speaking of parks ... (sexuality, culture)
I went to Ibirapeura Park in Sao Paulo a few weeks ago. I grew up in a small town and spent all summer camping as I was growing up and I love nature, but I also love the city. So wherever I have lived as an adult, I have lived in a city but close to the biggest piece of nature that I could find within it. Ibirapeura Park is probably that piece of nature in Sao Paulo, which is otherwise mostly a jungle of concrete and steel and asphalt.
Any place you have a large park in an urban area, you’ll find gay men checking each other out. It is even more the case in developing countries – except where policy brutality is particularly brutal – because there are fewer social outlets for gay men in those societies and they are less likely to live alone due to economics and the importance of family and community ties. In these parks gay (or bisexual) men will probably also find a spot to have sex. It is simple mathematics: add the factors mentioned previously to the fact that, in general, men are sexually stimulated pretty easily, and there you have it.
One doesn’t even have to be looking for it to find it. Sure enough, I stumbled across such a place in Ibirapeura Park. In a place as sex-positive as Brazil and a park as big as Ibirapuera, there are probably several such spots. I hung out in that spot for a while and saw the transition. During the day the location was pretty deserted, with the occasional gay man cruising. In late afternoon and early evening it was a flurry of joggers and bikers. With darkness, it quickly morphed into a testosterone-infused sexual free-for-all.
A couple of guys were checking me out, and I was checking a couple of them out. One man came up to me and began grabbing at me, but even in the dark I didn’t find him attractive. A younger guy came up and started up a conversation, asking me why I didn’t play around with the other guy and commenting, “I don’t like old guys.” The irony there was that I am probably at least ten years older than that other guy. Then other guys came around us and suddenly there were a dozen men jacking themselves and each other off. The younger man moved away and disappeared into the crowd.
I was the whitest one, and probably the only foreigner. There is a pervasive belief among people of all colors that the darker the skin of the man, the bigger his penis. I have had sex with lots of different men of lots of different colors, including lots of dark ones, and that hasn’t been my experience. Still, I found myself a little surprised that I won that contest hands down. My dick is big but it certainly isn’t huge and there were lots of other men there, so the odds of that being the case would have seemed to be small – no pun intended.
In the midst of my making this observation, three or four motorcycles ridden by cops sped up and the crowd dispersed like scared rabbits. There was no way that they could secure all of us perverts, and I just kept walking briskly out of there. No one came up behind me to accost me, and I was free. As usual, I found myself wondering how the others fared. Would they be taken to the police station and cited? Would money be extorted from them there, as would be the case in Rio? Would they be physically abused?
To my surprise, the younger man appeared at my side on the path out, and started another conversation. He too was wondering what would come of the others. In the U.S., men who meet in overtly sexual situations want no words exchanges, and act like you have violated some cardinal rule if you open your mouth (unless it is to put their dick in it). Brazilians being more social, they are more likely to talk with you, as if you are actually a human being instead of just a piece of meat. We had a nice chat and he walked me the not insignificant distance to my bus stop. He was a sweet boy, in his early twenties, no doubt. He commented that I looked like I was around his age in the dark. I didn’t ask him how old he thought I was now that he was seeing me in a bit more light. I accepted the compliment for what it was, and secretly hoped that he wouldn’t be so prejudiced against us old guys, considering I am probably twice his age.
