Sunday In The Park With Me

I spent some contemplative time this past Sunday walking the trails of the nearby Fort Harrison State Park. It was a good opportunity to enjoy the weather of this never-ending summer. The air is still warm and the trees still green.

The trails in this park are an easy and pleasant walk, but quite long. Fort Harrison is twice the size of New York City's Central Park, and also surrounded by urban area. (Another park within Indianapolis is Eagle Creek city park, which is 6 times bigger than Central Park.) Of course being in Indiana there is no worry of mugging or wilding.

The thing that bothered me as I carried my takeout food from Arby's on my way to a scenic spot to eat it was the uneasiness from wondering what people passing were thinking about seeing a man by himself walking into the secluded woods. There have been plenty of news stories about men everywhere being arrested while cruising for sex in public places like parks, so it would be something that could easily occur to people. To ward off such thoughts, I brandished my sandwich and drink before me so that anyone could see I was there to picnic and not to pick dick.

I personally don't have a problem with forest f***ing or even getting wood in the woods, but it's crazy to risk arrest from choosing public venues for this activity. It's also not so good for the reputation of the gay community for people to think we all go to parks to literally troll under the bridge.

An idea I've had for awhile has been the establishment of private clubs owning gay nature preserves. I don't know if being on private land for use by members only would protect the participants but it would seem to make things easier for everyone. It would be easy to look down on this, but there may be something to that theory that men are genetically hunters. They go to the woods to hunt for that wascal wamwod.

In Britain it seems that they understand this. In Bristol, a group of firemen were disciplined for just shining a flashlight on four men "dogging" each other in a park. They were fined £1000, demoted, and order to attend an equality course. No action was taken against the doggers. Was this a right in the Magna Carta that somehow did not make it to our shores?