The "No Sex" Sign Guy: What Happened to Subtlety?

​Just feet from a gay pride flag flapping in the breeze, Owen Dias squats on the fire hydrant five days a week like Dorothy landed in Oz. In a city renowned for free love, the first topless club, and a mayor beloved despite his adulterous sex scandal, a man with a "No Unlawful Sex" sign is mostly dismissed as an oddity. But Dias has returned five days a week for 22 years, sitting in his natty suit and top hat through the taunts that he's a repressed gay, through the invitations to hook up, through the on-line claims they've got him into bed.

"No sex!" he calls to harried passerby. "No sloppy seconds!"
 
Owen and his sign define unlawful sex as anything other than a "virgin man and a virgin women" in marriage (read: he or she who has masturbated or looked upon another in lust is no longer a virgin). If you've engaged in any other type of nooky, he says the only way you can get right with the Lord is to stop having sex for the rest of your days.

 "I've never had sex in my whole life," boasts the 70-something-year-old in his round, rolling accent that sounds vaguely like he's from the Louisiana bayou. "Never masturbated in my whole life either. Since I came out of my mother's womb."

Photo courtesy Mai Le on Flickr

Diaz with sign

​ Growing up in Belize, Dias says the calling struck him while he was working on a Buick Riviera in his auto body shop in Pasadena in 1974. He stopped working on cars that very day to start spreading the word before he made his way to the debaucherous city by the bay.

So, does he actually believe he's made a dent in the licentious desires of San Franciscans? "My work is not to make 'em [do it], my work is just to tell 'em. I'm a messenger." A chunky teenage kid with braces snapped a photo. "It's hilarious," the kid said, "and true."

Dias was obviously pleased: "A young kid that thinks it's also true." Of course, the kid also announced he was from Maryland.