Gee, You Wonder Why This Is Suddenly A Problem?

Gee, You Wonder Why This Is Suddenly A Problem?
You don't suppose it might have something to do with the changing moral climate caused by courts deciding that homosexuality is okay? While the article does acknowledge that not all of the cavorting is gay, it does acknowledge that a majority of it is--which is pretty impressive, considering that only 4% or so of men are gay or bisexual. From the July 7, 2008 Boston Herald:

Angry Cape Cod National Seashore officials said they are cracking down on public sex acts along the picturesque shoreline after the number of citations for public sex acts more than tripled, from an average of 40 to 132 last year.
“This is not what we’re interested in seeing,” said George Price, Superintendent of the National Seashore. “Over the last couple of years, public (sex) acts like this have been viewed by visitors.”
Price said officials are baffled as to why the vacation mecca has suddenly become a hotbed of public sex for randy exhibitionists.
“Laws and enforcement have not changed - it just seems to be something that some people decided we want to see,” Price said.
Complaints have included whale-watchers sailing past large groups of nude men, and families stumbling upon people engaged in sex acts on the pristine national shore that attracts tens of thousands of vacationers from throughout the world each year.
One complaint, issued in 2007, was from a New Jersey family walking in the dunes who encountered couples and a large group of men having “sex in the nude, including oral and anal sex right out in the open,” the Cape Cod Times reported last week.
“The majority is gay, but we’ve had issues with hetero sex as well. Families are upset and outraged,” Price said.

The article does acknowledge that there are "members of the gay community" that are also upset about this, which doesn't surprise me too much. But as I pointed out in 2003, there are plenty of gay men prepared to argue that prohibiting sex in public places is just one step from being shipped off to Auschwitz.

Some of the comments from those who live in the area are pretty startling:

Last time (10 or so years ago) my wife and I were in P-Town we felt like we'd stumbled into a casting call for a movie on exhibitionism. Taking children there is out of the question. Now, apparently, it's gotten explicitly worse.

and this one:

I haven't been to P-town in 6 years. My wife and I were made to feel very unwelcome when we went for lunch with her sister and our baby.

and this one--which makes me wonder if I should skip plans to visit Key West:

if you live in massachusestts you know what you're getting into if you go,if you're from out of state they should have some kind of warning about the public sodomy that occurs there...i remember taking my wife to key west when my son was just an infant,6 years later we were going to Marathon Key and flew into Key West....we rent a car and as we're driving out of key west my son sees 1 guy walking another with a dog leash...

and then he describes the state of exposure of those involved.

As a number of commenters point out--why, oh why, does anyone start to see homosexuality as a problem?