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VANCOUVER

March ‘7, 1991 Classifieds 986-6222 Office, Editorial 985-2131

Display Advertising 980-0511 Distribution 986-1337

SUNDAY

A return to
refinement

Fashion: 21

56 pages 25¢

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

May the tuck of the Irish be smiling on you this St. Patrick’s Day - and
remember to wear something green.

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RCMP investigate complaints
that Bridgman and Delbrook
parks are being used as
homosexual meeting places

TWO NORTH Vancouver parks have become havens for

homosexuals in search of sex.

Said North Vancouver RCMP
Insp. Dave Roseberry, ‘‘We are
concerned about the use of
Bridgman and Delbrook parks by
people who are suspected to be
conducting homosexual acts."*

Roseberry said police have
received numerous complaints
from park users.

“The public are concerned and
that makes it a police concern,”'
he said.

Roseberry said men, coming
from throughout the Lower
Mainland and often driving ex-
pensive cars, are making
Bridgman Park a particularly busy
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. pickup spot.

Said Roseberry, ‘‘They are
conducting their sexual pleasures
there.”’

The police, he said, will take
action on complaints received and
“are apgressively attacking the
problem”? in both parks. RCMP
routinely patrol the parks, note
licence plate numbers and talk to
park visitors.

“As soon as there is possible
exposure to these people, they just
leave,”’ he said.

Delbrook Park was made a less
attractive rendezvous last year
when the district. remodelled the
park’s public washroom.

“It’s a fairly open complex so
they can’t go in there and hide
themselves,’’ Roseberry said.

Added the inspector, ‘‘The law
allows that consenting adults can
carry on as they wish in privacy.
A iot of these toilets in parks have
individual locking cubicles. If
they’re locked into these cubicles,
it’s fairly private even though it’s
a public park.””

But, he said, ‘*‘It came to an ug-
ly head last year at Delbrook with
people complaining because a lot
of kids were using the park and
there was this type of activity go-
ing on.””

Meanwhile, Christopher Koth,
coordinator of gay community
programs for AIDS Vancouver,
said the phenomenon of gay sex in
public places has been chronicled
in a book — Tea Room Trade —
by sociologist. Laud Humphreys.
The author coined the term
“public sex environment’ for the
purposes of his research.

Koth said that Humphreys
“hung out’’ in public washrooms,

By Michael Becker
News Reporter

traced the licence plates of men
who frequented ‘‘public sex en-
vironments’’ such as park
washrooms for .exual encounters,
and then interviewed them.

“He found that the reasons for
public sex varied,’ Koth said.

44 [t came to an ugly
head last year at
Delbrook with people
complaining because a
lot of kids were using
the park and there
was this type of
activity going on.99
— RCMP Insp. Dave Roseberry

“But there were also basic simi-
larities. Public sex externalizes
feelings. It fulfills that expectation
of men that they externalize their
feelings.

“It also fulfills the need to ob-
jectify desires. For men who
manifest same-sex desires it comes
down to the male genitalia. Public
sex offers anonymity. There is no
meaning attached to it, often no
name, no face,"’ Koth said.

Men who meet in parks for sex
may be sure of their sexuality, he
said, but may also be afraid of it.

“They’re often people who
can’t afford to attach themselves
in a public way to the gay
culture,’’ Koth said.

One explanation of homosexual
public sex sees the behavior as
“the manifestation of secret emo-
ions becoming a secret network
of meeting places.”

Meanwhile, Koth is organizing
Operation Latex Shield, a gay
public sex outreach program
sponsored by AIDS Vancouver.
Ten volunteers are being trained
to take the safe sex message out-
doors to guy “cruising areas’ in
the West End of Vancouver.

Koth said the program may
eventually be expanded to other
communities,