Is gay cruising illegal
Cottaging & Cruising: Legal Penalties
What is the history of cottaging?
In the mid 20th Century, those who partook in cottaging didn’t do so out of fantasy or fetish.
Cottaging was the only way that lgbtq+ men could assemble other gay men, hidden away from the government. Furthermore, the concept of being “out” wasn’t normalised yet, and so a surreptitious culture of widespread sex began across the country.
The government would dispatch units of police officers to inspect common toilets and parks in a tender to “rid England of this plague”, with undercover police often arresting cottagers for indecent assault. Whatsmore, it’s estimated that during the 1950’s approximately 1,000 men were imprisoned every year for cottaging and “lewd” behaviour.
Is cottaging still popular today?
Cottaging is becoming less trendy as gay rights progress further.
The secret side of queer relationships we witnessed in the past now welcomes modern LGBT family models, marriages and parenting styles. Despite the dwindling numbers, cruising grounds and cottaging spaces can still be located in most cities, if you realize where to look!
Back to nature: a potted history of queer cruising
The first time Kyle* went cruising for sex, he’d just finished his shift as a supermarket delivery driver. “I’d dropped off some shopping at a house near Hampstead, so I decided to try and come across the Hampstead Heath cruising area,” he recalls. Kyle wasn’t entirely sure where to go when he got to the wooded West Heath, home to London’s most famous cruising ground, but his homing instincts soon kicked in. “Even though it was still light outside, there were more guys there than I’d been expecting,” he says. “I was still in my [redacted] supermarket uniform when I ended up swapping blowjobs in the bushes.”
Kyle, who asked to remain anonymous in case his boss reads this, was drawn to cruising for practical reasons. “There’s so much less faffing around than if you go on Grindr, where everyone wants to realize what you’re into [sexually] before they agree to a hook-up,” says 34-year-old Kyle, who has since cruised on East London’s Hackney Marshes and beaches in Mykonos and Sitges. “When you move to a cr
Cruising: A casualty of the digital age
If you’re expecting to read something about love on the High Seas or are looking for the Top 10 reasons you should never take a boyfriend on an Atlantis Cruise — sorry, Sis, this article is about cruising without a boat.
This week, Daddy talks “cruising”, the down-and-dirty kind. Thanks to the internet and dating apps, cruising is no longer a tool kept in our sexual wheelhouse. In modern society, cruising is an electronic booty call with no mystery, no romance, and positively no effort.
Let’s receive clear: cruising is not flirting. Flirting is small speak, googley eyes, and forced laughs. Flirting is for pussies. Cruising takes balls. Cruising is an art, a proficiency, an intuitive, non-verbal way of saying in no uncertain terms: “Let’s fuck.” For this generation, cruising consists of lying in bed surfing Grindr while snacking and watching Sex In The City.
The term ‘cruising’ started sometime in the late 60s, but the rehearse of gays signaling other gays for a one-way ticket to pound-town is as old as man himself. We put the Homo in Sapian.
Whether a potential partner was smacked in the head w
Cruising
Cruising (we’re not talking ships) refers to searching for a sexual partner for an anonymous encounter, often a one-off. Cruising areas or sites include streets, parks, road lay-bys, (nudist) beaches or sand dunes and other public areas. Some sites have been around for decades, Hampstead Heath and Brompton Cemetery being two of the most (in) famous in London. Imagine a nightclub dark room but free and outdoors, but daytime can work just as well.
Of course, men result other men for sex has been going for centuries though the designation ‘cruise’ is believed to come from the Dutch ‘kruisen’. The term was also used as code by closeted gay communities when homosexuality was illegal, and is the title of a 1980 American crime thriller film with Al Pacino. The clip was poorly received and did nothing to improve the meaning though the term has since been absorbed into the mainstream heterosexual vocabulary. Whatever its origins, the term cruising has stood the examine of time.
For some lgbtq+ men, cruising is about the excitement and rush of hooking up with a stranger alfresco. Way before Grindr and Gaydar, searching for speedy sex with a stranger was a creative and skilled pursuit an