Tourist Attraction
I may be one of the few people around who, in the last three years, has spent roughly equal amounts of time on the beaches of the Emirate of Dubai and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As such, I find it especially interesting to note how differently authorities in each locality are responding to a common problem: tourist attraction.
Sex acts on Provincetown beaches prompt outrageFrisky sun worshipers are flocking to have sex on the beach in Provincetown - but are sending horrified family vacationers packing, officials said. Angry Cape Cod National Seashore officials said they are cracking down on public sex acts along the picturesque shoreline after the number of citations for public sex acts more than tripled, from an average of 40 to 132 last year. Complaints have included whale-watchers sailing past large groups of nude men, and families stumbling upon people engaged in sex acts on the pristine national shore that attracts tens of thousands of vacationers from throughout the world each year. One complaint, issued in 2007, was from a New Jersey family walking in the dunes who encountered couples and a large group of men having “sex in the nude, including oral and anal sex right out in the open,” the Cape Cod Times reported last week.
For this kind of behavior, i.e. gay sex in the open, the Commonwealth gives a "citation", that is to say, fine. That's probably what the offending parties say after getting their citation, "Fine."
British woman faces six years for sex on Dubai beach
A British businesswoman is facing six years in a Dubai jail after she was allegedly caught having sex on a beach. Michelle Palmer, 30, a publishing firm manager, says that she is “panicking” after being arrested by a police officer who saw her with a man on Jumeirah Beach in the tiny oil-rich state. It has been reported that she was charged with having sex outside marriage, indecent behavior in public, being drunk in public and assaulting a police officer. Ms Palmer is said to be worried that the authorities will push for the harshest possible sentence to make an example of her behavior. It is thought that she works in Dubai for a magazine publishing firm and that the man also accused in connection with the incident was a British holidaymaker.
I am not suggesting that Dubai should adopt the stance of Massachusetts or visa versa. Both run the risk of running off tourists of one kind or another with their respective policies. But one will, in my estimation, be much more successful at ending tourist attraction at their tourist attraction and at encouraging said offenders to get a room or go back to the one they already have.
See also: South Carolina is So Gay | Dubai detains 79 for indecent behavior on beaches