Cruising (homosexuality)

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A man on the so-called meat rack between Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove , a section with dunes and pine trees and many paths on Fire Island , USA

As Cruising (from the English sailors language for "crossing by boat, drive around") is in the context of gay sexuality , the conscious, active and usually mobile looking for a sexual partner called. It can be done on foot, by bike, car or even by boat. The seeker looks for potential partners and pays attention to any signals with which they express interest. At the same time, he sets recognizable signals even for the initiated by means of body language , gestures, items of clothing or even systematic color codes , all of which can be viewed as social semiotic codes . Cruising is a way of circumventing social conventions that require formal introduction or other mediation by third parties in the search for intimate encounters with strangers.

Cruising often ends with spontaneous, anonymous sex in private or in the semi-public, an exchange of words is not absolutely necessary in some situations. In the homosexual discourse, it is often used as a synonym for quick, anonymous sex.

etymology

The English verb to cruise means “ to cruise around” and especially in seafaring “ to cruise around, to make a sea voyage”. In the USA, the noun cruiser appeared as early as 1868 to mean “prostitute”. Today it is usually used to refer to a person who cruises or a certain surfer. From 1925 the verb cruise and from 1927 the noun cruising in the meaning used here are recorded there and in 1941 it is in a special glossary. From 1949, the use of the adjective cruisy or cruisey for a place where many homosexual men seek a sex partner is known. In New Zealand this can also mean “relaxing, enjoyable”. The verb to cruise meaning "common, slow driving around by teenagers with their cars" has only been proven since 1957.

The noun cruise joint can denote a bar or similar place where cruising is practiced. Mainly outdoors, but also in buildings, areas in which cruising is carried out are referred to as cruising zones , cruising areas or cruising grounds . Colloquially it is also referred to as meat market ("Fleischmarkt", UK 1957), meat rack ("Fleischregal", "Fleisch-Abstellplatz", US 1962). The most famous course known by this exact name is an area of ​​dunes, pine trees, and many paths between Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove on Fire Island . Meat rack was also imported to England and has been the name of Piccadilly there since at least 1972 , where many male prostitutes can also be found. Meat also has the colloquial connotation "penis" in English. In Australia such rooms are called beat and cruising is called doing the beat . In England it is also known as trolling , which comes from to troll from the Polari language . The place for this is called the trolling ground . Sometimes cottaging is also used, but this mostly refers specifically to using a public toilet for cruising.

A Gay Cruise is now, however, almost always a gay travel, usually a cruise for gay or lesbian audience, and it comes frequently to ambiguous references to the Cruising.

In the German-speaking gay scene, cruising, like some other import terms, is mainly used from the late 1960s / early 1970s. It has been adopted from American in several other languages.

In English, there is a heterosexual counterpart with a similar meaning, picking up [a person] , which translates as “to tow, to fork”.

Cruising

When men seeking men cruise, this is traditionally done more systematically and purposefully than flirting among heterosexuals, since those are exposed to greater risks, even if these decrease in liberal societies - physical attacks by heterosexual men who resent contact; Falling by plainclothes police officers or even agents provocateurs ; "Gay clapping" by teenagers looking for thrills; Robberies or the like. Among other things, the traditional covert cruising skills also lead to the myth that homosexuals have a sixth sense to recognize each other even though they are completely strangers to each other. This is also called Gaydar ("Gay Radar") and has been partially researched scientifically. As the general knowledge of gays and tolerance increased in many countries, cruising has become less covert and some techniques are also used by heterosexual women and men. In other countries it still has to be very covert. Cruising also brings other rewards in addition to the sex that may follow: enjoyment, excitement, and affirmation.

Typically, the cruising process can be divided into four stages:

  1. Search
  2. Follow
  3. Signaling (erotic interest, eye contact is important)
  4. Negotiating (also non-verbally on certain occasions)

“The sight is combined with a different mobility; you can go after, you can stop and pretend to look at the windows, you can sit down on a bench and get up, you can end up out in Chiswick . What is called cruising is this combination of looks and movements, which can take place in the protected area in the gay bar and find their appropriate territory outside in the city. "

- Unknown : quoted in Backward Glances , p. 60

One point is to know where and at what times it all takes place. The international Spartacus International Gay Guide , the Internet, local travel guides and magazines and personal contacts to local people serve as sources of information . In doing so, one often learns of potential dangers. Ultimately, one has to determine by observation whether the location is active, and with a little experience one can also assess for oneself and recognize which locations are suitable. For example, when you are looking, you often stroll in one place for a long time and recognize men who you come across again and again, in contrast to those who just walk past. With experience and knowledge of ethnic and local conventions, this can be done in a much shorter time. The other techniques used are not limited to these places and can be used at any time, some also have very personal preferences for certain places. When you are out with friends, you usually part with them beforehand, at the latest when you are in pursuit, as cruising is mostly done alone. Sometimes people meet again after a successful hunt.

Cruising techniques today range from overt staring to chasing the coveted partner across blocks of flats; Allegedly making comments to third parties, but with the intention that they will be heard by the desired stranger; up to the most covert, where other people are present and do not notice that a liaison is being negotiated - privacy in the middle of the public eye. Open cruising uses the ingenuity of finding an excuse to introduce yourself, and many of these techniques are used on the same type of men and client-seeking female prostitutes, especially when open prostitution is prohibited. When it comes to hidden cruising, correct use of the eyes is critical. Eye contact has to be less than a stare, but more than a glance. This is particularly effective if you then simultaneously "take one another by surprise" (for example, turn around after walking past each other) and give each other a knowing smile. This is also the title of a book about Cruising Backward Glances . If the potential partner is not interested, he simply ignores the eye contact. Sometimes the game goes back and forth a few times, but if you are interested, signaling is usually completed in less than five minutes. If it takes too long, more than ten to twenty minutes, one loses interest and turns away. In bars and discos this can happen a few times at intervals and contact can be made after hours.

People who do not want to actively search, but are willing to be "cruised" or "towed away" can simply stay in known cruising areas. Eye contact is also important here.

Additional tools to identify a potential partner were sometimes also color codes. The colors were mainly used for individual, rather smaller accessories. Initiated by Oscar Wilde's green carnation, green was for a time - at least from 1896 until 1929 - as a symbolic color. In Paris, green ties in particular were used as a distinguishing mark. In the USA too, green was a color of choice, which is even mentioned in coded form in the song "Green Carnation" in the operetta Bitter Sweet . In the general public, this assignment was held until the 1950s. At the end of the 19th century, a red tie was a trademark of male prostitutes in New York City . In the jargon of the gay scene, one spoke of “wearing one's badge” (“wearing one's badge”). Before World War II, it was generally one of the better-known characters for gay men. Especially in England in the 1960s, suede shoes were a well-known symbol. From 1858 there were fabrics dyed with mauve and until at least 1869 it was considered a trendy color. It was also used by gays, which is known until the 1980s. In mainland Europe, on the other hand, the color purple had symbolic power at least in the 1920s and 1930s, which explains the title of the purple song . In the 1960s it became the color pink in Europe and today it is mostly the rainbow . Something special is the Hanky Code of leather scene . Its colors reveal specific sexual preferences of the wearer.

If the time is right (i.e. both partners are looking, the situation is not compromising and the like), cruising can lead to immediate anonymous sex, which is no longer an actual part of cruising and is not absolutely necessary. It can either take place quickly in the immediate vicinity, for example between bushes, in the car, in toilet cubicles or rest cubicles, or you can drive to one of your partners' homes. If sex is possible directly in one place, the whole thing can work without verbal communication, in the best case from searching to sex within minutes. If it doesn't fit, experienced cruisers will find a tool to get information for future contact without even letting other people know. Cruising is mostly a quick search for a one-time, unpaid sex partner, but it can also be a lengthy search for a candidate for a long-term relationship. Prostitution is seldom involved .

A description of open cruises in a major American city from 1951:

“Some stand idly in front of the business portal, pretending to look at the displays, often with their hands in their pockets. Others walk slowly, turn, look, fixate, pass by, turn around again.
'Say buddy, do you have a time?'
'It has to be about eleven ...' [...]
The weather might be the next subject in the quest to keep the dying conversation alive.
'It's a little fresh tonight, isn't it ?.'
,Not so bad. I'm actually very hot myself. '
A wave of contrived laughter, not in recognition of the humor, but part of the effort to establish a common connection through the ambiguity and the following laugh as confirmation. The two broke through the appearance of the facade and make their first attempt to penetrate into the other's secret.
'Do you live around here?'
'I'm from out of town ... stay near here ... just down the street and around the corner.'
'I won't know. I don't go to these places very often. '
,You should. It's a thoroughly fun-loving / gay place. ' ('It's quite a gay place')
The word was uttered and the connection was established. "

- Donald W. Cory : The Homosexual in America , Paperback Library Inc, New York 1951, pp. 117-119

Cruising areas

A great many larger urban centers have locations where you usually find partners, sometimes smaller cities; smaller places mostly only near big cities or as tourist centers. Even if there is no official or unofficial gay bar, there is often a cruising area as a minimum equipment. They usually arise under the following conditions:

  • where there is the opportunity to see many people in a short period of time or in one place, such as bridges (in the past), the surroundings of theaters after a performance and busy paths, streets, passages and shopping centers, or the surroundings these places
  • Where there is a chance to hang around without attracting attention.
  • where there is the possibility of fleeing quickly if necessary
  • where there is an opportunity to uncover the genitals such as urinals, baths and saunas

Beaches are often more remote. For sex as fast as possible, a somewhat shielded location nearby, such as a bush or a hotel, is advantageous. Sometimes almost everything takes place in small forests, where trails are traversed. Cruising can also have slightly different, modified meanings in different locations (for example park / bar), but the basic concept remains the same.

  • Outdoor cruising
    Outdoor cruising is always “wild”, and attempts are often made to counteract it.
    • Outdoor cruising in public areas
      Cruising areas in urban areas are primarily parks or squares (or certain areas thereof) and certain streets, so-called " flaps " or Austrian "boxes" (public toilets) and their surroundings, as well as summer pools . Other cruising areas can be found on beaches , bathing lakes and parking lots (especially motorway parking lots or their adjacent bushes or forests).
  • Indoor cruising
    Indoor there is "wild" cruising, but there are also forms in non-public to private places where the sexual activity is more or less intended by the "host".
    • Indoor cruising in public areas
      This is mainly found in shopping centers and their hatches, swimming pools , subway stations, amusement arcades and public buildings such as universities and their hatches, fitness studios, especially in the USA and especially earlier in hotel lobbies, restaurants and libraries, even in opera houses.
    • Indoor cruising in the general sexual area Cruising takes place in
      large sex shops with video booths and in (heterosexual) sex cinemas . Sometimes something is done about it, sometimes it is tolerated and sometimes you adjust to it. Some otherwise heterosexual swinger clubs offer their own themed evenings for gays, where similar behavior can then be observed.
    • Indoor cruising in the protected gay area
      One place for cruising are gay saunas , also called "bath houses" in the USA. Since around the mid-1980s, some bars in Europe have had specially designated rooms that guests can use for sex, the darkrooms . Cruising takes place mainly inside, but also in the rooms in front of it. Some keep an eye on the darkroom entrance in particular. Sometimes a cruising area is also used at gay events if a corresponding area has been provided specifically for the purpose of finding a partner (for example at disco events or larger parties). But you can also cruise in normal bars and discos, even on the dance floor. Especially in English, the repeated change of location can generally be described as "cruising through the bars".
  • Virtual cruising
    A very new way of cruising and getting to know short-term sex partners that is associated with changed behavior is the Internet. Certain chats and special contact portals offer themselves here, of which - if you consider the entire German-speaking area as a whole - PlanetRomeo is the largest.

History and changes

In times that are repressive towards homosexuals, cruising areas are often the only or at least most frequent meeting places for gays. You then have your sex experiences here and otherwise often live unrecognized among heterosexuals. That is why you can often find bisexual or straight men having sex with men in these places ( Straight Men Who Have Sex with Men , SMSM).

The earliest mention is found in Ovid in his Ars amatoria from the 1st century BC. He recommended the market square, the temple and the racetrack as favorite cruising areas. He also gave hints (not sexist ) where to get to know women and hints for the women themselves. Urban areas and public toilet facilities are also known from the Middle Ages - from some process files of sodomites - which were mentioned as relevant meeting points.

With the harbingers of industrialization and urbanization of cities in England at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, a significant number of single working-class men are bringing to London - which will be the largest city of the time - and other major cities. At the same time newspapers are coming up and better surveillance. So a male subculture is discovered. In principle, the subculture already has a lot known today, except political self-confidence. There were also Molly Houses , precursors to gay bars and clubs. There were more pubs in London in the mid-1720s than in the 1950s. Systematic efforts to end this new subculture can be traced back to 1699, when police raided parks in Windsor and London. In 1707, over a hundred men were arrested in a series of highly publicized raids on London parks and molly houses . One trigger was the activities of the Society for the Reformation of Manners at London Bridge. She also worked with informers and bait. The popular leaflet The Woman Hater's Lament printed woodcuts of the suicides of three arrested men. William Brown was arrested at Moorfields , an open square in London, for having sex with another man. In his questioning in 1726 he was asked why he had allowed himself such indecent liberties with another man “not ashamed to say”: “I did it because I thought I knew him, and I think there is no crime in making what use I please of my own Body. ”(“ I did it because I thought I knew him and I believe it is not a crime to use my body as I want. ”) At Moorfields there was also a trail known locally as the Sodomites' Walk . As a cruising technique, men stood there and gave to urinate. Other popular cruising areas at the time, referred to by the mollies as the markets where they went strolling and caterwauling , were places in Covent Garden and West Smithfield , the green spaces of Lincoln's Inn , the gardens of St. James's Park , London Bridge and the Royal Exchange , where 43 He-Strumpets , a sodomist club, were arrested in 1907 . There are already active flaps with glory holes . The bog-house in Savoy had already in 1700 a round cutout hole in the partition between the cabins. In the 1720s the bog-houses in New Square and Lincoln's Inn - near the courts and built in the 1680s as London's first urinal - were known as the molly market . For the general public, the most noticeable signs of the new subculture are cross-dressing some people, little sexual interest in women, and the legal process. In addition to Thomas Gilbert with his poem A View of the City , other writers of the time also report on the nocturnal use of public spaces. After the last major raids in 1725 and 1726, there are no more systematic police persecutions at meeting points for this century. Most of the cases are triggered by advertisements from citizens. The last Molly House closes in 1810. In the 1760s, instead of molly , madge-culls developed their own signals. “When one of these sits on a bench, he pats the back of the hand; if you follow him they stick a white handkerchief through the apron of their coat and wave it back and forth; but when they meet you stick their thumbs in the armpits of their vests and they play with their fingers on their chest. "

From 1703 there is evidence of cruising areas in The Hague , where homosexuals recognize each other by special signs and there are circles of men who rob and blackmail them. In Amsterdam , cruising areas are the city hall arcades, the stock exchange, churches, theaters, city walls, specific streets, the undergrowth inside and outside the city walls and some public toilets among the myriad bridges of Amsterdam, the most popular of which also have special names like Die old lady or the long lady got. Until about 1725, only cases that were brought forward by the citizens are charged. Then the authorities achieved an independent role in the prosecution and investigation of crimes, and since then the field service has started gathering information, the subculture comes to light and this leads to mass litigation. Many sodomites were arrested in the 1760s. From the middle of the 18th century there was also something similar to the molly houses and taverns, which were called lolhuysen ("fun houses"). A hand on the hip was not an imitation of women back then, but a signal in itself.

In Paris, the cruising areas were discovered by the police in the 1710s. Popular places are the Tuileries , the Jardin du Luxembourg , the boulevards along the former ramparts, the quays and the Pont Neuf from which one went to one of the taverns and rented a room. With the help of mouches ( agent provocateurs ), later with patrouilles de pédérastie ("pederast patrols ") the discovery took place. The existing subculture makes it easy for the Paris police to compile a list of 20,000 sodomites in 1725.

On April 7, 1766, the Vienna Prater , the former Imperial Hunting Park, was opened to the public. In the announcement, "the all too remote place and thick forest, because of any mischief and abuse otherwise to be worried about, were solely excluded" and the activities stipulated "that no one will be indulged in such freedom, which is most gracious to the public, an impossibility, or to undertake other unauthorized debauchery and to give rise to the greatest displeasure. ”On the day of its opening, 102 men were arrested during intercourse and 2000 prostitutes were counted. The rear part of the Prater, the Hirschau, remained an imperial reserve for a longer time and was closed to the public. This made it the preferred area for lovers of all kinds. Attempts were made to prevent this by monitoring, banning and “cutting out” the dense bushes, but the regulations suggest that the park visitors are actively engaged in sexual behavior. Lovers who were caught, whether mixed or same-sex, were driven out of the floodplains or taken to the police station. To this day there is a meeting place for men who are seeking men in a thicket near the main avenue . Probably the earliest evidence of a sexual encounter in a park is an act of punishment from the year 1841. At that time, from a kk Hofburg wax Commons two men in the Volksgarten caught in the area of Theseus temple in flagrante an after intercourse. Another of the city's most representative and very centrally located parks has also been very popular since the 1920s, the Rathauspark . Another peculiarity of Vienna is a clear social or class-specific differentiation of the audience of different cruising areas and localities, which was sometimes only broken by the higher to the lower classes. (For example the Kolowratring at that time, today's Schottenring for the better people versus the Prater or Spittelberg )

Under Friedrich II. (1712 / 1740–1786) the population of Berlin increased by 50%. In 1782 the Viennese author Johann Friedel (1751–1789) anonymously published his letters about the gallanteries of Berlin . Three of the total of 29 letters deal predominantly with same-sex life in Berlin, an early evidence of the formulation "Warm Brothers", the first literary description of cruising and male prostitution in the city and describe a specific fashion among the warm rococo that was used by the majority society is slowly taken over: “The first zeal went so far that the young Pürschgen, who determined the pederasty, differed from the others by visible marks in their suits. For a long time there was a young man with a thick braid of hair, a heavily powdered back, and a thick necktie - a sign that he belongs in the company of the warm. The co-consorts, however, were very often deceived in their expectation, as they soon found approval in the thick braids and heavily powdered back and the like as a new fashion, and imitated it. "

In Sweden there are the first indications of public meeting places in Stockholm in 1883 at Nybroplan , where there is mainly soldier prostitution , but the police did not take action against it until the 1940s. Another place is the urinals in Humlegården . Further places with first sightings are the Gustav Adolf Platz in Malmö in 1911 and the Exercisheden in Gothenburg in 1919 .

The US-American YMCA buildings - places of exclusive young masculinity - are historically legendary as cruising areas, contrary to the historical propagation of chastity. There were many opportunities for sexual experiments, especially in the sports halls and later also in the indoor swimming pools, where, for technical and hygiene reasons, people often swam naked in the middle of the 20th century. This lasted mainly from the 1890s until the late 1960s, when the emerging more radical gay movement increased public attention towards cruising as well. This meant that activities in the YMCAs were more closely scrutinized and thus more dangerous. After the Second World War until the 1970s, and in some cases until today ( Larry Craig 2007), cruising areas and, above all, hatches are monitored by the police. At that time, decoys, peepholes, hiding spots and film cameras were used through peepholes and in false ceilings to monitor the places. In March 1966, the UCLA Law Review of Los Angeles County's Police Action against Gays was published. It is considered to be the most detailed study of the police methods of the time. It contains interviews with police officers and minutes of the moral police to document the discrimination. 927 arrests were analyzed, of which 493 were for “sodomy” (anal intercourse) or oral intercourse and 434 for improper behavior. More than half came about through trapping. The use of "bait" was widespread by the police to report crimes by the men so that they could be arrested. Signals were also returned without which most men would not have accepted anything. In general, female police officers were not allowed to act as bait because the work was seen as "too degrading". 274 arrests were made in public toilets. In 5% of the arrests, there was violent resistance from the arrested. In 98% of the cases, the only evidence of a crime was the testimony of the arresting police officer, who had mostly undercovered it. The gay-to-lesbian ratio of arrested gays was 99: 1. 70% of those arrested had no previous conviction, 98% of the arrests were irregular. 5% of the arrests for anal and oral sex took place in the criminal's home, as opposed to 1% of the arrests for misconduct. 98% of those arrested did not go to court. 93% of the paid ads were for oral sex versus 7% for anal sex. 26% pleaded guilty for the alleged crime, 4% for a lesser crime, and 70% pleaded not guilty. The Santa Monica Police Department had a system of registering suspects who were questioned by the police. If suspicion was raised again and they were stopped, they were automatically arrested for "loitering for a lewd purpose". Marked patrol cars were parked in front of gay bars and all guests were interviewed when they left the restaurant. Many arrests have been made for "carelessly crossing a street."

In the last decades of the 19th century the idea of ​​cruising emerged as a way of experiencing the modern city. Especially in the 20th century, one of the ways cruising is to locate arrests and the press coverage of them. ( Walter Jenkins 1964, Franz Grobben 1966, Ron Davies 2003, George Michael 1998 & 2008, Larry Craig 2007) In contrast, there were repeated press reports about arrests in London and New York in the late 19th century, but the details of the circumstances were repeated never illuminates.

From 1982 onwards, AIDS led to cruising being inhibited for casual sex partners in both sexes, regardless of their sexual orientation . Potential partners now rather want a “formal introduction” in order to receive background information. In the 1970s in particular, there was a lot more going on in the cruising sector.

Cruising behavior has been greatly changed by the Internet. In a non-representative study from 2007 on the spatial behavior of gay men in Vienna, 73.2% of the cruisers in the sample said that the Internet had changed their cruising behavior, with the value being at about the same level in all age groups. 42% said they cruise the internet more often. Especially in the age group "20 to 29 years" 51.7% and in "50 years and older" 50.0% have increased their cruising frequency. 31% go to bars or saunas less often and this has reduced the frequency of outdoor cruising for 27%. Due to cyberspace, cruising is losing its connection to physical space.

Since cruising is no longer the only or the main way of making sexual contacts in most western industrialized countries, the associated transgression to bring private acts into the semi-public is seen more as a fetish in current works . This consists in hiding, in the possibility of getting caught or simply doing it "under the nose of society."

frequency

In a Vienna online study of the spatial behavior of gays in 2007, 43.1% of the sample (n = 434) said that they never cruise in bars / saunas, outdoors or on the Internet, 39.2% rarely do so, 12 , 9% often and 4.8% regularly, the frequency increasing with age. The age group "40 to 49 years" is most likely to be involved in cruising. This can indicate a change in the course of life as well as a change in habits over the generations.

Cruising locations according to age groups, Vienna 2007
Age group Bar / saunas
%		 Outdoor
%		 Internet
%
younger than 20 years 0.0 11.1 88.9
20 to 29 years 20.5 8.4 71.1
30 to 39 years 41.7 7.1 51.2
40 to 49 years 32.7 7.7 59.6
50 years and older 15.4 15.4 69.2
Total (2.1% missing) 27.8 8.1 62.0
Main channels for establishing contact
Internet sample, Cologne 2007
Surroundings n %
circle of friends 180 74%
GayRomeo 144 60%
Clubs / parties 127 53%
Cafes / bars 123 51%
Gay saunas 55 21%
Parks, flaps , parking lots 42 -
Gaychat 41 -
Darkrooms 39 -
Other 30th -
Gaydar / other chat systems 22nd -
Internet survey on anti-gay violence ,
N = 260, multiple answers possible,
38% from Cologne, 27% from NRW and 33% from other places;
Age: 15–65 years, mean: 31 years
Going out
sample, Germany 2007
Surroundings
not at all
 Rare
 several times
a month
 several times
in the
week
 at all
Bars / pubs 17.3 45.0 32.6 5.1 82.7
Cafes, bookstores 24.3 47.9 24.4 3.4 75.7
Club parties / discos 27.4 44.9 25.3 2.4 72.6
Gay info stores 59.7 35.9 3.9 0.6 40.3
Gay saunas 64.5 27.7 7.2 0.6 35.5
Sports studios 67.9 14.2 8.9 9.0 32.1
Sex / porn cinemas 69.2 23.9 6.3 0.7 30.8
Parks for cruising 74.0 20.2 5.0 0.9 26.0
Leather bars and clubs 80.0 14.9 4.6 0.6 20.0
Sex parties 81.4 15.1 3.1 0.4 18.6
Toilets, flaps 83.6 12.7 3.1 0.7 16.4
Nationwide survey on anti-gay violence by Maneo Berlin, Internet & Paper via scene media, N = 23,949

Legal situation, dangers

In countries where gay sexuality is forbidden or outlawed by society, cruising - even if cruising areas are known from almost every country - can become a very dangerous matter (both criminally and because of the likelihood of violent crimes ). Many people do not go to the police after violent crimes, out of fear of being looked at incorrectly or even of expecting reprisals in the future. Some perpetrators choose such locations for robberies precisely because the chances of being reported are lower than in other places. Homophobic prejudices sometimes also play a role in judging the perpetrators. In 1989 a Dallas judge reduced the sentence for an eighteen-year-old murderer of two gay men for murdering them in a cruising zone. There, the judge speculated, the victims could have looked for children to sexually harass them.

Cultural reception

On the village People's debut record of the same name, released in 1977, the third song sang about Fire Island . There it says, among other things, “Don't go in the bushes, someone might grab ya.” (“Don't go into the bushes, someone could grab you.”)

The group Boys Town Gang released the song Cruisin 'the Streets in 1981 , although the twelve-minute version in particular is quite explicit.

The artist duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset , who met in a gay disco in Copenhagen in 1994, started the series Powerless Structures in 1995 , which is about the perception of institutionalized spaces torn out of their context. In 1998, in a park in the Danish city of Aarhus , they placed a gleaming white container with labyrinth-like rooms and holes in the walls, a “cruising pavilion”, a dark room in innocent white.

In the film Cruising , Al Pacino plays a New York cop who is undercover investigating the gay SM scene.

See also

literature

German

  • Laud Humphreys: Flap Sexuality. Homosexual contacts in public. Foreword by Jürgen Friedrichs . In: Hans Bürger-Prinz, Gunther Schmidt, Eberhard Schorsch and Volkmar Sigusch (eds.): Contributions to sexual research . Volume 54. Enke, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 978-3-432-02305-2 .
  • Sabine Hark : Qe (e) re occupations of public spaces. Lesbian-gay subcultures , in: S. Thabe (Ed.): Space and Security. Dortmund contributions to spatial planning ; 106: Blue row. IRPUD, Dortmund 2001, pp. 92-100.
  • Helge Mooshammer: Cruising - Architecture, Psychoanalysis and Queer Cultures . Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-205-77294-6 ( review by P. Hoerz ).
  • M. Haase, M. Siegel, M. Wünsch (Eds.) Outside. The politics of queer spaces , b_books Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-933557-25-9 .

English

  • Mark W. Turner: Backward Glances: Cruising the Queer Streets of New York and London , Reaction Books, 2003, ISBN 1-86189-180-6 .
  • GB Ingram, A.-M. Bouthillette, Y. Retter (Ed.): Queers in space: communities, public places, sites of resistance , Bay Press, Seattle 1997, ISBN 0-941920-44-5 .
  • Mark Freedman, Harvey Mayes: Loving Men , Hark, New York 1976.
  • JA Lee: Getting Sex , General, Toronto 1978.
  • William Leap: Public Sex / gay Space , Columbia University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-231-10691-2 .
  • Ben Gove: Cruising Culture: Promiscuity, Desire and American Gay Literature , Edinburgh University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-7486-1361-7 .
  • Daniel P. Schluter: Gay Life in the Former USSR: Fraternity Without Community , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-93233-5 , Chapter 4 - Ecological-Level Institutions as Soviet Gay places , pp. 87 ff.
  • Nicole Ariana: How to Pick up Men , Bantam, New York 1972, ISBN 0-553-08270-1 .
  • Brian C. Kelly, Miguel A. Munoz-Laboy: Sexual place, spatial change, and the social reorganization of sexual culture , The Journal of Sex Research, November 2005, pp. 359-366 ( online at thefreelibrary.com ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g John A. Lee: Cruising (PDF; 128 kB) , In: Wayne R. Dynes (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (Garland Reference Library of Social Science) , Taylor & Francis, March 1990, ISBN 0-8240-6544-1
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Kaufmann: Queer Space - An empirical analysis of the spatial behavior of homosexual men in Vienna , diploma thesis at the Institute for Geography at the University of Vienna, 2007
  3. ↑ a b c Eric Partridge, Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor: The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English , Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 0-415-25937-1 , p. 520
  4. ^ The Language of Homosexuality: An American Glossary. In: Geoge W. Henry (Ed.): Sex Variants. Paul B. Hoeber, New York 1941, Vol. 2, appendix VII, pp. 1161-1162
  5. ↑ Eric Partridge, Paul Beale: A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-29189-5
  6. ↑ Peter A. Jackson, Gerard Sullivan: Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand , Haworth Press, 1999, ISBN 0-7890-0656-1 , p. 79
  7. ^ A b c Mark W. Turner: Backward Glances: Cruising the Queer Streets of New York and London , Reaction Books, 2003, ISBN 1-86189-180-6
  8. ^ A b c Martin P. Levine, Michael S. Kimmel: Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone , NYU Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8147-4695-0 , "Cruising", p. 79 ff.
  9. ↑ Shaun Cole: Fashion ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, as of April 17, 2005  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glbtq.com
  10. ↑ Wayne R. Dynes: Color Symbolism (PDF; 125 kB)
    in: Wayne R. Dynes (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (Garland Reference Library of Social Science) , Taylor & Francis, March 1990, ISBN 0-8240- 6544-1
  11. ↑ Ann Buermann Wass: Rivalling nature in the beauty and brilliancy of their coloring: Synthetic dyes and fashionable colors in Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine 1856-1891 , The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, December 2000, at findarticles.com
  12. ↑ Jack Lord and Lloyd Hoff: How to Sin In Hollywood. Hollywood, CA 1940
  13. ^ Brett L. Abrams: Latitude in Mass-Produced Culture's Capital: New Women and Other Players in Hollywood, 1920–1941 , Frontiers , 2004, at findarticles.com
  14. ↑ Bruce Vilanch: The password is "gay" , The Advocate , February 17, 2004, at thefreelibrary.com
  15. ↑ Margarete Rölling: Berlins lesbian women , quoted in 1928 in: We are as we are! - Homosexuality on record Part I - Recordings 1900 to 1936 , Bear Family Records, 2002, ISBN 3-89795-887-2 .
  16. ↑ Caroline Kaufmann: On the semantics of the color adjectives pink, pink and red - A corpus-based comparative study using the color carrier concept (PDF; 1.9 MB) Dissertation for the Doctor of Psychology, Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-8316-0652-8
  17. ^ A b c d Rictor Norton: A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory - Queer Subcultures , October 24, 2002, June 19, 2008 version
  18. ↑ Jeffrey N. Chernin, Melissa R. Johnson: Affirmative Psychotherapy and Counseling for Lesbians and Gay Men , SAGE, 2002, ISBN 0-7619-1769-1 , p. 55
  19. ↑ Joe Kort: Straight Men Who Have Sex with Men (SMSM) ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 2008, Version: April 21, 2008, in: Claude J. Summers (Ed.): Glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glbtq.com
  20. ↑ Richard G. Mann: United Kingdom I: The Middle Ages through the Nineteenth Century (PDF), 2007, version of October 8, 2007, in: Claude J. Summers (Ed.): Glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
  21. ↑ a b Rictor Norton: Clap, Margret , in: Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon (Ed.): Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-15983-0
  22. ^ Wienerisches Diarium (Wiener Zeitung), April 9, 1766, p. 8 at anno.onb.ac.at
  23. ^ Andreas Brunner, Hannes Sulzenbacher: Schwules Wien , Promedia, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-85371-131-6 , p. 19
  24. ^ W. Fischer: Spatial Turn? - Part 3 - Summary of the keynote speech by Andreas Brunner , kakanien.ac.at, February 23, 2007
  25. ^ Johann Friedel: Letters on the gallanteries of Berlin. Collected on a trip by an Austrian officer in 1782 , published anonymously, Ettinger, Gotha 1782
    Reprint: Sonja Schnitzler (Ed.): Letters on the Galanteries of Berlin , Eulenspiegel Verlag, 1987, ISBN 3-359-00125-7
    Reprint: Ullstein Verlag , Frankfurt Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-548-30258-0 (Letters 16, 18, 20 and 23 are not in this edition)
    15th letter: early mention of the term " Warm Brothers" , thoughts about boy love; 17th letter: A visit to the boys' club; Quote: p. 171 ff.
  26. ↑ Jens Rydström: Sinners and Citizens: Bestiality and Homosexuality in Sweden, 1880-1950 , University of Chicago Press, 2003, ISBN 0-226-73257-6 , pp. 255, 260, 321
  27. ↑ Bret E. Carroll: American Masculinities , SAGE, 2003 ISBN 0-7619-2540-6, p. 512
  28. ↑ David Alan Sklansky: “One Train May Hide Another”: Katz, Stonewall, and the Secret Subtext of Criminal Procedure (PDF; 311 kB), University of California, Davis, Vol. 41, pp. 875 ff.
  29. ↑ Jon J. Gallo et al .: The Consenting Adult Homosexual and the Law: An Empirical Study of Enforcement and Administration in Los Angeles County , 1966, 13 UCLA Law Review, pp. 643-675
  30. ↑ George Painter: The Sensibilities of Our Forefathers - The History of Sodomy Laws in the United States - California , 1991-2001
  31. ^ Gordon Brent Ingram: "Open" space as strategic queer sites in: GB Ingram, A.-M. Bouthillette, Y. Retter (Ed.): Queers in space: communities, public places, sites of resistance , Bay Press: Seattle 1997, ISBN 0-941920-44-5 , pp. 95-125
  32. ↑ Köln 19228 - Gay raid Phone: Violence against LGBT people in Cologne - An inventory of 10 April, 2007.
  33. ↑ MANEO (Ed.): Experiences of violence among gay and bisexual young people and men in Germany - results of the MANEO survey 2006/2007 (PDF; 309 kB), Berlin, June 2007
  34. ↑ Moritz Fedgenheuer, Bodo Lippl: Material volume on the results of the Maneo study 2006/2007 (PDF; 647 kB), Berlin, August 2007
  35. ↑ Thomas C. Caramagno: Irreconcilable Differences ?: Intellectual Stalemate in the Gay Rights Debate , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0-275-97721-8 , p. 186
  36. ^ Daniel Sander: Traum vom Raum , Kultur SPIEGEL 9/2006 of August 28, 2006, page 12
  37. ↑ Michael K. Lavers: Citations in Fire Island Meat Rack Spark Outrage , June 26, 2008