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A Man Could Get Arrested

Cruising for Sex

The gay sexual landscape has changed quite dramatically over the last one hundred years. For a large part of that time, sodomy and other homosexual conduct was illegal in most of the world, including the United States. Because of this, there was no social support for homosexuality, and the sexual activities of gay men were stigmatized by society. There were no gay bars, no gay coffee shops, no gay neighborhoods. It was a straight world, and if gay men knew what was good for them, they would at least pretend to live straight lives. Homosexual men had to define their sexual identity based on heterosexual standards instead of a positive understanding of who they were naturally attracted to. Within this sexual paradigm, some gay men found freedom from oppression in a very unlikely place, public restrooms. By the 1950s, public restrooms had become very popular places for gay men to find sexual partners. Although cruising for sex in public restrooms was certainly risky, for the first time in history gay men had a space where they could find sexual connection. But it did more than that. It created shared experiences among the growing population of gay men. These clandestine encounters built solidarity, which eventually led to activism for broader acceptance. It was within this new sexual paradigm that many gay men learned to take control of their sexual expression in a way that rejected the stigma placed on them by society. This newfound freedom of expression emboldened them to behave in a way that was distinctly different than the behavior society expected of them. As a history developed around the concept of finding and having sex in public places, cruising for sex developed into a subculture for the gay male community. The 1970's saw sexual freedoms begin to loosen and gay liberation begin to strengthen, and as a result, gay men became less willing to accept the status quo and more willing to express their sexuality any way that suited them, regardless of what other people thought about it. Parks, waterfront piers, university bathrooms, rest stops, public toilets, gyms, beaches, backrooms, theaters, and really anywhere gay men could congregate became popular gay cruising spots, and cruising for sex became the foundation of the gay male sexual identity. Cruising for sex eventually became so commonplace most gay men needed only to walk around in their own neighborhoods to find a willing sexual partner.

From Hidden History to Modern Marvel

Depending on the environment and who was around to see what was happening, cruising for sex was often inherently dangerous, so it was all about subtle, non-verbal cues. A knowing glance, a sly smile, or a playful nod was enough to communicate sexual interest to other gay men. These non-verbal cues allowed gay men to make discreet connections when they found themselves in the presence of people who might want to harm them if they understood what was being communicated. Today, cruising for sex takes many different forms and happens in many different places, from sun-kissed dunes on a faraway beach to steamy, red-lit saunas in the back of seedy gyms, practically any place where two gay men can meet can be a place to meet for sex. The term cruising has taken on a more general meaning, to refer to the hunt for sex, not one specific hunt but rather a continuous hunt that never really ends. Many gay men are always on the lookout for potential sexual partners, looking for signals from other men they encounter everywhere they go. Cruising for sex is all about perception, determining whether the guy who glanced at you was just being friendly or telling you he's interested. The searching gaze of a man, the body language of a stranger, the eroticism of certain rudimentary surroundings are all key elements in the almost constant hunt for quick, anonymous, intimate encounters with other men that occurs spontaneously in unexpected places at unexpected times. For many gay men, cruising adds a sense of mischief to sex. It's something gay men have that straight men don't. But it doesn't come without its drawbacks. There is always the risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people close enough to understand what is happening, so it's not for everyone. Many gay men are turned off by the risks, are not comfortable having sex in public, or look down on it socially.

My Early Sexual Experiences

I'd like to tell you that my first sexual experience was special, that I met the guy in some wonderful way, that we got to know one another until sex between us became inevitable, and that the sex was knock-your-socks-off good. I'd like to tell you that, but instead...the first time I had sex was in a restroom on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I was a student there at the time, and one day between classes, I ducked into a restroom. As I sat there, I noticed a phone number and name written on the stall wall, so I wrote it down and called the guy. A few days later, I met up with him, and we sucked each other off in a restroom on campus. I still remember it, the way the stall was so crowded with the two of us standing face to face, the way it made me anxious because someone could have walked in and caught us, the way I was incredibly turned on having sex with a guy while at the same time I was freaking out because I was having sex with a guy. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes, then we both pulled up our pants and walked out of the restroom. It didn't occur to me at the time that a restroom was an unusual place to have sex. I was too busy reeling from the experience. I never saw that guy again, but as it turned out, that was not the only restroom on campus that led me to gay sex. Sometime after that experience, I ducked into a different restroom. As I sat down, I noticed someone had written "Tap Your Foot For A Blowjob" on the space between the two stalls. As I contemplated what that meant exactly, I noticed that the toilet paper dispenser began to move. A few seconds later, it completely disappeared as the guy next to me pulled it out of the wall. It freaked me out so much, I immediately stood up, pulled up my pants, and ran out. But I went back. I went back a lot. As it turned out, that restroom was rockin'...all the time. The sex usually happened there in the restroom. Sometimes it would stop when someone entered the rest room, sometimes it wouldn't. Other times, I would leave the restroom with a guy and we'd go somewhere else on campus for privacy. I remember one time when a telephone serviceman and I walked over to the library and went to the top of the stairwell as if we were going to exit to the roof, but instead that's where we stopped. The space in front of the exit door was a perfect spot for sex. He sucked me off four times in about an hour. It was the most I had cum in one day at that point in my life. Probably still is.

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The Mother Lode

As awesome as that restroom was, it was nothing compared to an incredible discovery I made one day driving home from school, a discovery I'd known about all along. It was getting dark by the time I left campus. I had been horny all day because two of my male classmates had been flirting with me, although I didn't realize it at the time. I was on the Interstate and suddenly had to pee, so I pulled into a rest stop and hurried down the path and into the restroom. Even though my focus was on getting into the restroom before I started to pee, I noticed a strange energy hanging around the rest area. When I walked out of the restroom, I was not in such a hurry so I decided to see if I could find out why the energy was so weird. I sat down on a bench in the middle of the rest area. It was a beautiful night. The temperature was perfect. It was quiet, I could hear crickets cricketing. So, why was I still feeling like something was off? There were guys just milling about, not really doing anything, just milling about. That's when it hit me. They were all men, no children, no families, no women, just men. As I pondered why one man, much less a dozen men, would come to a rest area and just stand around, I remembered what that rest area was known for. This was the only rest stop in the area, and it was constantly getting raided by the police because it was a known area where gay men met for sex. Every time it was raided, they'd talk about in the papers and on the news for weeks, then the publicity would die down again. I had never given the news reports a second thought, until that night. I stayed for a few more minutes, then left. I didn't have the faintest idea how to pick up a guy anywhere, much less at a rest stop, but it didn't take me long to go back.

I wasn't old enough to drink, so I couldn't go to a bar. I didn't have any gay friends, so I couldn't meet up with a friend to do something fun. The rest stop was all I had going for me at the time. As much as the restroom on campus was always rockin', the rest stop was always rockin'...on steroids. I met so many guys and had so much sex from that rest stop, it's almost unbelievable. I also met two of my life-long best friends there. The rest stop was just a meeting place. The sex happened elsewhere. It was more than just a place to pick up someone for sex. It had a social side to it. For this reason, it actually had an influential impact on my life. Well, at least it did until I realized there were gay bars just a thirty minute drive away.

P Street Beach

You should know that I've never been the type of gay man who has sex with his friends. Some gay men are very good at maneuvering through the complicated maze of social mores associated with balancing friendship with sex. I'm not one of those men. I've never bonded as a friend with the men I've slept with and once I've bonded with a guy as a friend, sex just isn't enticing. I've always chosen friends that are very similar to myself, so my circle of friends is comprised of gay men who know everything about what we each like sexually but have never had sex with one another...well, mostly.

When I lived in Virginia, I drove into D.C. several times a week to go to gay bars, drink, hook up, and all of the other things gay men in their early 20s did. Across the street from one of the busiest gay bars in the city, Badlands, there was a small patch of undeveloped land that had a small wooded area on one end. We called it P Street Beach because it was on P Street, and during the day, it was a popular place to soak up some sun. When you would spread out a blanket and lie down on the ground, the traffic from nearby Rock Creek Parkway sounded like ocean waves crashing on a distant shore. At night, it was a very popular after hours cruise spot for those who didn't hook up in the bar. At 2:00am, it was very dark in the woods, so dark you literally could not see your own hand in front of your face, so the hundreds of drunk horny gay men who went there would end up stumbling through the little patch of trees, tripping on upturned roots, stepping on discarded trash, bumping into other drunk horny gay men having sex. P Street Beach was notorious, mainly because it was always just as likely that you'd be pick pocketed as it was you'd get a blowjob...and you could always get a blowjob. I never learned how to protect my pockets when my pants were around my ankles, so I stayed away from the place as a rule, but from time to time, I'd find myself drunk enough and horny enough to walk into that little patch of trees. Mind you, I would never admit this to my friends, mainly because everyone I knew looked down on on it, but also because it just wasn't something I wanted to brag about.

One super horny trickless night, I found myself stumbling through that little patch of woods. I eventually stumbled into a guy who was just my type, well at least as far as I could tell in the total dark of the night. We had a great time. He gave me an absolutely amazing blowjob. It was such a hot time that I still remember it all these years later. Sex there was always fast and furious, and other guys bumped into you the whole time because, again, nobody could see anything, so to get a blowjob like that was definitely memorable. He kept saying "fuck yeah". His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't focus on that. All I could think about was how fucking perfect my dick felt in his mouth. He sucked my dick until I squirt what seemed like one of the biggest fucking orgasms I've ever had. My body literally shuddered when I came. We went our separate ways shortly thereafter. As I was walking to my car, I began to come down from the high of my orgasm, and my mind was able to focus on his voice. I knew that I knew that voice. As I got to my car, I put a name to the voice. One of my closest friends had just given me the blowjob of my life. I had no idea what this would do to the friendship, maybe nothing, maybe everything. On the drive home, I decided to never say a word about it to anyone, and I never have until now.

Then the Internet Came Along

The digital revolution has changed just about every facet of human life, and technology has become integrated into the very fabric of our daily lives. The Internet did not simply influence how gay men cruised for sex, it tore it apart and rebuilt it from scratch. In the beginning, cruising for sex online was just as fun, just as thrilling, just as sexy as cruising for sex had always been. At the same time, it solved many of the problems associated with cruising for sex in public places. First, it was risk-free. There was no risk of arrest, no risk of being mugged, no risk of being caught with your pants down by someone you didn't want catching you with your pants down. Nothing could be safer than looking for sex from the comfort of your own home. Second, it was efficient. You could look for sex on multiple websites and platforms at the same time. You certainly couldn't do anything like that in person. Third, it provided a place for gay men who didn't cruise for sex in person to cruise for sex. For those gay men who didn't cruise for sex in public places, Internet chat rooms provided an appealing alternative. Cruising for sex online appealed to a broader audience, making the pool of potential sexual partners seemingly endless. Fourth, cruising for sex online brought men from disparate parts of the gay community together in one place doing the same thing at the same time. Guys who weren't old enough to drink alcohol cruised guys who were looking for someone to get high with who cruised guys who under socialized and rarely connected with other gay men and so on and so on. Men from just about every fringe group within the gay community began to connect with one another on a sexual level speaking a language they all understood. Fifth, cruising for sex online allowed you to get to know a little about your sexual partners before meeting up with them. For instance, you could ask what they were looking for so you'd know if that aligned with what you were looking for. Cruising for sex in person is, by its very nature, anonymous. When you cruised for sex in person, either you had sex with someone or you didn't. There was no asking questions. If it ended up you were looking for different things, you'd split and try again with someone else. There are many other differences between cruising for sex in person and cruising for sex online. In many respects, cruising for sex online prevailed, at least more so than its in person alternative. The convenience of accessible online hook-ups represented a paradigm shift from the thrill of unplanned hook-ups, and all was good until that paradigm shifted again.

And Then Along Came Grindr

It was a logical step from online chat rooms to social networking. Gay men had already been oriented toward the concept. All that was needed was the infrastructure. When the paradigm shifted again, cell phones had firmly planted themselves in the pockets and palms of people everywhere, and an app that enabled gay men to cruise for sex on their cell phones just made sense. Grindr was the first location-based cruising app to hit the market, but many more followed. This technology revolutionized the gay male dating culture. convenient, always available, and highly efficient at finding gay sex. The convenience of cruising for sex on a cell phone attracted many gay men to these apps. Suddenly, you could open your cell phone and see that there was a another guy looking for sex who was 10 feet away and another 30 feet away and another 45 feet away and so on and so on. The thrill returned to cruising for sex. It became fun and exciting again. Every gay man was like a kid in a candy store. The problem was that there was always so many hot guys online looking for sex that it was difficult to settle on which one was the hottest.

Then Internet Anonymity Came Back

There was a period of time when gay online dating websites had just about become free of anonymous profiles. This improved online cruising in so many ways, but just as gay men everywhere took a collective sigh of relief, Sniffies started its gay dating site. This site prominently features anonymous profiles. In fact, it actively encourages them. I was open-minded about this at first, but it didn't take long for me to close my mind. There are so many reasons to hate anonymous profiles that it's hard to count them. Personally, I am of the belief that having a full profile with pics increases my chances of getting laid.

Bad Behavior: Anonymous profiles encourage bullies to behave badly. Knowing that nobody knows who they are, their bad behavior is worse. I've experience shocking and unacceptable behavior from guys with anonymous profiles, behavior that nobody would ever do in public. For example, on several occasions some guy hit me up acting like he was interested at first but the moment I started acting I was interested they start to berate me about either my drug use or about having bareback sex even though I am HIV+.

Start At Zero: I admit that the information dating websites .

Misrepresentation: Wokes emphasize the importance of awareness, education, and critical thinking. They actively seek information about social issues, historical injustices, and marginalized communities, and they use this information to unlearn societal biases.

Advocacy: Wokes are allies and advocates for marginalized communities. They amplify marginalized voices, listen and learn from their experiences, and work to dismantle the oppression that holds them back.

Cultural Appreciation: Wokes recognize the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. They respect and appreciate different cultures without commodifying or appropriating them, understanding the historical context and power dynamics involved.

Language: Wokes are mindful to use inclusive language that respects people's identities and experiences. They understand the impact of words and strive to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes by using derogatory language.

Inclusivity: Wokes fight to increase inclusion of marginalized individuals in the workplace and educational institutions. This inclusive approach characterizes the woke style of activism.

Wokes understand that societal issues are complex and multidimensional and that they require continuous education to fully understand. Because of this, being woke involves a process of learning, self-reflection, and growth.

First off I understand there are reasons why some enjoy the Anon Option but hear me out. I have been on the site for 3 years now and Personally once I figured out that creating a Profile and not being Anon increase my chances of getting layed and I have not regretted it . I have also been on the sit long enough now to conclude by my experience that users who Use Anon. Profiles after being on the site for months need to grow a pair and stop wasting every bodies time. Anon profiles from what I notice on sniffies are more often than not the BIGGEST flakes and are so far in the closet they have fund Narnia! I mean you are on a freaking website for gay men who's going to find you on this site?? !!!! no need to be SO DL we can not even know how old you are or what you like I hate the 100% mystery of Anon Profiles and wasting time trying to inquire how old you are and what you look like only to be deleted or to get no fucking answer after chatting for a hour its plain Bullshit! The other issue is A Lot of fake profiles are often Anon. ones and if you end up having to block the basterd bc. they harass you or whatever they can keep getting in touch with you bc they are a Anon . Profile and I think for safety reasons that is oversite on part of the website . I personally think that users should have the Anon Profile option...............but for a LIMTED time. I think the website after so long should demand you make a Actual profile so more regular and official users can know who the hell we all are what we want make Scammers and Bots harder to get on and make us able to block nut jobs if we Absolutely have to for safety reasons. Anybody else ever Felt the same. Oh yes FYI the area I am in Over the last year seems to be 65 % Anon Profiles and everybody else I speak to are not new and are ither not my type, flakes or I am not there type. its safe to say that for the last year and a half I have not been getting mad dick Like I used t o thank god for reddit ir else Id never get any with the way sniffies has been for 1-2 years !!!!!!! 18

My Online Life

Whereas, I have never been a big fan of cruising for sex in public, I am a big fan of cruising for sex online. I like it right away. But after twenty years of cruising for sex online, it is no longer what it once was.

Works Cited

Blum, Steven (2017, May 28). Cruising Online Was Actually Fun Before Grindr Ruined Everything. Vice Magazine. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae5j4a/cruising-online-was-actually-fun-before-grindr-ruined-everything

Auerbach, David (2014, August 21). When AOL Was GayOL. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/lgbtq-nerds-and-the-evolution-of-life-online.html

Fitzsimons, Tim (2019). How a decade with GPS 'dating' apps changed us all. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/grindr-turns-10-how-decade-gps-dating-apps-changed-us-n986666

Heinemeier, Eskild (2017). Grindr has changed sex culture among gay men. Retrieved from https://sciencenordic.com/culture-denmark-sex/grindr-has-changed-sex-culture-among-gay-men/1449993

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