January 1999 Cover
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Is Big Brother coming to a toilet near you?
Boyd McDonald, the famous chronicler of true homosexual experience, preferred men
to speak for themselves. But had he dabbled in video, he might have warmed to the idea
of taping sex in public toilets and parks as a way of documenting a slice of the direct,
unvarnished truth about homosexuality. In February, during sweeps, half a dozen local TV
news shows around the US decided to do just that. Using a gay web site to find out where to
go, they proceeded to surreptitiously record, and then broadcast, sex among men in
tearooms and other cruising spots. But of course their secret and illegal videotaping was
conducted with a spirit contrary to Boyd McDonald's not to celebrate gay sex, but to
provoke outrage and prosecution. Can public sex survive in the information age?
In San Diego, KGTV hid a video camera in a men's bathroom at San Diego State
University. A decoy working for the station set a camera next to a toilet, and filmed men
masturbating, showing off their dicks, and having sex. In Houston, KPRC captured similar
scenes inside toilets at a Sears store, the University of Houston, and a Hyatt hotel. These
stations-- and others in Charleston, Columbus, Phoenix, and Seattle-- presented their footage in
tones of shock and horror, barely concealing the underlying titillation.
But the real reason for the sudden interest in gay cruising wasn't that it was
news. Rather, it's that February is sweeps month, when TV stations vie to increase the ratings
on which the year's ad rates then are pegged. Millions of dollars hang in the balance.
Surreptitiously filming tearoom sex was the idea
du jour to pull in audience.
Though their self-generated exposé on gay cruising further erased the
disappearing line between tabloid TV and television "news," the stations masked their prurience in
the mantle of journalism. KGTV claimed the newsworthiness of the story justified the airing
of what they called their "shocking" footage. "We knew we'd take some heat, but the
public has a right to know," said producer J.W. August to the San Diego
Union Tribune. "It is a tax-supported institution. If my son was going to San Diego State University, I'd like to
know about this."
The people surreptitiously filmed could have no expectation of privacy, KGTV
said, because they were breaking the law. None of the stations showed the courage of their
convictions, however, by actually show the faces of the men they videotaped. In part, that
was because the stations themselves were breaking the law. It's a misdemeanor in California,
and most other places, to sneak cameras into toilets or dressing rooms to film people
without their consent. But San Diego's district attorney's office says it won't prosecute the
stations unless someone files a complaint which is another way of saying they are not
serious about enforcing the law, because any complainant would himself be liable to prosecution
for a sex crimes. Not surprisingly, so far no one has stepped forward.
Each of the stations selected places to film from a gay Web
site, www.cruisingforsex.com, that lists tearooms and cruising areas the world over, and
invites readers to add to its database. With sex on the Internet a hot topic, each of the
stations played up the use of the Web to promote public sex.
Of course the "public" sex the stations filmed wasn't very public at all. Tearoom
and other cruising scenes operate according to codes that work to exclude people who are
not interested or who can't figure out the rules-- and the two are related. Such folk are
rarely approached for sex play and usually don't know what's going on in the first place. But
the new information age is changing that. Thanks to the Internet, you don't need to be "in
the life" or have finely-tuned gaydar to find out where the gay cruising is-- it's all laid out for
you if you look for it. And thanks to the exploding quantity of information and media, the
rarest commodity has become people's attention. Media now are shameless in their
competition for it, and old rules are vanishing about what's unacceptable to show or too invasive
of privacy. All media have gone tabloid.
Cruising scenes depended in part on barriers to information flow. Can raw,
unvarnished homosexuality survive in a world where Boyd McDonald isn't a rare discovery, but piped in
on the evening news? **
Editor's Note: From The Guide, April 1998
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