Recently one of our columnists wrote a column decrying the police treatment of gay men in San Diego, claiming that they are being unfairly targeted for behavior common among the straight community.

That’s the beauty of a free press — as a columnist he can freely express his opinion, whether we agree with it or not, and we, in turn, can freely express our opinion through the editorial. In this case, those opinions clash.

Robert DeKoven argues that gay men are being unfairly persecuted by San Diego police for having public sex, and that heterosexuals are doing the same things without fear of arrest. He states that, “Even if police can show that a gay man indecently exposed himself to an undercover cop, or police found two men having sex in a public park, police have to prove something else — that they don’t single out gay men for these crimes while ignoring straights.… [G]ay men, who might be less than five percent of the population, typically account for almost all of the arrests for public sex.”

He adds, “Then police argue it’s because straight people don’t engage in ‘offensive’ public sex. But that’s not true. Whether it’s heavy petting or butt grabbing or oral and vaginal sex (while parked on lovers’ lane), it all falls under indecent exposure and lewd conduct law.”

The last we heard, anyone who gets caught flashing gets arrested, regardless of his or her sexual orientation. And we’ve never heard of anyone walking into a public restroom to find a woman masturbating on display. Granted, there’s probably a good deal of heterosexual heavy petting going on in parked cars on any given night, but is this really the kind of behavior that is getting gay men arrested? Or is it lurking in the bushes in the park, offering passersby blowjobs?

We don’t like to talk about sex in the bushes because it makes us look bad, but we all know it happens.

DeKoven argues that the same thing happens in the straight community and implies that since the ratio of gay to straight is approximately 10 to one, there must be ten times as much illegal public sexual behavior among straights. He also states that, “Nickerson then brings out the film footage of straight public sex going on all over the city and right under the noses of police. This is key. But police argue that they’re not offended by it … because they’re straight and they have been conditioned to view straight sex as normal and not offensive, but gay sex is immoral, sick, and offensive. It’s icky. That’s the double standard.”

So here’s the question. Where is all this public straight sex happening? Where are the straight men hanging out in the shadows, offering passing women sexual gratification? Where are the women hanging out around public bathrooms offering free blowjobs? And we’re not talking about prostitutes or anyone making rude gestures or yelling, “Hey baby, you want a piece of this?” Are the police (and all those “righteous citizen” types who find virtue in complaining loudly about anything that smacks of the potentially illicit) really turning a blind eye to all this illegal activity just because it’s not happening between members of the same sex?

An informal and completely nonscientific survey of straight friends revealed that not one of them had ever had an anonymous member of the opposite sex seriously suggest that they go at it in a public place with the expectation that they would agree. And none of them knew of any place one could reliably go to find such goings-on.

Maybe we’ve all missed something. Maybe we’re just not very observant. We’re certainly willing to learn, so if anyone can show us that hordes of hets are knocking boots in the park while gay men are after no more than a little slap-and-tickle, we welcome them. But we’re doubtful.

We’re not kidding, either. We want to know where this is happening. Call us, write us or e-mail us if you have inside information and we’ll investigate and report back to you. If police are actually arresting gay men for kissing in public, we will kick up a storm until it stops, but don’t complain that gay men engaged in intimate sexual contact are being arrested unless you can show us that het couples engaged in intimate sexual contact are not. Until someone can show us exactly where this is happening in the straight community, we feel DeKoven is mistaken. It’s one thing to say we’re being unfairly singled out, it’s another to prove we’re being unjustly arrested on a regular basis. So show us.

If you want to have sex in the bushes, buy your own wooded lot, put a privacy fence around it, invite whomever you like and have at it. If you want anonymous sex, go to a bathhouse or go online. If you want the thrill of doing something illegal, jaywalk. If you want the element of surprise, wear a blindfold. As a matter of fact, have any kind of sex you like, barring the use of children, animals and unwilling participants. Stick to the strictly vanilla or stretch the boundaries and revel in it. Just do it safely and in private.

Sex, as thrilling as it can be, is not the point of living. At some point we’re supposed to mature past the sex-focused hormonal haze of puberty. We’re supposed to be grownups, both individually and as a community. With the passage of legislation such as AB 205, we’re finally being treated as adults, with the promise of real, legal rights and responsibilities. It’s time for all of us to make a habit of acting like we’ve actually grown up.