with sex.”

“There’s no one, sweeping statement you can make.”

Last month, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office conducted a two-day sex sting at the Nimisilla Reservoir in Green.

Sheriff’s Detective Ed Gruska said the reservoir has been a trouble spot for some time, and that the sheriff’s office was responding to complaints from fishermen and other park goers who were accosted by men for sex.

Using plainclothes officers as decoys, 16 men, ages 30 to 78, were arrested on sex-related charges. They included men from Atwater, Uniontown, Canton and North Canton.

Fourteen, including a registered sex offender from Massillon, were charged with public indecency. Two others were charged with sexual imposition.

The charges are misdemeanors.

Gruska said the reactions of those who are caught vary.

“They have about every excuse in the world,” he said. “Basically, they’re just pretty much silent. Some are married. Some have children. Some have grandchildren. Some were supposed to be working.”

Gruska said the 16 suspects were booked into jail, then released on their own recognizance. The department notified the probation officer of the Massillon sex offender.

The Canton Health Department has received grants to help make groups aware of the dangers of cruising, said Health Commissioner Robert Pattison. The most recent program ended in June.

The department also offers free testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

The most recent prevention program was making contact with people to tell them that counseling and testing were available.

Pattison said there’s no way to gauge how effective such efforts have been.

Franco

2003-01-12 23:44 | User Profile

Anonymous homo fudge-packing in the bushes? Sure! Nifty! Please pass the AIDS, and hold the syphlus....and extra mayo and onions...yummy....

Drakmal

2003-01-13 05:16 | User Profile

AIDS is quite impressive. It targets behavior, and has a very low innocent-infection rate (even including raped african babies), especially compared to previous plagues. Sorta makes you think the deity meant it when he said "stop sleeping around", "don't put it in other men", etc.

N.B. Forrest

2003-01-13 08:24 | User Profile

**Having consensual sex is no crime. It’s not like prostitution, where money changes hands.

When the sex occurs in the parks, police often can level only disorderly conduct or, in some cases, public indecency charges. They are among the least serious types of crimes in the state.**

Dad takes Junior to the park to toss the frisbee on a sunny Saturday afternoon - and Junior gets a rude awakening to the monstrous Facts of Fag Life when he stumbles over couple of interior decorators jamming each others' gerbil holes behind a tree......

Into the pit! Schnell! Bang!!

jeffersonian

2003-01-13 16:59 | User Profile

Many men who seek sex with other men, Amico added, don’t consider themselves homosexual.

Right, and the elected swine who violate our sovereignty by abetting illegal aliens don't consider themselves traitors, and the corporate theives who ship American jobs overseas to and rob pension plans don't consider themselves criminals.

Up is down, black is white...

medieval

2003-01-15 02:37 | User Profile

Kinsey said a long time ago that homosexuality was genetic. I prefer to cite Charles W. Socarides, M.D., who disputes Kinsey's claim that it is a genetic trait and reports on a number of successful attempts to cure homosexual behavior.

Socarides distinguishes between homosexuality and the gay rights movement. He defines homosexuality, or same-sex sex, as a psychological disorder and one of over 40 types of known deviant sexual behavior, paraphilias or "alternate loves" which have been identified. Such sexual deviations are compulsive addictions, which have little to do with love, are harmful to the one who is caught up in the particular psychological disorder, almost always against his own will in response to imperative psychological drives, and sometimes harm those who are victimized by these deviant behaviors.

According to Dr. Socarides, same-sex sex is a kind of substitute, or simulation, for sex between men and women, practiced by two types of homosexuals; obligatory and optional.

Obligatory homosexuals engage in same-sex sex because they are compelled by unconscious forces and early life traumas over which they have no control and little understanding. They don't know that something went wrong in their early years. As a result, they fear women, and feel there's something lacking in their manhood. They go looking for that manhood, compulsively, in other men. Neither sexually aroused by, nor attracted to, women, their activity is not a preference, but a neurotic adaptation to unconscious fears of women.

A maze of rationalizations to justify their avoidance of the opposite sex, including the claim that "homosexuals are born that way" have been created to obscure their intense needs, entirely unconscious, to find their masculinity. They have sex repeatedly out of this inner compulsion to fill the void within by taking in the masculinity of another man.

Roy Batty

2003-01-15 02:55 | User Profile

Originally posted by N.B. Forrest@Jan 13 2003, 08:24 ** **Having consensual sex is no crime. It’s not like prostitution, where money changes hands.

When the sex occurs in the parks, police often can level only disorderly conduct or, in some cases, public indecency charges. They are among the least serious types of crimes in the state.**

Dad takes Junior to the park to toss the frisbee on a sunny Saturday afternoon - and Junior gets a rude awakening to the monstrous Facts of Fag Life when he stumbles over couple of interior decorators jamming each others' gerbil holes behind a tree......

Into the pit! Schnell! Bang!! **

Oh yeah, the fudge packing rump raiders are normal.

In L.A. we have Griffith Park, it's huge. You've seen it on TV or films a zillion times, the Griffith Observatory has been used in countless celluloid misadventures. Anyway, this huge park has had many of its winding, long roads through the hills and mountains closed off for years. "Fire" was the mumbled reason. Well, one day my brother and I are taking the kids to the ZOO, and I see some park rangers sitting in their truck. I ask them if they're ever going to have the scenic roads open again, and they shook their heads no. I asked if the fire danger had become too much. I wanted to ask if it was maybe the influx of drunken mestizos that had anything to do with the roads being closed as well, but since I didn't know these guys ... Back to story; the rangers shook their heads at me when I mentioned fires. "It isn't fires?" "No, it's all the faggots," the ranger at the wheel said. They started laughing, then I started laughing. They then told me that the numbers had gotten so out of control, with so many pork pullers rolling in the bushes and staggering into public view, WITH THE CITY DOING NOTHING, the Dept. of Parks and Recreation decided to close as much access to the park as they could, without specifically offending anyone. So ... the turd burglars still grope and circle jerk in the park, but all those horrible heterosexuals and their children are deprived of access, Sunday drives, etc. so that the fruitcakes don't feel singled out. Typical, eh?

A.I.D.S. = Adios Infected Dck Scker.
A.I.D.S. = Anally Injected Death Serum.

Yeah, I know, it's soooo juvenile and intolerant.