Do you like the outdoors? Do you spend a lot of time at parks, especially a night? Do you like doing everything outdoors, including having sex? If you answered “yes” to all three questions, do I have the place for you. Olin-Turville Park is a beautiful, 111-acre park with a boat launch, a reservable shelter and plenty of cover for hot, man-on-man, anonymous sex!
The same park that, for years, has hosted the Halloween attraction “Horror in the Dark,” appears to also be the host of what some others might consider to be a real horror in the dark: public sex.
Men, usually white and ranging in age from 18 to 85 (yes, 85) from all over the state, have been seen by police driving into the park and, in some cases, engaging in sex. Police currently have a list of roughly 400 vehicles that have been seen at the park regularly.
These men typically don’t consider themselves gay, which some believe stems from the lack of acceptance from friends, family or society. They may fear the repercussions of living openly gay lives and, as a result, take part in the type of activity seen at Olin-Turville Park that allows them to maintain their secrecy.
A few ideas from Wisconsin residents have been posted on The Capital Times’ website on how to resolve this issue. A horse-riding stable, a dog park, bike trails and even opening the area for the development of a jail have been submitted and, in the case of the dog park, tested as potential deterrents to the sexual activity.
Despite the obvious benefits of a jail so close to home, the Madison Police Department is in the process of developing their own strategy on how to deter the forest-dwelling pleasure seekers. The proposed strategy includes clearing out brush to increase visibility, blocking access to some of the more frequented destinations and creating a list of banned people. The finalized strategy will be implemented by the park board’s Habitat Stewardship Subcommittee in the spring.
In defense of the people the city plans to deter, let me just say that these aren’t rats or some unwanted vermin you can chase off with a broom. These are people. Horny, horny people. When did we all become so judgmental? What man out there can honestly say he hasn’t been caught “fondling himself on a boat-launch dock” or charged with “lewd and lascivious behavior?” I’d be allowed into few places if everywhere that I have acted “lewd and lascivious” didn’t allow me to come back. Where would I get my groceries or Pizza Hut lunch buffets?
Nevertheless, there remains a fair amount of opposition to the sex occurring in the park, which makes any solution generally one-sided. Instead of trying to rid our lives of these public fornicators, I plan to embrace their presence because I look at this situation as one with economic potential.
The Wisconsin State Journal stated that Olin-Turville Park has been a stage for public sex, attracting residents from all over the state for over 20 years. Twenty years is long enough to declare it not a nuisance but a Madison tradition and I, for one, plan to profit from it.
One resident was quoted saying in the Wisconsin State Journal, “If they would get a room, no one would care. That’s what it comes down to.”
That sparked the idea for my solution: The Naturally Fuck Inn (Runner-ups were: Wild Life Motel, Woods in the Woods Bed and Breakfast, …Like Rabbits Hotel). It’d be like a laser tag arena except, instead of plastic obstacles and laser tag, it would be artificial trees and sex. We could keep the smoke machines for added effect.
The tagline could be “‘Cause in the accepting atmosphere at the Naturally Fuck Inn, you can find that ‘just had anonymous sex in the woods’ feeling without worrying about sitting on a pine cone or some wet blanket trying to arrest you. That’s our guarantee.”
It’s an all-encompassing idea that, as a character from one of my favorite TV shows — Trailer Park Boys — would say, gets “two birds stoned at once.” The residents would finally be allowed to enjoy Olin-Turville Park and they could benefit from the new revenue source that is created, while men could find true, anonymous love in the mystical, artificial forests of the Naturally Fuck Inn.
What any solution should aim to do is promote acceptance. Because without a level of acceptance — like the acceptance many residents in the Bay Creek area have come to find — some closeted gay men will continue to seek out obscure, secluded areas to secretively find anonymous sex. Whether that acceptance comes through widespread support of LGBT rights or the opening of an indoor, wilderness-themed sex arena is up to you. But it’s likely not going to stop until we allow it to.
David Carter ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in forestry.
