Comments on: Beats the hell out of me

By: The Bill

The Bill — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:50:02 +0000

I think police craking down on beat use should go hand in hand with the police craking down of drug use at dance parties.

After all they are BOTH illigal.

By: Andrew M. Potts

Andrew M. Potts — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:51:16 +0000

Peter I mentioned people who pay for sex and people who engage in group sex in private as things that I could care less about in comparison to beats as you implied in your post that people in the gay community who oppose beats had hang ups about sex or were dour moralising puritans of some description.

There are valid questions to be asked about how venues were chosen for the lock outs (which by the way I oppose) but there’s nothing to link that to police patrols at beats in other commands- so to answer your question, no, I don’t see any ‘gay hate’ picture here.

By: Peter Mazey

Peter Mazey — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:40:36 +0000

ok Andrew consent for use of the space is a valid point, but only that, a point and I am still not sure how you got money or group sex out of my comment (maybe just another tactic still attempting to prove how ‘filthy’ beats are, using the worst case scenarios…sounding a bit like a politician). We humans must remember with the reality of too many liars (with a hidden agenda) in life masking themselves as ‘do-gooders’, we need to also realise how easy it is to lose human freedoms amongst control groups or power freaks who will most of the time make their reasons sound legal, logical and rational. These tactics are used by governments, politicians, religious groups and many other cruel and inhumane structures who attempt to control and minimilise our human experience…whether it sounds legal, logical and rational, at the current state of many losing their freedoms through so called ‘law’, including 2am lockouts for half of the gay bars in Sydney (with 3 out of the 4 originally selected being gay venues, throwing in one straight one for good measure and no confirmation on the stats they are using for this outcome), beats being targeted and so on, you don’t see a possible ‘gay hate’ picture here, at all, possibly? Let’s not get caught in being held by headlock with intelligent words such as propeganda, when there is always the definite reality of hidden agendas. Don’t let them fool you or you attempt to fool others with their possible fascade…I made my conservative mother read a book on hidden agendas and she is still to this day horrified and refuses to believe, like many others, the way humans misuse and abuse having hidden agendas.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:27:55 +0000

Hi Elliot, glad you enjoy it- thanks for the feedback!

Peter Mazey- so long as consenting adults are involved and they’re not placing themselves at risk of harm, I don’t pass judgement on what people get up to sexually, whether there’s money involved, how long they’ve known each other, or how many partners might be involved. If beat users were having sex outdoors on private property and it was out of sight of neighbouring properties I would be totally fine with that.

However, the issue here is precisely one of consent. When public spaces and facilities are monopolised for sex, members of the public have their ability to give consent before seeing or hearing that behavior taken away. They have every right to object to beat sex in the same way that they have no right to object to nudity at a legal nude beach, or sex and violence on the screen if they’ve bought a ticket for an R rated movie.

Heterosexuals merely not wanting to encounter gay men having sex is no more homophobic than my not wanting to encounter heterosexuals having sex is heterophobic. Crying homophobia for that alone not only demeans the word but risks making it meaningless.

By: Peter Mazey

Peter Mazey — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:50:32 +0000

Mr Potts, I feel it is my duty as an obviously much more comfortable gay man than your ‘restricted along with the straigh collective’ self to clearly advise you of the choices a gay man is allowed to make in our world. I am pretty sure at 40 years old that I have come to accept many people’s choices whether I like them or not, this is called acceptance, as we broad minded gay people know that tolerance is not enough. Keeping things behind closed doors is ‘tolerable’ to say the least, closeted and hidden to be completely honest. As through human history, many straight sexual practises have been publicly displayed and on show and our ‘beats’ having this derogatrory name is now known to be due to hate and discust of our sexual practises, all be it publicly. Whether we sexually play behind a tree or ‘in a room’ does not stop many still finding discust in our choices, so in knowing this, we must deliver any forms of sexuality in an open and comfortable manner…not caring about the sexually frigid or immature that continually try to stop anything comfortably sexual, be it gay, straight or of one of the many varied spices of sexual life that exist and has always existed in our human world.
Yours sincerely,
A Comfortable Gay Person (finally, after all of these wasted years on the uncomfortable one’s attitudes…and there are many)

By: Elliot

Elliot — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:26:35 +0000

“Stop acting like a bunch of horny teenagers and get a room” – I agree, also want to say that its your coloumn I enjoy the most in the website! – Keep up the GREAT work!