Blogger Goes Undercover In The Meat Rack

Choire Sicha, the Radar Online blogger who broke the story of last week's sex arrests in Fire Island's Meat Rack, decided to do some first person investigating over the weekend.

This Saturday afternoon, in the aftermath of a number of arrests by the National Parks Service in the gay cruising grounds of Fire Island, your intrepid reporter camped out in some fairly short shorts with a book and waited for more drama to unfurl. It was sort of like going undercover, but not really?

But first, a note! Gay publications (including The Advocate, but also Next and Edge) have happily quoted the Department of the Interior's assertion that "no arrests were made." This is parroted by Fire Island residents with the sort of relief that any kind of denial brings. Quick, to West's Encyclopedia of American Law! "[T]he detention of a person need not be accompanied by formal words of arrest or a station house booking to constitute an arrest." If you are not free to leave—for instance, if you are in handcuffs, and a federal agent is searching your pockets—you are most decidedly under arrest. So, for starters, it's a shame that the National Park Service is lying and that gay publications believe it.

[snip]

So out in the Meat Rack, the federal forest between Cherry Grove and the Pines, I met a man who described his "flavor" as "Blatino" and who suggested, unprompted, for himself the pseudonym of "Max." He reported that he had seen a timid, anxious three-way taking place in the bushes that afternoon and not much else—but that the Meat Rack had, last night in the wee hours, been hopping. No one expected the park rangers to have the budget for night patrols.

A Suffolk County police officer cruised along the sand road on an ATV. She didn't even slow down. On July 24, 1967, the New York Times reported on that department's now long-extinct campaign of arrests: in 1966, there were 60 arrests, mainly for disorderly conduct, with most of the gay men pleading guilty. Anonymous reports of the arrests were mailed to their employers, but the cops claimed they only did so "with certain occupations, such as schoolteaching." And: "Repeaters are sometimes given jail sentences of up to a year."

Max said he had recently, prompted by the annoyances of New York-area sex venues being shuttered, taken it upon himself to, with a friend, host a private party: no drugs, well-hung only, of eight men. It was, he reported, a big success! Though, as you might expect of a group of men, it really only lasted for an hour. There were a few other lurky turkeys hanging out, but skittish. For the next few hours, nothing happened. The proposed protest of a "circle jerk for freedom" never encircled.

And the following day, Sunday, things were pretty quiet; no cops of any stripe. Everyone had heard that the new park rangers put on staff at the Fire Island National Seashore had been informed by their superiors that arresting gay men for lewd behavior was not a priority here. How that might have been put to them was not explained. The Superintendent's office and the Regional Director's office never returned phone calls.

The brief return of Fire Island to the '60s was, apparently, over

Meatrack Sex Busts Rock Fire Island

Under the headline "Gay Men Arrested For Gay Sex On Gay Island", Radar Online's Choire Sicha reports that for the last two weekends police have made unprecedented arrests for public sex in Fire Island's famed Meatrack, the notoriously cruisy area between the towns of Cherry Grove and The Pines.

On the last two consecutive weekends, gay men on Fire Island have been arrested and charged with lewd conduct. These are the first known arrests for public sex on the federal land.

Few details are known—the National Park Service has not yet confirmed the arrests or said why they have now begun patrolling the land. On the weekend of Friday, June 13, at least one gay man was detained in the small wooded area popularly called The Meat Rack, which is both a cruising ground and also a thoroughfare between the two gay towns of Fire Island, Cherry Grove and The Pines. The following weekend, at least two were arrested.

In the first event, an eyewitness said he saw five or six rangers with a gay man (described as somewhat overweight and clad in khakis and a polo shirt) on his knees and in handcuffs. The men were searched after their arrests. In the other event, a man was stopped and "panicked and tried to get rid of the drugs," according to a second-hand report by one Cherry Grove resident; that man was either charged with possession or detained further and charged. The man arrested with him was given a citation for $125 for engaging in lewdness, that resident said.

This coming Saturday, June 28, one Cherry Grove resident is proposing—via posters around the towns—a day of action, what he is calling "a circle jerk for freedom" around the park service's (abandoned) building in the Meat Rack at the edge of the Pines.

Up on Cape Cod, park rangers are stepping up public sex citations (but apparently are not making arrests) around Provincetown.

The rangers have been trying to crack down by enforcing a federal misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, which prohibits obscene acts, the Cape Cod Times reported. Seashore rangers issued 132 citations for public sex acts last year, compared with about 70 annually from 2003 to 2006, and about 40 citations annually in prior years, Seashore acting chief ranger Craig Thatcher said.

A New Jersey family walking with children in the dunes wrote in a September 2007 letter that they encountered "several couples and then a large group of men having group sex in the nude, including oral and anal sex right out in the open," the park service said.

A whale-watch boat captain carrying a boatload of tourists also reported seeing 20 to 30 nude men "playing around" near Wood End Lighthouse, another letter from August 2007 reported. Provincetown has a large gay population and attracts large numbers of gay tourists, according to the Times. Rangers said they are working with Provincetown police and town officials to start a public education campaign aimed at discouraging the behavior.

According to Radar Online, it remains unclear which agency is making the Fire Island arrests.

Midweek Mix - DJ Ted Eiel

Shake off your hump day doldrums with this banging "chunkhouse" mix from Chicago's DJ Ted Eiel. Setlist. Website. Podcasts. Upcoming gigs: Hydrate @ IML Chicago, Meat Rack @ Eagle Los Angeles, Bearracuda @ San Francisco Pride.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: DJ Herbie James. DJ David Knapp. DJ Dave Huge. DJ Corey Craig.

Grindr Is Killing Fire Island!

Complaints about hook-up sites and their effect on the gay social scene have existed since before the launch of Manhunt. This week New York Magazine claims that Grindr is destroying Fire Island's legendary see and be seen culture.

Log in to Grindr on Fire Island, as you would anywhere else, and you’ll see a grid of 100 smiling faces and headless muscled torsos, a catalogue of men accessible from the comfort of your summer share’s living room. (Although cell-phone service on the island can be spotty, most houses are equipped with Wi-Fi.) The app has been called a “virtual bathhouse” and been pegged by some as a reason for the decline of the gay bar, but in a place like Fire Island, it may be especially destructive.

Aside from the beach, a large part of the attraction of the Pines scene is the opportunity to rub shoulders, and maybe sleep, with attractive and powerful gay men. “Not long ago, you’d walk around here and everybody would be cruising each other, not anonymously, but face to face,” said Sal Occhipinti, a tanned 43-year-old, at a recent afternoon “high tea” dance party in the Pines harbor. A few feet away, on the largely empty patio of the Blue Whale, a group of three men were busily typing on their devices next to the bar. According to Occhipinti, even the Meat Rack, the notoriously cruisy wooded area between the Pines and Cherry Grove, has been taken over by glowing iPhone screens.

(Via JMG reader Dave)

HomoQuotable - George Michael

"Are you gay? No? Then fuck off! This is my culture!" -George Michael, screaming at News Of The World photographers who caught him having sex in the bushes on London's notoriously cruisy Hampstead Heath. George isn't wrong about park cruising being part of gay life worldwide (The Rambles, Buena Vista, Meat Rack, etc), although calling it "culture" is a bit cringe-inducing.

The worst part about the whole thing is that the photographers followed George's trick back to his seedy apartment in Brighton, where the 58-year old truck driver was kind enough for pose for a series of sexy photos. George has proven the adage that money can't buy you love. Or pretty.