Saturday, 23 February 2008

Gay Sex Cruising / Cottage Website Bans Gay Criticism of Cornwall Police




Gay Sex Cruising / Cottage Website Bans Gay Criticism of Cornwall Police

A gay ‘casual sex pick-up’ website has banned some gay men from expressing genuine concerns regarding homophobic policing attitudes & practises as experienced by gay persons in the county of Cornwall.

The website ‘Gaybod’ (or GAYBOG as it is sometimes known) is used primarily by those men wishing to arrange gay/bisexual meetings at ‘cruising’ or in public toilets (known as:-cottages) for casual sexual encounters. Several concerned gay persons had attempted to raise awareness via the ‘gaybod’ website of continuing problems encountered regarding numerous incidents policing problems towards gay persons in Cornwall.

There is a clear and heavy presence of police monitoring and input into the ‘cottaging’ website, however some gay persons were most concerned that this may be misleading in the case of Cornwall, where there are known Gay Community problems still experienced with local police.

Last year in 2007, a group of Gay Men, Gay Women & Gay Youth got together and organised the 1st Cornwall Gay Pride Beach Day, which was a great success. However, policing problems prior to the Beach Day had such an adverse impact & effect that the Cornwall Gay PRIDE steering group disbanded after the PRIDE BEACH DAY out of genuine expressed fears and concerns regarding continuing negative policing attitudes in Cornwall towards gay people.

Cornwall Police have now arranged a 'SAFER CRUISING' evening to be held at BarQdos in Truro on 7pm on the 6th March, using the ‘cottaging’ website to target those men in Cornwall who cruise or cottage in public toilets.