h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I thought it was the best forum thread ever at post 5, but then SoRB kicked up to a whole new level.

At post 5, I was vaguely disappointed, but SorB has saved the day.

If "Queenie Whinging" isn't QOTD soon, I'll be gutted.

I was just amazed that by 5 posts, the original poster had said "OK, I guess you're right". That never ever happens, even after a billion posts you might only get an infinitesimal shift in position by the original poster. And yet there we were. Truly one for the record books.

Bod its a slow night when people start getting nostagic for the golden era of thread that's barely 3 pages long.

People who need to lighten up:

*Gay men caught having sex in a public place.

*Anyone on this thread carrying on like gay men having sex in a park at 10.30pm is a henious crime comparable to rape.

Get a grip, chaps (and you do seem to all be chaps).

Just out of interest what constitutes lightening up?

Should the homosexuals accept the firefighters pranks as nothing more than a harmless bit of cage rattling.

Should people just accept that otherpeople are going to take no regard of the law in a way that could well offend their own senisibilities?

The whole thing smacks of gay-bashing to me. The reaction of the gay blokes is a bit weird, but the firemen went out of their way to harass people who weren't doing anyone any harm.

Toekn female unlurking...


What was the criminal offence, just to be clear?

"I was just amazed that by 5 posts, the original poster had said "OK, I guess you're right"."

That's because I'm unique in being a reasonable person open to having hit preconceived views challenged by other people

(i think Tessawill posted before so that makes at least 3 ladies in the thread now)

to Psycorp

Beatrice: the illegal act was 'lewd behaviour in public' as far as I can gather. But since it wasn't reported to the police no action has been taken.

er... nothing else to add

carry on!

So hands up who's never committed that crime?

And how would you feel if someone had deliberately set out to catch you at it?

Do we have a duty as citizens to report all crime we see? Talking on a mobile phone in a car? Downloading songs from the net? Being served alcohol after hours?

(Morning ladies)

moi? never! (been caught, that is)

As for reporting crime - if I saw someone driving and talking on a mobile phone I'd not bother, but I'd invoke some kind of karma to get them back somehow. If I saw them cause an accident while speaking I wouldn't hesitate to tell the police that.

As for the others, probably not.

If I saw some people having a bit of al fresco rumpy-pumpy I'd probably get rather than report them!

"The whole thing smacks of gay-bashing to me."

What utter nonsense. There's been absolutely no suggestion of any violence, threat of violence, fear of violence or anything like that whatsoever.

I haven't seen anyone on this thread compare having sex in a public place to rape.

And to Zagreb - you mention the time, 10:30pm, as though it's the depths of the night. But the story has a date attached, a date less than a week after the summer solstice. So lets be clear - it was DAYLIGHT, or at the very most, dusk.

What I think this comes down to is: these people seem to think they have some sort of expectation of privacy in a public place in daylight. How self-centred and inconsiderate does that make them?

It would "smack of gay-bashing" if these people had been harassed in a pub, club, or perhaps their homes or places of work. But they weren't in any of those places - they were out in an open, public area. And when interrupted in the commission of a (minor) crime in that area - COMPLAINED! And, bizarrely, not to the police, but to an AIDS charity. Presumably because they realised that if they complained through the proper channels, they'd likely have been either sent off with a flea in their ear, or even possibly arrested themselves.

I have nothing but contempt for the complainants in this case, and nothing but sympathy for the firefighters who've been scapegoated and punished out of all proportion for something that at worst should have seen them fined a packet of biscuits or had their XBox confiscated for a week.

SoRB

*waves to the other ladies*

I think it's the aspect of the firefighters not behaving in a professional manner that I feel especially warranted some sort of reprimand. It would have been equally harassing whoever chose to deliberately go & shine torches on the activities. Nothing to do with expecting privacy - different if someone stumbled upon them by chance & chose to report it to the police.

Yes, the complaint seems misdirected, it would have been more appropriate to inform the fire station chief. Perhaps it was the AIDS charity that took it upon themselves to escalate the matter.

Faults on both sides.

If it was daylight, as Roj points out, why did the firemen need torches?

Yeah. Faults on both sides.

On one side: goofing about while they should be at work.

On the other side: illegally fking in a public place in daylight, having the sheer brass neck to go *complaining* about being caught at it, and making it into a specifically vindictive and political complaint by their choice of body they complain to, who could be reasonably expected to take the complaint out of proportion.

I think perhaps the people who took this complaint far too far have not thought about how it will affect how they're perceived.

On the one hand, you've got firemen - a pretty much universally respected and admired body of men. On the other hand, you've got gay men who want to have sex in public places - a group who it might be fair to say are, at best, tolerated. I'm surprised nobody had a good think about where public sympathies are likely to lie and whether it might actually be counterproductive to make an issue of it.

A question: the location has been nationally publicised, and it is now known that the complaints of a bunch of gay men have caused these firemen to suffer professionally. Let's guess: will incidents of harrassment, even violence against gays in that area become less frequent, or more frequent as a result?

SoRB

"why did the firemen need torches?"

Two answers to that:

1. Firemen *always* need and carry torches. Requirement of the job.

2. If you mean why did they *use* torches - it would be *going* dark at that time. I was making the point that, despite it being 10:30pm, given the date we are NOT talking about something going on in the "dead of night". It would be light enough to read a newspaper.

SoRB

If I were sitting on a hypothetical park bench at the time of the incident, finishing up a paper (perfect timing - it would just be getting to dark to read), and the firemen came around shining torches at me, I would consider that annoying, and I would wonder, "What the **** are they doing that for?"

My first response, of course, would be to go to the local red cross and complain about the mistreatment.

Tut tut tut. Read the actual story, folks.

Oddly enough, I was in Bristol last week and saw the story as a headline in a local rag. I thought 'I wonder what the whole truth is?'

Now - no matter what one thinks of people having sex in a public space on a warm summer's night. (And I'll freely admit - I've done it. Once.) - one has to ask whether we really want to pay firefighters to go out of their way, during duty hours, to go looking for cheap thrills. C/mon. They were specifically cruising the common on the lookout for men having sex. During their working hours. Is this a good use of taxpayers' money?

I only hope the memory was useful during the firefighters' subsequent masturbation. Then at least someone would have got value for money.

So, SoRB, can you explain exactly what your problem is in this case?

I think we've established that you don't now think that having al fresco sex is a major crime, and presumably you agree that you don't want to live in a society where we all spy on each other. We've established, I think, that's it's not acceptable for firefighters to 'goof off' when they're supposed to be working or on call, and that playing peeping tom is not acceptable in their work time or their leisure time. I think I'm right in saying that. I'd have thought that taking a fire engine for a jolly would be disciplinary offence whatever the purpose.

So given that the firefighters shouldn't have been there in the first place, do you not think it was legitimate to complain about them? Because I'd sure as hell complain about being spied on by fire-fighters if I were, er, conducing Ugandan Affairs in a secluded place in the open air.

And if you read the article carefully, you'll know that they didn't choose the Terence Higgins Trust at random to kick up a political fuss. If they'd wanted to do that, they'd have gone to Stonewall, surely?

The article is very clear on this - The THT "works with gay men, in cooperation with the police, on the Downs" - presumably in a liaison role through their sexual health work. Nothing "bizzare" about it and evidence of the complaint being "specifically vindictive and political" at all. Why shouldn't they use THT's role as liaison with the police to raise complains anonymously?

"I'm surprised nobody had a good think about where public sympathies are likely to lie and whether it might actually be counterproductive to make an issue of it."

There's *no evidence* for thinking that they wanted to make an issue of it. If they had, they'd have gone to Stonewall. How do we know that they didn't go to the THT in the expectation that a quiet word would be had? We don't. In fact, the article implies that there are good reasons for thinking that this information was leaked from the fire service - it certainly wasn't a THT or Stonewall press release.