Male homosexuals often “cruise” for sex. Public restrooms (tea-rooms/T-rooms in homosexual lingo) are among their favorite places for “cruising.” Even if a homosexual cannot obtain sex in a restroom, he typically delights in voyeuristic pleasure: watching men relieve themselves, trying to glance at their penis, and exposing his erection to other men if he feels that no cops are around.

Sometimes, homosexuals make a large hole in the partitioning between adjacent toilet stalls that they refer to as glory holes. Here is how they use glory holes.(1) A homosexual goes inside a stall, puts his finger through the glory hole and wiggles it. A homosexual in the adjacent stall, if present, responds by wiggling back. One or the other then passes his penis through the hole. The penis is typically at least half erect, and this is how homosexuals tell that the man in the adjacent stall is serious. Upon receiving a penis through the glory hole, a homosexual may manually or orally stimulate it or take it in his rectum. The appeal of this activity for a homosexual lies in the excitement that comes from guessing what the other anonymous homosexual may do to his penis.

A number of homosexuals like to hang in or around restrooms. If they cannot make a glory hole, they drill small holes in the partitioning to peek at their neighbor. The partitioning between adjacent stalls is usually made up of wood or plastic. At the University of Florida and undoubtedly in several other places too, some restrooms frequented by male homosexuals have steel plates bolted on both sides of the partitioning between adjacent toilet stalls, and for obvious reasons. Undoubtedly, some homosexuals would consider this homophobic.

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a homosexual organization, complains about sodomy and public lewdness laws. Those arrested under public lewdness laws are typically homosexual men. Who else would it be? Rotello and Wolfson described this as a bias against homosexuals.(2) Really? The homosexual website, www.cruisingforsex.com, among other resources, provides information to homosexuals on the best public restrooms around the world for voyeuristic pleasure or sexual contact, complete with alerts regarding places frequented by cops.

Public sex on the part of homosexuals is not harmless; it contributes to the bathhouse phenomenon. Additionally, homosexuals do not appear to given a damn about offending other people when they engage in public sex. For instance, during the first week of May 2002, Virginia police arrested over 30 homosexual and bisexual men for offenses such as indecent exposure, attempted forcible sodomy, criminal solicitation, disorderly conduct, and escape with force (including assault on troopers) in the Conway Robinson State Forest, a wildlife sanctuary located on U.S. 29, east of Haymarket.(3) The arrests stemmed from a month-long investigation following complaints by citizens. A Cub Scouts group had visited the area and quickly left after coming across homosexual activity in the woods.(3)

In another incidence, toward the end of May 2004, 9 homosexual and bisexual men were arrested over a period of two days for sexual activity in a public park restroom in Lafayette; the arrests followed public complaints. One offender, a 72-year-old man, was charged with sexual battery for grabbing an undercover officer’s genitals.(4)

If one attempted to inform the public of the nature of public sex activity on the part of homosexuals, one would have to deal with the charge of homophobia. For instance, at the 7th annual National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) convention, held October 1-3, 1998, Deborah Collura, news director of WDIV-TV in Detroit, drew fire for her allegedly irresponsible coverage of homosexual “cruising.” She explained that, “It was in our estimation as a news organization a growing problem…mothers were sending young children into the bathroom at 4 in the afternoon while men were doing it in open bathroom space where anybody can see...the activity did not stop when other people, even children, came into the bathroom.”(5)

The most succinct and accurate description of the nature of homosexual public sex comes from homosexuals themselves:

“Despite their high visibility, and attempts by authorities to squelch them, however, a coterie of gay men continues daily and nightly, to perform the play before what is, all too often, an S.R.O. straight audience —in the men’s rooms of Ivy League Colleges, and in the public lavatories, parks, and alleyways of every major city in the United States. Theirs is the wretchedest of all gay excesses. Such men make no attempt to secure privacy for their intercourse, whether by locating a disused utility closet or waiting for a lull in the pedestrian traffic in and out of the lavatory; indeed, for many the dangerous possibility of being apprehended entr’acte is three fourths of the thrill. They masturbate in the urinals, wander totally naked up and down the length of the facility, and fellate one another in acrobatic positions in the open doorways of the stall. When they ejaculate—and they do—on the seats, walls, or floors, they leave it there to congeal into a nasty, highly identifiable puddle."(6)

“The damage is redoubled when such creatures solicit straight boys—a prime example of the gay tendency to ‘live down to the stereotype,’ and with a double-barreled effect. On the one hand, such unwanted solicitation reinforces the old saw that gay men deliberately recruit innocent straight boys in order to replenish gay ranks; on the other hand, it makes apparent liars out of gays who protest that their sexual activities occur only in private and between consenting adults, and are therefore of no legitimate interest to the straight community or its legislative apparatus. . . . And we emphasize, such behavior isn’t at all uncommon.”(6)

Public sex is far from a new phenomenon among homosexuals. 15th century Florence was the San Francisco of Renaissance Italy. Its pederasty subculture was so out of hand that the Uffiziali di Notte (Officers of the Night) court was formed to prosecute sodomites. St. Bernardino of Siena described the sodomites thus during 1424-1427: “the ‘wild pigs’ had special meeting places at special times of the night, and congregated at taverns, pastry shops and barber shops (barbers often acted as pimps).”(7, 8) Some of the locations where boys could be picked included Borgo Santo Apostolo, Calimala Francesca, and Il Tetto de’Pisani.(7, 8) Some sodomites were able to avoid arrest by running away after they were warned by some of their friends that the authorities were looking for them.(7, 8) Three-fourths of the men arrested in Florence between 1478-1483 in the age range 19-70 years were unmarried, and some of these men were arrested repeatedly.(9) Among men who voluntary turned themselves in to take advantage of an initial immunity provision, 81% were unmarried.(9)

About a thousand sodomites were prosecuted in Venice during the 14th- and 15th-centuries. In 15th century Venice, a homosexual subculture centered around “apothecary shops; schools of gymnastics, singing, music, dance, and the abacus; pastry shops; and certain dark areas.”(10, 11) Venetian authorities even sealed the porch of Santa Maria Mater Domini in 1488 to prevent sodomites from gathering there.(7, 8)

The first recorded glory hole existed in a Savoy bog-house (public urinal) in London in 1700.(7, 8) London sodomites started frequenting several bog-houses from the late 17th century onward. Then, a path across Moorfield Gardens in London was known as “the Sodomites’ Walk,” a place where sodomites gathered to pick-up partners.(12) Amsterdam authorities arrested several sodomites in public toilets built under several bridges throughout the city in the 1760s; the sodomites referred to their favorite toilets with names such as “The Old Lady” or “The Long Lady.”(13)

Some homosexuals explain that homosexuals look for sex in public restrooms when they don’t have access to places where they can meet other homosexuals. However, someone like singer George Michael could get almost any homosexual man he wanted at any time, yet he was arrested for exposing himself to an undercover cop in a restroom. Additionally, consider the comment of homosexual historian Rictor Norton on this issue:(8)

“The dogma that queers are pushed to the outer margins of society has been very much exaggerated. There is nothing ‘marginal’ about London Bridge or the Royal Exchange or St James’s Park, or the main cruising grounds in eighteenth-century Paris, the Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens, the boulevards along the former ramparts, or the quais. Nor is there anything ‘marginal’ about the brightly lit self-service cafeteria in the heart of Greenwich Village which was the main meeting place around 1936 for lesbian Lady Lovers ‘Clothed in mannish togs, flat-chested, hair slicked tightly back and closely cropped’, and pansies wearing heavy mascara, rouge and lips tick (Duberman 1986, 1991). This was not a dark corner in the twilight world, but a centre for flagrant exhibitionism and the celebration of homosexual identity.”

“Queers are not ‘pushed to the margins’ of society, as social constructionists would have it. Gay men do not frequent urinals because there is nowhere else they can go, but because urinals are convenient for the purpose and provide a ready excuse for exposing one’s genitals and sizing up one’s partner’s. Cruising grounds and urinals were features of queer subcultures for centuries before the rise of capitalistic competitiveness which, as wrongly claimed by Chauncey and others, supposedly inhibits intimacy between men and encourages ‘casual or impersonal sexual transactions, such as take place in twentieth-century public restrooms or baths’. Arnold of Verniolle in the early fourteenth century made some of his pick-ups in the portico connecting the dormitory and latrines of the Franciscan convent of Pamiers and the baths of Ax-les-Thermes (Goodich 1979). Partners regularly meet in the ‘privy’ for the sake of privacy, not for the sake of anonymity.”

References

  1. D. Reuben, in Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask. [The author is a physician]. ( St Martins Paperbacks, New York, 1999) pp. 156-179.
  2. G. Rotello, E. Wolfson, The little black book: This one can keep you out of trouble (Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Publications, 1993), pp.
  3. A. H. Beasley, “Police arrest more than 30 for sex and assault offenses in park.,” Manassas Journal Messenger 2002, pp. May 7 [http://www.manassasjm.com/frontpage/MGBXMZWCX0D.html].
  4. “Men arrested for lewd bathroom conduct,” 2theadvocate News May 25, 2004 [http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052504/new_lewdconduct001.shtml].
  5. B. Fitzpatrick, in Lambda Report. (Nov 12, 1998 [http://www.americansfortruth.com/]).
  6. M. Kirk, H. Madsen, After the ball: how America will conquer its fear and hatred of gays in the '90s (Doubleday, 1989), pp.
  7. R. Norton, The myth of the modern homosexual: queer history and the search for cultural unity (Continuum Books, 1997), pp.
  8. R. Norton. (2002 [http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/extracts.htm]).
  9. M. J. Rocke, in The pursuit of sodomy: male homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe K. Gerard, G. Hekma, Eds. (Harrington Park Press, New York, 1989) pp. 7-31.
  10. W. A. Percy, in Encyclopedia of homosexuality W. R. Dynes, Ed. (St James Press, Chicago and London, 1990).
  11. G. Ruggiero, The boundaries of eros: sex crime and sexuality in Renaissance Venice (Oxford University Press, New York, 1985), pp.
  12. R. Norton, Mother clap’s molly house: the gay subculture in England 1700-1830 (Gay Men’s Press, London, 1992), pp.
  13. T. van der Meer, in The pursuit of sodomy: male homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe K. Gerard, G. Hekma, Eds. (Harrington Park Press, New York, 1989) pp. 263-307.