Ecological Deviance: The Botanical Politics of Public-Sex Environments in Parks

Abstract

The literature on public sex environments spans a number of disciplines, including public health, queer geography, and urban planning. Ethnographic, spatial, and epidemiological approaches have predominated but heretofore few researchers have dedicated much attention to the actual plants that provide cover for sex as well as other non-conformist activity in urban green spaces. We draw on recent work in environmental history and political ecology which include non-human organisms as crucial and possibly agentic members of dynamic assemblages. We examine the flora of three urban green spaces—and their landscape—and argue that botanical control of public sex environments has long been and still is largely an attempt to control supposedly deviant sexualities.