Letters

Guess Again, Gareth

Kirkby is ver fashion-conscious. Would that he were moe conscious -- and concerned with stuff like ethical conduct, the process and praxis of justice, Ms. Guess' clueless and gross stance on what she's done, and the effect of her parenting style on her kids. But it seems that, for Kirkby, outrageous is everything. Ah, well.

For me, her explanations are air-headed, and her conduct showed her to be unfit to sit on that jury. Why didn't she excuse herself from jury duty? I guess she thought the whole event to be a party, and she the guest of honour. And shee earns degrees and counsels people.

PS Regarding the article, The Importance of Public Sex (Issue #127, Jun 25): Writer Brent Ingram is confusing sexual freedom with social mores, conventions and courtesies. "I've been down here so long, everything looks like up to me," he seems to infer. Well, exhibitionistic sex acts are more a case of shooting yourself in the foot than anything else his rhetoric pretends them to be.

Mike Tropp
Vancouver, BC

...More on Public Sex

B Hiller
Vancouver BC

I enjoyed Brent Ingram's essay on the Importance of Public Sex. I did find some parts ironic, however. There was some suggestion in the article that those of us who choose marriage-like relationships over numerous sexual encounters do so because of internalized homophobia.

I now for myself the inverse is true. As I have healed from my self-hatred I have tended to engage less in casual sex and have found greater value in relationships of more commitment and longevity.

I find that I can look the man I had sex with in the eye without shame, and that I can value him day after day. I am not suggesting that having public sex with differing partners is an expression of internalized homophobia. I am suggesting that it can be, just as some gay people who value marriage may do so out of "identification with the oppressor."

I found the historical perspective of gay public sex interesting. I do not agree however, that this almost singular venue for intimate expression between people of the same sex during times of profound oppression remain the only sanctified choice for gay people now, during a period when our choices can be multiple. Public casual sex is , thanks to human rights efforts, now one choice rather than the only choice.

I think I have learned the following from my experience in relationships: When I think and believe within the princip[es of love, compassion, empathy, respect, honesty, mercy, forgiveness and kindness, I become a creator of liberty. When I scramble to satisfy my needs through theft, dishonesty, disregard, manipulation, insensitivity and/or cruelty, liberty slips through the fingers of my clenching fist.

Lyle Jones
Vancouver, BC

Thank you, Brent Ingram for your piece on public sex. Having been around and involved in the gay movement since its inception in the early 1970s I've always understood that one of its objectives along with obtaining full civil rights for gays was establishing our right to public sex (as affirmed in England and Spain and noted by Brent in his article).

More than that our meaning as a movement was also the eroticization of daily life -- opposing a civilization which is fundamentally anti-erotic. I have always thought that people who had sex in bed must have very boring sex lives. Nothing compares with sex in the sun, under the moon and stars.

At the very least you feel connected with your cosmic origins. As for sex in toilets, I've had some of my most memorable orgasms in toilets.

Let us demand of Councillor Gordon Price and his cohorts more sites where we can engage in safe public sex. The Trail in Stanley Park appears to have become such a site -- won through strength and power of the modern gay movement. However, not enough of us make it. On the other hand I'm not sure that the ecosystem of the Trail could take any more traffic than it gets.

Once again thank you Brent for your thoughtful eulogy to public sex.

Donn Hann
Vancouver, BC