Amtrak Arrests and Toilet Cruising

 After Amtrak cracked down on men allegedly seeking sex in a station restroom, critics decried it as an assault on a sacred gay tradition. I’m … not so sure.

 

This is Strictly the opinion of BY LAWRENCE COSTA,  originally published at

Slate.

 

Desperate to focus on anything other than competently running a railroad, Amtrak made news this fall by arresting a couple hundred men for “public lewdness” in Penn Station, the implication being that they were cruising the bathrooms there for sex. This caused a minor uproar. New York’s Rep. Jerry Nadler sent a letter demanding Amtrak, “Cease … targeting members of the LGBTQ community … on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation.” In the Cut recently, David Mack (also a Slate contributor) talked to a cruiser who referred to the Penn Station men’s room as the “de facto third space” for some “old queens.” According to the same article, one can get famous on Tik Tok nowadays for cruising or at least pretending to (yay?). Out magazine characterized the episode as the return of the “dark days” of police entrapment efforts against gay men. They go on to speak with a law professor who “underlined that this is an attack on the entire LGBTQ+ community.” 

For the uninitiated, cruising, in a broad sense, refers to seeking out anonymous sex. In a narrower sense, which is the focus here, it refers to seeking out sex in public or semipublic spaces. This can be conflated with indecent exposure in the public imagination, but it’s not the same. With cruising, the goal is not so much to be seen as to have sex in a public setting (bathroom, wooded park, rest stop) without anyone else knowing. It is intended to be an activity where all parties consent. Undoubtedly, it’s a part of gay history, if for no other reason than because pervasive discrimination didn’t leave many other options. Often, one could not have sex in a private place because your neighbors or the hotel clerk could figure out what you were up to, and what you were up to was illegal. 

However, it’s no longer the 1960s. Is cruising really still the integral part of gay culture so many seem to think it is? I’m not so sure! Must we describe it as a sacred rite of gay (and bi, there are literally dozens of us!) men everywhere? If we don’t have anonymous sex in public, we’re not risking crop failures, and our deities won’t be wrathful—just disappointed, I suppose.

For the most part, we aren’t forced to choose between cruising or celibacy these days. Sex and relationships are available to gays in all the traditional ways and a good many nontraditional ones. As non-app-based examples of the latter, gay bathhouses still very much exist. Raves and circuit parties (i.e., gay raves) are quite similar, except one often features a roped-off section where people can go for anonymous sex (oddly enough though, both tend to have some hippie-looking lady selling cutesy crochet work at a table in a corner). And so on. With the freedom to engage in same-sex relationships openly and with various opportunities for facilitated public-ish sex, it’s worth asking: Is cruising really that vital? Moreover, when it’s a choice, a kink people actively seek out, is it maybe just a little bit disrespectful to other users of public spaces? Imagine the poor, hapless guy having things go so wrong that he has to use a stall in those filthy Penn Station bathrooms for its intended purpose. Isn’t having a threesome one stall over just sadistically making his day that much worse?

To be clear and slightly more serious, my point is not that cruising should get you thrown in jail, or burned in hell for all eternity, or whatever. Rather, it’s just a little bit rude, like littering. I might be the only bi man in New York who actually uses Central Park’s woods for birding. Stepping on a used condom or accidentally locking eyes with a guy in the bushes mid-fellatio hasn’t scarred me for life. However, it can take the fun out of linking up with my first love, an ovenbird. I don’t think to myself, Oh, that’s disgusting! But, Eh, that’s kind of inconsiderate fits. I asked some warblers for their thoughts, but they declined to comment on the record due to fear of reprisals.

 

So then, were the Penn Station arrests useful? Is it an effective use of resources to conduct an elaborate sting operation wherein Amtrak makes (or is it lets?) a policeman pretend to masturbate at a urinal? All for arrests so ridiculous judges have refused to even hear the cases? I think not. Even if the “save gay culture” blowback over the sting is over the top, the operation itself seems like silly overkill. It would have to be easier and cheaper to have one uniformed cop (not a whole undercover task force) stand near the door of the bathroom as a deterrent. Moreover, at the end of the day, this sort of thing is mostly just consenting adults getting to second base while hiding. Tickets would be more appropriate than making a criminal case out of it. Maybe a PSA poster series: No taking up two seats, no loud music without headphones, pets must be in carriers, and please, no putting your unmentionables through holes in restroom divider panels. Have a pleasant day.

 

Importantly, if you’re deterring the activity and erring toward tickets instead of arrests, you’re enforcing the rules but making allowances for people who do still wear 1960s-esque shackles: Though homosexuality is broadly accepted here, it’s not universal. For various reasons some men may still feel they have few other options, and publicly shaming them over it seems cruel, which is worse than rudeness for those keeping track. You’d also avoid deporting people over something so trivial. (Despite some portrayals, Amtrak didn’t necessarily set out to deport people. But given how much they depend on federal funding, it’s unlikely they have the luxury of ignoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers in the current climate.)

Overall, whether you agree with me or not about cruising being a little inconsiderate, it should be a matter of manners and civil penalties, not criminality. I have friends who’ve done this sort of thing (albeit usually in locker rooms, not train stations), and I certainly don’t think any of them deserve to be arrested. In fact, they’re saints for tolerating some nitwit who spends his time writing 1,000-word columns about manners. Most of the ridiculousness of this episode stems from the ham-fisted overenforcement. But, criticizing the police action by framing cruising as a central part of gay identity is a bit overwrought as well. Cruising is not something we have to do to feel fulfilled as queer people, and it’s sort of rude to do it in very public spaces (even if no one sees). So now that you know I’m a bit of a killjoy, stay away from me in the Ramble unless you’re 5 inches tall and can fly