Dog Parks

The party I attended for New Years was reminiscent of a dog park. Before the clock struck midnight, I watched as half a dozen 19 year-old gay boys from San Jose humped each other to rap music.

Dog parks (and pubescent gay boys grinding to rap music) are something new to me. Growing-up in the Chicago suburbs, when my dogs had to take a leak, I opened the door. Spoiled by the Invisible Fence system, upon moving to San Francisco, I quickly discovered a new social venue: the dog park.

Not every apartment comes with a yard so parks are where dogs go to poop and pee. Brilliant. Duboce Park is one of several dog parks I have visited in San Francisco. And what am I doing aside from watching dogs run around? Looking at the people of course.

People go to dog parks to meet new people. Progressive, I know. And yet, I find it difficult to converse with people when dogs are licking each other's back ends. What's worse is when the dogs start eating each other's fecal matter. I don't quite get how later, when the dogs are alone with their owners, the dogs freely lick their face.

So how are 19 year-old gay boys and dog parks similar? Well, once gay men go through their sexual exploration -- humping everything -- they get lonely and want kids. Established and with time on their hands, gay men buy a dog and confuse the barn animal for a child. This is the cycle of how dogs, in the United States, live better than most of the world's population.