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Show 190 public space was used, especially at Liberty Park and Bare Ass Beach, where both social and anonymous encounters were possible. For example, married and unmarried gay men alike considered the park a dependable source of sexual contacts and a daytime adjunct to evenings at Radio City. According to Jeff Ramos, "It was really easy, let me tell you. You could go at lunch, have a nooner, you would go in the bushes, do it in your car were ... there always gay people there." However, he also commented that "a lot of people would go to the park. just to be with people, it wasn't necessarily sexual." .. Similarly, the beach provided opportunities for both casual sex and enduring social interaction, or as Ben Holbrook remarked, "I met some of my best friends out there " ... Wasatch Springs also embodied both city anonymity and small-town intimacy. While Lee Paulsen described Wasatch Springs as "very exciting, if you were into older truckers and strangers," he also avoided it because "it was a small town, so you were bound to meet people that you knew," and Brian Jeffries formed a seven-year relationship with somebody he met there.l'" Especially for men below the legal drinking age, the park, beach, and baths served as gathering places fulfilling similar functions of conviviality and community as the bar. The park also attracted the bar contingent after hours. Ben Holbrook described how, as though by unspoken agreement, gay men converged on Liberty Park near the duck pond at night: We always knew we were going to see everybody at the same place and almost at the same time. We'd park our cars in a circle and we turned our radios on the same station and we danced in that parking lot, and we had a good time until 11 0' clock when they'd come and kick us out. But of .. l04Ramos, Holbrook, Paulsen, Jeffries interviews. |
