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Protesters Having Sex, Losing Virginity At Occupy Wall Street


Come on—isn't this romantic? (Photograph by Bethany O'Grady/Gothamist)

As the Occupy Wall Street movement faces internal rifts about how to handle money, there's another issue that has been cropping up: Doing the nasty.

Metropolis reports, "Outdoor sex has been a topic of discussion at quality-of-life meetings held each afternoon inside Zuccotti Park. Some people have expressed discomfort with sexual activity in their midst, but Andrew Carbon, 26 years old, said protesters generally are loathe to restrict anyone’s behavior." Carbon explained, "To be controlling someone’s own autonomy is a sensitive issue. It’s a bad image if it’s visible, but policing it is wrong." Yeah, residents probably want OWS to crack down on the public pooping first, but we've heard that protesters have had sex on the tables at the site.

One protester who left his girlfriend behind in California has "shared sleeping bags with... several women" and says, "It’s a natural human thing. It’s part of our support structure. It’s nice to have someone to care about. It’s nice to have someone to hug and kiss." As it happens, the NY Times Magazine had a photograph of two young protesters, and the 19-year-old revealed, "I’m doing well now, though. I drank six Four Lokos with Core, a beer or two. And then we ordered an iced mocha and two chicken fingers and large fries. I lost my virginity today. I was amped for it."

Some protesters are partaking in some donated condoms (though not OWS condoms)—a volunteer medic told Metropolis, "He was concerned with overpopulation. I thought he meant in the park, but I guess he meant in the world. He said, ‘Just make sure people aren’t breeding." The medic also revealed there are requests for pregnancy tests! Imagine—the occupation lasts for eight more months and there's a Zuccotti Park baby!

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Jen Chung in on October 24, 2011 1:52 PM

Comments [rss]

  • I_say_meh
    We're all at fault.  Corporate greed feeds off of average Joe's greed.  Treat the market like a casino and it becomes one.  If enough people don't learn from all this that there's more to one's purpose on Earth than competing with our neighbor, the cycle will repeat, whatever the temporal outcome of OWS.

    Let's all learn to live within our means, then we can put aside our differences and figure out what we're doing on board a ball rotating around a spark in a vast emptiness.
  • remyngtin
    They have no jobs to go to , so I understand the need to pass STD's amongst each other
  • Corey
    having sex in public should not be so demonized when we have a government that breaks laws all the time and politicians that do more damage to the American people than all the Roman orgies in history.
  • dd7
    Ugh - this article is grosser than gross.  Talk about "too much information."
  • ncrglaw
    They start looking less like protesters and more like hooligans


    Government Security Clearances
  • johne37179
    It is amazing how far from reality you can get when you become a protestor. Does that loose relationship reality happen before you join the protest, or after you aggregate that much stupidity in one place?
  • ThomasMc
    It's amazing how Right Wingers are so far from reality, they can't even understand what the protests are about!
  • johne37179
    The protests are about something? Why don't the protestors tell us what that is? The protestors wouldn't know reality -- they've never had to deal with it.
  • skinnydog
    It's not always necessary to know what you're fighting for, so long as you know what you're fighting against.
  • Nice try, but you sound like an idiot, John.  Nothing you said added to your facile point, and instead you sound like an idiot.
  • johne37179
    Nice try Patrick. You are great at mixed metaphors. Writing about idiots... My writing makes me "sound" like an idiot! What does your writing make you look like?
  • concernedcitizen20099
    test
  • ThomasMc
    fail
  • Corporate media are desperate to discredit Occupy.  This story could have been about the ordinariness and humanity of the occupiers.  Instead, the occupiers are different from us, getting away with naughty stuff we'd never do.  Chomsky and Herman explain why corporate media must side with the 1%, and can't be aware of it.
  • Guest
    God help us! We've got fornicators!!!
  • DrKnowe
    We fuck.  We are the 99%.   :)
  • Dolmance
    I've never seen the "Gothamist" before.  Wow.  What a lying, piece of shit rag. 

    Well, a virtual lying, piece of shit rag.
  • oneStarman
    From Someone Who Lived Through The '60s I can tell you that that SEX was a PRIMARY motivation for MOST of the Political Demonstrations and other Activities of the time.
  • ageofknowledge
    The promiscuity is understandable when you consider that Wall Street has been Fng them for years.
  • What a bunch of sensationalist crap this article is. This is a perfect example of yellow press journalism. More of the same kind of denigration and ad hominem style attacks on the movement meant to trivialize and downplay a force that is not going away soon. There are so many cops there that anybody who would do drugs there is asking to be arrested. Personally, I've never seen any of these activities there, And anyway, they have a strict policy about any kind of contraband. The place is more sober than an AA meeting. Maybe this news organization should try to report news rather than B,S, and sensationalistic lies. Sounds like something from a Rupert Murdoch, Fox or MSM venue.
  • Well. Here's a novel way to discredit protesters.
  • Nasty, indeed!
  • frediano
    When the revolutionaries show up in MiniVans wearing North Face and iPods to sleep out in their Eddia Bauer sleeping bags, it's hard to take their demonizations of capitalism seriously.   It's kind of like paying $125/seat to go weep over social injustice at L'es Mis before enjoying a $200 meal at Gallaghers, only slightly more downtown.

    Please.  Where is the handwoven hemp clothing?  Where are the Liberty gardens?
  • skinnydog
    They're not demonzing capitalism. They're demonizing cheaters who have perverted capitalism by fraud, insider trading, and tax dodges.
  • frediano
    I've been demonizing crony capitalism for decades.   But I've also been demonizing crony socialism.   You can't have soft fascism without both, and when it is only half of crony statism that is 'demonized,' well, it's just the same old by design confused political wrangling, a chain link cage death match going nowhere free people want to go. Where does that come from?  Just because a businessman is wearing wing tips when he sucks up to the guns of government does not make him a free market capitalist.  

    Speaking of what gave us Hitler's Germany, Plato, Kant, and Hegel did a number on mankind with their state uber alles gooey mysticism, and all I see in modern protest is crippled victims bobbing adrift in Hegel's wreckage as the latest mega-crippler of human thought.  ("S"ociety, the tribe, is not God, and the state is not its proper church.)

    One sided demonization is entirely analogous to the 'anti-war' movement, which was noticeably directed only at one side of the war.   If it was an 'anti-war' movement and not a rear-guard political action taking advantage of well meaning but unfocused 'useful idiots", then where were the protests against the other proxy power in that conflict, Moscow/Hanoi?  Were such protests not permitted in Moscow/Hanoi?   Exactly.  And hence the phrase 'useful idiots' -- who never once considered the implications of their singularly one-side protests, used as they were as rear guard agitators aimed only at the political context that -supported- their freedom to do so.
  • The Health Service will have fun tracking down all the disease back into the various states.
  • frediano
    Its a good thing Netflix and Redbox replaced Blockbuster, or there would be no way to rent a video these days.   Like totally.
  • senCybil1
    I can't help but think we should be encouraging the rest of them to lose their virginity too. It might make them less angry at the world.
  • Thanks for this informative propaganda. In other news:  our representatives are in the pockets of banks/oil companies/big pharma/military contractors , 50 million Americans lack health insurance, the economy is in the hole,  unemployment is at 9% yet the government is gridlocked to do anything about it, about 6000 people got their homes foreclosed on today,  private interests can freely bribe our representatives ... oh yea and somebody's child got blown up in Afghanistan.
  • joewest666
    ugh.. 21st century hippies.
  • skinnydog
    Ugh. 21st century meatheads.
  • Well, I wonder if Scott Olsen would agree with you?

    What an asinine story. Ignore the protests, ignore the confrontations, ignore what everyone has been saying, because you're incapable of understanding anything that doesn't have a buck as bottom line.

    This article doesn't reflect poorly on the Occupy movements, it does reflect poorly on the author, and the publication.
  • I know at least 3 people who were born at Rainbow gatherings.  Nothing is new under the sun.  The OWS kids seem to think they invented the counterculture demonstration.  That's cool, I'm all for it.
  • SlogReport
    this is very interesting. These people need to slog at slogreport.com
  • JackLean
    Va te faire foutre, right wing connards.

    Conservatives are just jealous because no one on Earth will have sex with them.
    They reproduce asexually.
  • JoeGazer
    lol more like conservatives don't need 4 lokos, coke, and a couple beers, and people who haven't showered in days, and are sleeping in the streets in their own excrement, just to loose their virginity.
  • c'mon get a room Dirty hippies.
  • K
    Filthy. I do not understand what this movement is attempting to accomplish. I am firmly in the middle of the 99% but am embarrassed to be represented by these people. And before someone says, "Well go represent yourself: Go join them!" I can't; I have a job. One that I earned via pursuing a valid field of study (not Art History, Women's Studies, or Philosophy) at a cheapie state school, while working multiple jobs.

    What an embarrassment. I don't understand what they're doing :-/
  • You acknowledge that you don't understand something you are criticizing.  You also have the hubris to think they represent you, and then damn them for it.
  • rdl114
    So you're promoting a society without art, history, women's studies, and philosophy? Why not throw in literature, music, sociology, psychology and all the other liberal arts? Do away with them. Analytical, dynamic minds are found in every single field of study. An education isn't a ticket to security, it's a ticket to possibility. Real innovation always comes from unexpected places. You're too much of a drone to understand that.

    Here's a little excerpt from Steve Jobs' entry on Wikipedia:

    Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,he continued auditing
    classes at Reed, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms,
    returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at
    the local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."
  • albundy57
    These people are protesting their parents, rules, working for a living.... many are being paid for their protests. They are the dross that holds down society. "No one wants to tell anyone what to do"... unless they are smoking, calling people names, eating meat, et al. Not crapping in public places is just common sense to everyone except this lot!
  • trololololololol
    OWS is a joke.
  • jason farley
    Having sex in the park....all these morons care about are their mochas, chicken fingers, and sex.  How do they expect to be taken seriously.  Were people having sex during the civil rights marches in the 1960's.....i don't think so...because it is a serious issue.  I was unsure of the seriousness, and importance of this movement, and while i feel that the protesters have their grievance's, it seems that like everything else involved with our modern culture...this movement is devolving as well.   Obviously this behavior is not a isolated incident....time to clear the slackers out of this park and let the ones with brains figure out a new avenue to air their grievances.  Bloomberg...clear the park!
  • JAS
    If you are partying, having the run of a lot of women, this protest thing looks as if it can be a lot of fun. In fact, one might even forget why one is protesting. Have fun kids; you look and act ridiculous but it is your life. The Democrats were hoping the OWS movement would rival the Tea Party but it is closer to mimicking "Animal House."
  • Jennifer Tipton-Frazier
    Liberals.
  • Oh, what a butt-hole you are. How many religious republicans were caught with their pants down? Your generalization proves that you are just another conservative dimwit and it shows.
  • John Doe
    Those same 'religious republicans' you besmirch for their actions but would embrace if they were on 'your side'?

    It's always amazing to see people like you skewer others for their dalliances, hetero or homosexual, out of one side of your mouth but rally behind the 'rights' of people to do exactly what you're complaining about.

    Another case of 'it's ok when it's me, but it's wrong when it's you' a la 'no bailouts for Wall Street, bail out me and my $200K 'Swedish cabinetmaking degree'.
  • NJHuguenot
    With a degree in any kind of cabinet making there'd be no worries. Tradesmen do much better being self employed than working for others. We need machinists.
  • You fancy accusing others of the very thing you are guilty:  'skewering' others. What makes you think those with dalliances are 'liberals'? Um, let's see...you must have forgotten - one part of your brain thinks this and some other part thinks the exact opposite.

    It's a case of 'it's okay to criticize liberals in ignorance' when you would never do the same to conservatives.

    I would call myself liberal leaning (even though I do not belong to any party). It is true many degrees are useless. I am a mathematician.

    I voted for Obama but do not agree with everything he has done: I don't support bailouts for anyone. I wanted the public option in health care. I want the rich to pay their fair share. I want a balanced budget.

    All the same, I know for a certainty that voting in a republican will make things 1000 times worse. What amazes me is that there are still idiots out there who think otherwise. Are you still one of those idiots?

  • S Rubicon
    Before everyone just says, let the government back those student loans, perhaps someone may "finally" want to take a long hard look at academia in America. Its ever escalating costs & its voracious appetite for more all the time. Our collegiate system is rife with abuse & fraud. We have academic's stating as fact, theories that have been proven patently false. Yet they still get collegiate backing, based on, federal; grants. Perhaps some of those college costs have been inflated by a system that has no economic checks & balances? As for OWS... of course they have some good points. Destroying America or its economic systems are not among them. Look at other systems... none are better & most are repressive.
  • NJHuguenot
    College tuition is rising at twice the rate of inflation. Over 500% since the 1960's. Colleges only cut professorial positions, never all the admin jobs created.  Harvard and a few others have endowments in the billions and earned 22% on them last year. I'll bet they like Wall Street. Maybe you folks are looking in the wrong direction.
  • aurora9
    What filth!  The governor, mayor and owner of this park have aided and abetted this leviathan and they should be held accountable for the damages and stress it has caused to NY residents.
  • Four Lokos, beers, chicken fingers and a drunken coupling in a dirty sleeping bag with a near stranger resulting in an “amped” up deflowering…Who says romance is dead?
  • Erin Stout
    ugh. this is so. gross.
  • BillMilligan
    I think "Zuccotti Park" is a very nice name for a girl.
  • Eggcream
    OWS porno videos = a lot of new drums. Get busy with those idle video cams.
  • chee1rs
    " I drank six Four Lokos with Core, a beer or two. And then we ordered an iced mocha and two chicken fingers and large fries. I lost my virginity today. I was amped for it." "

    .... thought this was at a Jets game
  • fuk hope there was hot mustard on those chicken fingers.
  • JoshNY
    Who would have sex with someone who smells like THAT?
  • RobertMosesSupposesErroneously
    Well they don't have to worry about that one kid making Zucotti Park babies - I'm pretty sure the chemicals imbibed in 6 cans of 4 Loko permanently cauterize any fertility you once had.
  • mememe82
    Why is this controversial? They basically live there, and sex is an essential part of life. Did anyone expect this wouldn't happen? If so, then I say: "hi, welcome to the human species... moron." By the way, virginity lost or not, who cares. I also don't understand how this affects "the message" in any way.
  • I guess most of us think that having sex on a sidewalk surrounded by strangers with someone who hasn't showered in a while is a little weird and gross. Coming from someone who would like to see OWS accomplish something besides drum solos and stinking, I can tell you that it does affect your message and the perception that people have about your movement.
  • skinnydog
    Well said.
  • Len_Drexler
    sex is an essential part of life

    I've had a few dry spells that lasted longer than OWS.  I'm still alive.
  • mememe82
    Haha... doesn't make it any less essential, since we're all a product of it, and not of some kind of divine conception.
  • Len_Drexler
    I didn't think you were actually referring to procreation since I figure any sex going on at OWS is of the recreational variety.  I figured you meant it is essential for emotional and/or spiritual well being.
  • Dunce_Party
    The recreational variety is the best variety.
  • mememe82
    Yeah, but I establish no difference between the two. Humans are one of few (if not the only) animals with the unique ability to desire and enjoy sex for more than just the procreation aspect of it. I'm sure most parents enjoyed "procreation sex" too... they weren't doing it with the sole intention making babies.
  • albundy57
    What makes you think a Buck knows he is making a baby genius? My guess is ALL animals have sex for the enjoyment of it. We may be one of the few animals that realizes the end result of sex is a baby... or in your case, a reason to visit a clinic.
  • bggb
    b/c people are looking for pseudo-cultural and "values" issues on which to drive a wedge between OWS and broader American anger and support for precisely some of the things OWS is standing for.

    it's the only thing OWS opponents have as far as messaging and media.

    there is widespread resentment, anger and pain that has been building for decades. OWS is giving voice to that and that scares some people.
  • I don't know why it would "scare" anyone. The cold weather will come, and these neo-hippie professional losers will migrate back to their mommy's basements.
  • NJHuguenot
    I have been hoping for sleet and freezing rain. That should test thier mettle.
  • Do you really think Wall Street cares if you guys sleep on the sidewalk in your own excrement? It's business as usual and they are making money hand over fist. You've got no specific goals, no specific solutions, no concrete objectives. You aren't scaring anyone, and you're not accomplishing anything.

    I'd like to see OWS get their act together and do something besides take up space. There are real issues that require actual solutions that you could be pushing for. But instead, you're patting yourselves on the back for sleeping in a park. Real change requires real action, and OWS isn't it.
  • bggb
    Please. It's a public protest and movement that's a mere 6 weeks old. 

    They've tapped into widespread resentment that, unlike the Tea Party, actually crosses ideological and cultural lines.

    The middle and lower classes are getting squeezed to the breaking point.

    That is why they're there.

    That is why many Americans identify with their positions. (Americans who, unlike you, understand why OWS is there and what they are doing).

    That is why they're getting stronger, not weaker.

    It's growing, not dying. 

    So declare its death if it makes you feel better. You'll continue to be wrong.
  • NJHuguenot
    Give us a break. You are what Lenin called "Useless Idiots". The Marxists using you this time are the unions. Who is storing your excess goods? What are the SEIU and CWA people doing hanging around? You really think they might get you a union membership so you can get a job?
  • I didn't say they were dying, or that they were getting weaker. I said that they were not scaring anyone and that they aren't accomplishing anything.

    In fact I am angry that the government and the SEC allowed Wall Street to cause this recession. And I am angry that corporations are exerting too much power in our country.

    The problem with OWS is there are no specific "positions". Saying that you're against "corporate greed" does not accomplish anything. My point is that there are SPECIFIC laws that need to be changed. There are SPECIFIC problems that need to be addressed. And OWS has not addressed them, and it hasn't offered any solutions. Wall Street knows we are angry, but you sleeping on the ground for 2 months isn't going to get them to walk away from the mountains of cash they are reaping.

    Making changes to our country requires that you approach specific problems with specific solutions. Playing drums and chanting isn't going to do it. If OWS could get their act together and create goals and a plan of action, they might actually accomplish something. Until then, they have no power to lose.
  • bggb
    All of that is what they are in the process of doing and working towards.

    Drumming is something a small group of them are doing part of the day. It's dumb to conflate that with their actual meetings and discussions.If you thought there was going to major change after 6 weeks, you were getting ahead of yourself.

    They are working towards what you advocate for. I think they are aware of much of the challenges that lie ahead. We should have patience. 

    Also, if you want change, we should all consider going down there and contributing.

    What is indeed ineffective is saying that we support them, without actually doing anything to support them.
  • Haha no I'm not expecting a change in 6 weeks because they have not done anything to create a change.

    I would support them if they made their goals and positions clear, and if they make sense. I'd like to see them accomplish something positive, and I think it is possible. But I'm not about to throw in until I know what they intend to do. A lot of Americans feel this way.
  • bggb
    Haha no I'm not expecting a change in 6 weeks because they have not done anything to create a change.
    That's not what I said. You implied you're disappointed they haven't achieved anything in 6 weeks. I'm arguing that's too small a window to do anything that would make Wall St get 'worried'.

    There's no evidence that a lot of Americans feel the way you do. Protests spread across the country, and poll after poll shows support for OWS. 

    There's inherent hypocrisy in saying you're not going to throw in until they do something you like, but you're unwilling to actually get involved to make it happen.

    'I'll join, but only after they create plans that I like, but I'm not going to actually help them make the plans'

  • Actually I didn't imply that I was dissapointed that they hadn't achieved anything. I flat out stated that I was dissapointed that they had not managed to create a coherent message. In it's current form, I don't expect them to accomplish anything, which is why I wish they would get their act together.

    I will not lend money or support to a group that can't tell me what it's goals are or how it plans to achieve them. If you think that is hypocrisy, then you need to get a dictionary. It's called common sense.
  • bggb
    You're in the minority of New Yorkers who don't know what their coherent message is.

    Oh well.
  • So what is their message? If I go down there to march with them, or send a donation, what are they going to do with it?
  • bggb
  • ill give it a read, thanks.
  • John Doe
    And you think the actions of at most several thousand 'protestors' are clear evidence that the other 300 million people support them? You don't know what words or numbers mean, do you?
  • bggb
    Never said that. 

    I'm worried it's you who fails to grasp simple meaning.
  • Grasping at an agenda after 6 weeks rather than having a clear plan of action and solid position in the first place is precisely why their protests are meaningless.
  • The government does to us what OWS protesters do to each other.
  • jfalpha
    Freedom!
  • theevilerone
    I cannot think of anything less sexy.
  • schmeep
    That NY Times "What They Were Thinking" page set back the cause by aeons.
  • theevilerone
    More like "What Were They Thinking?!?!"
  • Rocknrope
    I've been arrested eight times so far this protest...I lost my virginity today.

    Congrats, and good luck finding a job when the employer finds out you have a criminal record.
  • adventureben
    "I’m doing well now, though. I drank six Four Lokos with Core, a beer or two. And then we ordered an iced mocha and two chicken fingers and large fries. I lost my virginity today. I was amped for it."

    i just don't believe this statement. after drinking six four lokos and a few beers in an evening, there is no way that he would be standing at 4:30 in the morning, let alone going on a food run.
  • J.M.
    Congrats, and good luck finding a job when the employer finds out you have a criminal record.

    Being arrested doesn't give you a criminal record. One has to be *convicted* (not just arrested) of a *felony* (not a misdemeanor) where you're sentenced to *prison* (not jail).
  • Sure it does, you can run a police check on people from the comfort of your own computer chair, because it's public record. You are extremely naive if you don't think employers at any decent job don't run background checks, and that arrests - conviction or not - will not play into their hiring decisions. I'm guessing you are young and idealistic and don't know how the world works yet.
  • J.M.
    Actually no, David C. I'm likely older than you are. And I'm guessing you've only experienced jails and courts on TV. You, sir don't know how the world works.

    I said my comment because unlike you, I know what I'm talking about -- because I was arrested twice when I was a teenager and when I was in my 20s. Both instances were thrown out by the judge. No charges, no convictions, no nothing. Just mugshots, a bruised ego and some stories to tell. In the many years since, I have *never* been denied employment from these arrests, and some of these places were very large companies. Not only that, I carefully read the applications and NOT A SINGLE APPLICATION mentions anything other than FELONY CONVICTIONS.

    Read this, David: http://www.hirenetwork.org/cri...

    In New York State, it's ILLEGAL to ask if you've been arrested. Plus, in many cases it's illegal to deny employment EVEN IF you've been convicted!

    For a company to act on what you suggested, they had better have some huge legal balls because they'd get sued eventually.

    Get off your high horse. You've been proven wrong.
  • But don't job apps typically ask if you've been arrested/convicted of a crime?
  • smorrebrod
    Arrested? No, I believe that is illegal. Convicted? Yes.
  • bggb
    There are employers in this country?

    I don't think the countries we outsource jobs to care about your US arrest record.
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