Perhaps Sergeant Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department needs a break. Maybe a trip to Holland and some time enjoying the beauty of De Oeverlanden park would do him some good. I know my times in De Oeverlanden were relaxing and memorable in a positive way. I had to smile today when I got notice that signs have recently been erected in advance of the summer season announcing specific areas of this wild parkland as reserved for men cruising for sex. Better yet, the signs were not put up by some pro-sex activist collective, but instead by the municipality of Slotervaart, a suburb to Amsterdam, where the park is located. Explaining the reasons for the signage, spokeswoman Manon Koffijberg said, "There are various groups of users of the park; people with small children who bathe on the beaches, those who walk their dogs, gays cruising and nature lovers. Things are arranged so that each group can relax in their own area without intruding on each other."
Perhaps Ms. Koffijberg could tour Sergeant Knight around the park and explain this rational approach to letting each of us enjoy nature and the things we choose to do with it. Not even 24 hours before word came from Holland of their refreshing approach to public sex, Sergeant Knight had been in the news for reasons also involving park sex. In Oklahoma City they'd posted photographs of the 16 men arrested in the sting operation this week at Hobie Point and Sergeant Knight had sat down for a video interview explaining why he felt compelled to send undercover police into a park to arrest men for consensual sex. The local daily posted the names and photographs of the 16 men arrested, ranging in age from 20 to 61.
In watching the video of Sergeant Knight I found it especially interesting how he spent so much time justifying why this had to be done undercover. All this out-in-the-open public sex would have been harder to find had cops not been posing as cruisers, too. Public sex that can't be found without going undercover just doesn't seem very likely to be a problem for bird-watchers, mothers pushing strollers, and others also using the park. But then this assumes sex in the great outdoors is always wrong and I don't believe that for one minute. Judging from the actions of straight people who constantly embrace public sex and even some polling data supporting it, the population of the USA just might agree this was not only a waste of police resources, but an abuse of power, too. But then again there are so few ways to put down the fags these days, what with marriage encroaching on even "The Heartland" that homophobes have to get their kicks where they can.
I hope I live long enough to see more rational thinking about park sex in the USA. Perhaps someday Sergeant Knight will find himself sending someone into Hobie Point to erect signage directing you to the cruisy part of the park. But then if that happens, what need would there be for CRUISING for SEX?!
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