Rachel Streitfeld’s Nov. 1 article, “Bathrooms used for anonymous sexual encounters,” made the front page and generated heated response. Judging from what has been said, it is clear that the complexity of this issue has been ignored.
First, the portrayal of who is visiting these bathrooms has been too simplistic. Many assume cruisers are homosexual. Actually, there is substantial evidence suggesting that many cruisers are not gay. In the mid-1960s, a Washington University graduate student, Laud Humphreys, conducted his famous dissertation study on cruisy bathrooms, or as he called them, “tearooms.” He noted that men would frequent bathrooms at Forest Park for anonymous, mostly oral, sex. Through interviews, he found that a surprising 38 percent of the men were heterosexual. Of the 62 percent that were clearly not heterosexual, only 14 percent were stereotypically gay men who were “out of the closet” and active in the gay community. All men displayed no difference in occupation, marital status, or socioeconomic standing compared to typical males in St. Louis. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these demographics still hold true. Clearly, the men visiting our bathrooms cannot be boxed into a single type.
The reasons suggested so far for why men cruise have also been overly simplistic. Andrew Ross, Spectrum president, proposed that gay students are frustrated by the conservative climate and are driven to anonymous sex. This is not the only possibility. Humphreys found that, of the heterosexual group, there was “no indication that these men seek homosexual contact as such; rather, they want a form of orgasm-producing action that is less lonely than masturbation and less involving than a love relationship.” Another interesting possibility is that some men may cruise in order to escape sexual identity. One visitor of a chat room for gay issues put it this way: “People aren’t straight or queer in a tearoom. They are nothing; just bodies attached to penises. It doesn’t matter if the body is black, white, Asian, good looking, bad looking, straight, gay, or a killer whale.”
Some would say, “I don’t care who’s doing it or why. The fact is that this is dangerous activity that could corrupt me (my friend, my child, etc.).” Many men indicate fear of being mistaken for a cruiser and pulled in by force. This too, is a result of over-simplification. Media portrayal-such as in “Dumb and Dumber”-has led many to believe that cruisers are violent rapists. Actually, this is a consenting group that indicates interest subtly, not forcibly. One example is foot-tapping to communicate sexual intent to the person in the next stall. If the person does not respond, the interaction is over.
Why is it so important to realize the complexity of this issue? For one, it is crucial to preventing what Doug Harrison called a “good old-fashioned homosexual panic” in his Nov. 12 letter. It is risky to reduce these men into sexually frustrated, potentially violent homosexuals laden with STD’s. These assumptions make it easy to slide down this muddy slope: Our school is listed on a cruising Web site? Gay and dangerous sex is actually happening in our bathrooms? Let’s get the police involved and clean up this health crisis! As Streitfeld’s article suggested, this is exactly what happened at George Washington University and Boston University.
Interestingly, not a single arrest at BU was because of a sex act, according to BU Police Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire. Most men were arrested for peeking into stalls or exposing themselves. Hilaire stated: “It’s not a public safety issue. It’s more of a public nuisance.” As for GWU, according to cruisingforsex.com creator Keith Griffiths, its bathrooms had been sexually active for decades with no problems before the listing was posted and subsequent arrests were made. Similarly, our police department claims that cruising is a “non-issue” at WU. At least it has been before the “discovery” of our own Web site listing.
Let’s not be so quick to turn a “non-issue” into a panic. The results can be dreadful. About two months ago, acting BU president John Silber disbanded the gay-straight alliance at an affiliated high school. Last year, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) settled a case against a Massachusetts State Police trooper for improperly rousting a gay man from a public area without evidence of unlawful conduct. Recently, a report filed by the Triangle Foundation, a Michigan-based gay rights organization, prompted the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Michigan police departments for abuse. The report claimed that Michigan police used “entrapment and other illegal undercover operations designed to deprive [the men] of constitutional, civil, and human rights.”
There is a fine line between protecting the public and infringing on rights. To make sure we do not cross this line, we must shed our simplistic assumptions and take care to thoroughly examine this complex issue.