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Yes, we know. Swinging London, yeah? London, and the UK in general, have long been considered to have large, thriving scenes based on the philosophies of multi-partner sex and relationships, polyamory, and cuckoldry. These ideas may not have been born here, but they have been bloody well nurtured.  Now a new twist in the practice of opening up the typical single-partner paradigm, called dogging, is stirring up a hornet's nest of controversy across Britain and the UK, with government officials scapegoating the trend as the chief cause of a rise in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among the populace.Dogging is a sort of generic term for any of the various forms of outdoor sexual activity, mostly revolving around exhibitionism. While the practice is not alien to most of Europe, UK swingers have been the most enthusiastic in embracing it. Internet culture has played an integral role in both furthering the concept and arranging meeting places wherein individuals can watch couples frolic in parks and other public spots. Alarmed at a troubling increase in STDs (20,000 new cases of Chlamydia and 10,000 new cases of gonorrhea in London alone), public officials and the media are decrying Britons' recent increase in casual sex, and singling out dogging as a particularly nefarious example of scurrilous behavior. Last month The Guardian published a piece that took a couple of quotes from a health official in Kent warning about dogging and gave it the salacious headline, "Dogging brings sex disease rise." While sure to attract readers, the highly biased angle of the story was also sure to mislead them, as there wasn't much attribution that could back up the "fact" stated in the headline, apart from the quotes from Kent.
"Investigations showed some of these cases were linked to the practice known as dogging," he said. While Chandrakumar's comments are intriguing, they hardly justify such a tone of panic on the part of writer Rebecca Allison, especially in light of the fact that there was no substantiation of the investigations he refers to, or details therein. Even more troubling is the assumption, put forth by both writer and source, that dogging by nature includes an element of unsafe sex, which has yet to be documented in any way. "If people are having unprotected sex without knowing anything about the history of their partner then they are putting themselves in great danger," Chandrakumar said, in statements weaved in with other concerning dogging. While there are always elements in any sexual lifestyle or subculture that takes unnecessary risks, the fact is that there is no evidence that suggests that there is a tendency towards unsafe sex inherent to dogging.  In fact, the assertion, also put forth by the Sunday Herald in a recent piece, is especially nonsensical when you consider that the practice revolves primarily around exhibitionism, a non-contact activity. While some dogging encounters can evolve to include participation on the part of a third (or more) party, the truth is that this most likely happens a lot less than those parties might hope.And while new strains of syphilis and gonorrhea might be mutating in ways that confound experts and physicians, there certainly is no data that suggests those diseases can be spread hundreds of yards away from a car or a park bench through a pair of binoculars. Like most forms of swinging (or lifestyle play in general), a wealth of information can be found online concerning the etiquette involved in dogging. And, like the boundaries of accepted behavior outlined in lifestyle play ranging from S/M to polyamory, most of the information culled from UK websites on the subject of dogging emphasize safety and responsibility. It's too bad that, once again, the government and the media have teamed up to vilify a form of non-traditional recreation that, when done with respect to the participants and the community, harms nobody.
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