Sex and the city park: dealing with sexual issues at park and recreation facilities takes patience and awareness.

We all know that parks offer communities many things--nature, a setting for recreation and a source of relaxation. But these same environments can be conducive to romance and resulting sexual activity. In addition, parks' seclusion from other more populated public areas can encourage more pernicious sexual activity. Parks could be the setting for human sexual behaviors ranging from the normative to the non-normative, and from the sanctioned to the completely illegal.

Recreational settings, in contrast, often place youth--a time in human development known for sexual exploration--together in programs and activities. And while recreation professionals should anticipate some level of normative sexual activity, it is equally important to understand that some children may enter programs with covert sexual behavior problems that, if surfaced, may cause harm to other participants and programs as a whole.

The Inevitability of Human Sexuality 

Sexual interest is a human trait "hard-wired" into the brain. Indeed, sex is necessary for the survival of the species and is acknowledged as one of the driving forces of human adaptation. Though there is still a societal belief that sexual passion and sexual activity only begin during the early adolescent years and eventually peak in middle age, this is not supported by research.

Almost all studies have found that even young children perform a myriad of sexual behaviors and other recent studies have found that there is no difference in self-reported intensity of sexual passion between adolescents, young adults, middle-aged men and women, and older adults. All in all, sex drive plays a momentous force throughout the human life span.

Therefore, three challenges must be considered before considering the role of human sexuality in park and recreation settings.

Nature has made it difficult to tame sexual desires. At the community level, attempts to regulate or restrict human sexual activity have long had a place throughout history, and the necessity of controlling sexual impulses has been a hallowed principle for all societies. Where peer and family approval and censure had once been sufficient to socialize individuals on the acceptability of specific sexual practices, societies now require a codified set of rules and regulations to guide the public in regards to sexual behaviors. In sum, much effort has been and continues to be invested in controlling human sexual energy.

Society is reluctant to discuss the topic of sexual activity. Such discomfort results in avoidance and unfortunately these dialogues most often occur only after a critical incident has already happened and an organization is already in "damage control" mode, which hinders attempts to assess the amount of sexual activity occurring in park and recreation settings and formulate a realistic policy addressing this issue.

Each person has his or her own perspective on sexual appropriateness. No person enters the park and recreation field with a "blank slate" on the topic of sex. Human inborn character traits, exposure to parental values and behaviors, spiritual and religious backgrounds, peers, dating, relationship and sexual experiences affect each person's perspective on sex and sexuality. Everyone has a set of beliefs regarding what is appropriate and inappropriate sexually. These beliefs will play no small part in the policies that will be implemented in recreation settings.

There is no doubt that every person partaking of park and recreation facilities--visitors, participants, staff and vendors (regardless of background)--is a sexual being. For most, this sexual aspect of their personality will stay appropriately confined. However, some individuals come with long histories of sexual behavior problems, others come with the intended goal of sexual activity and, finally, some may experience an unplanned awakening of sexual desire while on public properties.

Sexual Behaviors in Recreation Settings

In youth recreation settings, two of the most prevalent issues pertaining to sexual activity are disclosures of sexual abuse and participant-on-participant contact.

Individuals who work with youth are mandated reporters and if a participating youth discloses an incident of any form of abuse, they are obligated to contact Childline [[phone]] with this information. Most program administrators are well aware of this protocol and such reporting is not a controversial issue.

The topic of participant-on-participant sexual contact is sometimes the most misunderstood by administrators and staff and most likely to cause consternation. It is important to keep in mind children and youth participate in a wide range of sexual behaviors. Administrators and staff do not have to condone these behaviors, but they will occur regardless of adult permission or approval.

Administrators often want unambiguous information on how to deal with youth sexual behaviors. Administrators fervently hope for youth who show little interest in sexual pursuits, but they must prepare to deal with a full range of normative and non-normative expressions of sexuality.

Michael Stinson, director of prevention services at the Joseph J. Peters Institute and coordinator for Stop It Now! Philadelphia believes that a broader public health approach to child sexual abuse prevention would provide a wider perspective on child sexual abuse. Summarizing some of the critical research on child-on-child contact, Stinson says "too much emphasis has been placed on adult-on-child sexual contact. However, in 40 percent of the cases of sexual abuse where the victim is between infancy and 11 years old, the perpetrator is an older child or an adolescent."

It is imperative for individuals that work with youth to obtain knowledge of normative childhood and youth sexual behaviors, as well as those that require parental, legal and therapeutic interventions. It is also important to know what activities require parent intervention and those that require police involvement.

This means work on the part of the recreation professional and unfortunately with such a loaded topic of youth sexuality, finding accurate information is not often an easy task.

Finally, one additional challenge is parental reaction to youth sexual behaviors. Bob Ditter, a licensed clinical worker specializing in child, adolescent and family therapy says, "I think what has camp administrators flummoxed is their worry about parents. I think most directors assume parents see sex as a 'hands off' subject at camp, so directors avoid it." The need to dialogue with parents about childhood sexuality is a necessity and youth development professionals are the ideal individuals to initiate this conversation, despite the differing beliefs parents may have and the challenge this task can be for recreation professionals.

Sexual Behaviors in Park Settings

Again, all human beings are sexual beings and they cannot but help bring their sexuality into park settings. For example, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) officials report that the most consistent sexual behavior problem they encounter is the use of parks by a sub-population of gay men for sexual trysts. It is admittedly difficult to eradicate this problem, but once public displeasure reaches a certain level, parks increase security and attempt to catch men "in the act."

DCNR does not maintain a central record of sexual behavior problems that occur in park settings and most issues are handled at the individual park level. The service does not appear to be blind to the issue of sexual behaviors in parks, but is likewise cognizant of its inability to prevent these from occurring. As with the case of gay men using these settings for sexual liaisons, the park service becomes involved after a staff member actually witnesses an incident, behaviors become flagrant and/or when park participants report the sexual activities of others.

It is difficult to offer suggestions in regards to policy on sexual behaviors in parks simply because the extent of activity varies from park to park. Compare this to the history of the dawning realization of sexual behaviors in recreation settings--it is only in the past 15 years that research has come to acknowledge the amount of sexual behaviors exhibited by children. Until this point, schools, recreation centers, camps and day programs had little guidance as to how to cope with this issue.

Conclusions

In both parks and recreation venues, sexual activity is occurring. Despite being difficult to detect as it is hidden either in the recesses of parks or from the oversight of program administrators, sexual behaviors in recreation facilities are forbidden and administrators must set a negative tone about such activity.

The challenge as park and recreation professionals is to move past this acceptance of the undesirability of sexual activity in programs, and onto a more realistic appraisal of its occurrence. Instead of using resources on interventions with no inherent validity (i.e., rules outlawing all sexual activity), a harm-reduction could make far more sense. With this perspective, the job is not to stop sexual activity (something that cannot be stopped), but rather make programs as safe as possible for all participants, including protecting individuals from harmful and unwelcome sexual activity.

As an emerging issue within parks and recreation, we'd like to hear how your community is dealing with sexual activity in the park. E-mail your solutions or thoughts to edit.nrpa.org.