A report in a regional freesheet about gay men raises questions about society, writes Quentin Fottrell.
THERE WAS a gay scandal out west some time ago that never made the regional freesheets. It happened at the Gay Clare Social Group's inaugural night. All hell broke loose! The men wanted Kylie Minogue. The women wanted world music. This wasn't the kind of scandal that sets the home fires burning with righteous indignation, but I can see the CDs being popped into and plucked from the stereo. And what did they play? "Dolphins!" one guy who was there told me.
Yes, those smiling, beautiful, kind, peaceful and loving creatures have been known to save swimmers from shark attacks. Their inaugural night took place a couple of years ago. They did play Kylie, too, and they are still going strong.
You don't read about Gay Clare Social Group. They are the comely maidens and brave young men you read about in Ireland's Own. Their life is full of possibility more than the generation before. They are dreamers with stars in their eyes. These young men and women dream of getting married some day. They want to fall in love. They want to have their first kiss, just not with a member of the opposite sex. They want their rite of passage, just like you had. And they will.
In other news, you may have heard about that front page of the Mayo Echo- "Castlebar Lake Attracts Hundreds of Perverts", which revealed something rotten about the underbelly of Irish society, though probably not in the way it intended.
Tony Geraghty, editor of the Mayo Echo, wrote of "drooling perverts" in a car park at Lough Lannagh. The town has become "the cruising capital of Connaught" as men travel from Sligo, Galway, Roscommon and Donegal, according to the paper. The car park, says Geraghty, happens to be near a playground. Geraghty said last week that he was merely "suggesting" a possible link to paedophilia and mentioned a children's comic book which he said he found lying in the area. However, he did more than suggest: "These perverts are engaging in these activities whilst overlooking children playing in the nearby playground, and also looking at images of young boys from magazines strewn about the area."
"On one occasion, the Mayo Echocame across two men in a sexual embrace in a public place, just a few metres from the car park, at 4.30pm in the day," he wrote. He photographed a man's car with registration number, and published it.
The allegations of paedophilia are spurious supposition. The Press Ombudsman operates according to several principles: truth and accuracy, distinguishing fact and comment, fairness and honesty, and incitement to hatred. Complaints have been made. I am loath to give publicity to the paper, which boasts of its "fearless editorial policies" on its website. But it is advertising-supported and comes through 11,800 letter boxes, whether they like it or not, so it should not fly under the radar.
In Castlebar, it didn't. The online forum Castlebar.ie went into overdrive over the issue. People were angry, horrified and disgusted . . . with the article. Geraghty threatened legal action and a nervous Castlebar.ie went off-line for a while.
Sex in public places, if that is the case here, is illegal. But rather than condone or condemn it, it is better to understand it. Cruising happens everywhere: in smoking areas of bars and, due to years of oppression of gay men, in parks. It is also dangerous. Attacks have resulted in suspended sentences. What message does that send out?
The satirical blogger TwentyMajor wrote last week about heterosexuals and the way they might look at you.
"Often these people spend up to 15 minutes slobbering all over each other when they get out of the taxi and back home.
"The dance floor has become a meeting point for so called pick ups, where straight men show off their moves in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety," he wrote in his right-backatchya piece of faux outrage.
TwentyMajor has a point. I once saw a man and woman in Stephen's Green having sex under a tree. They obviously got carried away. But I did not think they were paedophiles for being in a park with a playground. I did not photograph them.
Still, times are changing. Groups like the Gay Clare Social Club are magically appearing in function rooms in towns where there are no gay outlets. A bit of bunting here, glitter there. They want their first dance like everyone else.
These groups are filled with happy country folk, constructing their own emotional and social truth, who taste a life no longer out of their reach. All of these stories do make me wonder. Who are the dolphins in life? And who are the sharks?