One glance was enough to make it clear. How gay men used to meet in parks and public toilets for decades
If a heterosexual person is looking for a partner, they usually have the whole world at their disposal, a world that takes their intention for granted. They can strike up a conversation with someone in a bar, show their interest at a party, or ask friends if they know anyone who’s single. Nowadays, of course, they can also open a dating app.
For gay men, it hasn’t been that simple for most of modern history. Admitting an interest in another man could mean a social scandal, losing one’s job, police prosecution or violence. Yet, of course, sexual desire, relationships and the need to meet someone still existed. And that is precisely where the story of cruising begins.
Cruising does not automatically mean sex in public
In this context, the English word ‘cruising’ refers to the search for casual sexual or erotic contact, traditionally taking place primarily in public or semi-public spaces. These might include a park, a riverside, a beach, the area around a railway station or public toilets. However, this does not necessarily mean that sexual contact has to take place directly at that location. Cruising is, above all, the very act of seeking out and identifying a potential partner.
From the perspective of someone unaware of the existence of a cruising spot, nothing out of the ordinary may appear to be happening at all. Someone is walking by, someone else is standing nearby; two people exchange glances a few times, and one then approaches the other. It was precisely this inconspicuousness that was historically one of the conditions underpinning the whole system. It wasn’t some sort of secret handbook that gay men were given when they came out. Rather, it was a set of socially learnt signals that spread amongst people and made sense mainly to those who knew what they were looking at.
When the bar wasn’t a safe option
The idea that cruising arose simply because gay men have a greater appetite for anonymous sex overlooks a crucial historical context. For a long time, there were often no places where two men could meet safely and openly.
For example, certain public places in London had a reputation as spots where men seeking other men would meet as early as the beginning of the 18th century. The route between Upper and Middle Moorfields was even known as ‘Sodomite’s Walk’. Today, its former route forms part of the area around London’s Finsbury Square.
From the 19th century onwards, public men’s toilets also played a specific role. In the British context, the term ‘cottaging’ emerged to describe the seeking of sexual encounters between men in such places. These included, for example, London’s public toilets, which were known amongst men as places for cruising – there was even a guidebook from 1937 called *For Your Convenience*, which on the surface was a book about public toilets, but in reality also served as a discreet guide to cottaging spots.
The reason was pragmatic. These were spaces intended for men, where the presence of two strangers did not in itself arouse suspicion. In an environment where homosexual contact was criminalised and the public disclosure of one’s sexuality could have dramatic consequences, such places provided at least a certain degree of anonymity.
The city’s cruising map thus operated in parallel with the official one for a long time. A park was not just a park, and a toilet was not just a toilet. For part of the queer population, it also served as a social infrastructure for meeting people, one that mainstream society often failed to even notice.
A glance was enough. And sometimes not even that
Cruising created something that might seem almost unbelievable to today’s generation, accustomed to Tinder and Grindr – a form of socialising where, at times, hardly a word was spoken.
Much of the negotiation of contact took place non-verbally. Repeated glances, the way one moved through the space, or whether the other person continued in the same direction could all be significant. It was precisely the need to conceal sexual intent from those around them that led to the emergence of subtle codes of communication.
However, it is important not to confuse these historical unwritten signals with universal consent. Consent must be given even in anonymous sex, and no glance, gesture or mere presence at a location constitutes automatic permission for sexual contact.
After all, cruising venues have never been some sort of romantic queer utopia. Secrecy could carry the risk of police intervention, exposure of one’s sexuality or other problems. And sexual activity in public spaces can, of course, come into conflict with the law and with the rights of other people who use the space for entirely different purposes.
It is therefore important to distinguish between two things – cruising as a historical and cultural means of seeking encounters, and sex in public as a specific act with its own legal and ethical boundaries.
Grindr was supposed to change everything. But cruising hasn’t gone away
When geolocation-based gay dating apps became widespread at the turn of the 2000s and 2010s, it might have seemed that traditional cruising had lost its purpose. Why go to the park after dark and try to work out whether a stranger looked at you for a second longer by chance, when your phone can show you men in the immediate vicinity within seconds?
Digital dating has indeed fundamentally transformed the scene. Research published in the journal *Sexualities* explicitly uses the term ‘digital cruising’ to describe dating via Grindr. At the same time, however, it describes an interesting paradox – whilst the app allows users to seek sexual encounters practically anywhere, according to the sample studied, its users often arranged sex over the phone and then retreated to the privacy of their own homes. Physical cruising, however, has not disappeared. This is also confirmed by research published in 2026.
A study focusing on cruising in the Copenhagen area showed that this practice still exists today, for example in the green spaces around the Danish capital. The authors looked not only at the cruisers themselves, but also at how those managing public green spaces view their presence. The research revealed that even in sexually liberal Denmark, cruising gives rise to conflicts concerning who public spaces are intended to serve and what kinds of intimacy society considers acceptable within them.
An even more interesting perspective is offered by recent research from Geneva published in July 2026. Its author, Cihangir Can, spent nine months conducting ethnographic research in Geneva’s parks and public toilets used for cruising. Although some gay men told him on his arrival in the city that public cruising had been virtually replaced by commercial establishments and digital platforms, his research revealed that this culture continues to exist.
Why go to a park when you’ve got Grindr?
The answer to this very question is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the whole phenomenon. Apps are effective, but at the same time they function as a sort of catalogue. People usually display a photograph, their age and other details, whilst at the same time judging others on the basis of similar criteria. Contact thus often begins with a selection process even before two people have met at all.
Cruising works differently. The aforementioned Geneva ethnographic study showed that some encounters can arise without a clear plan in advance. The author describes the significance of wandering, waiting or veering off the usual route – thanks to this, an ordinary place can gradually become sexually meaningful to a person. In this conception, cruising is based not only on desire, but also on chance, ambiguity and the moment when both people understand the significance of the situation. And it is precisely here that another fact emerges, one which may come as a surprise to many heterosexual readers.
Not every man who cruises with men considers himself gay
Sexual behaviour and sexual identity are not always one and the same. Researchers therefore often use the term ‘men who have sex with men’, because not every man who has had sexual experiences with another man also identifies as gay or bisexual.
This year’s Geneva study is particularly interesting in this regard. Of the sixteen men who took part in in-depth interviews, four described themselves as gay, two as bisexual, five as heterosexual, and a further five rejected fixed sexual categories. This is, of course, a small qualitative sample that cannot be generalised to all cruisers, but it illustrates very well why it is not possible to automatically deduce sexuality solely from sexual behaviour.
Furthermore, according to the author, cruising venues allow for sexual contact without a person having to label their orientation beforehand. They do not have to enter a gay bar, create a profile on a gay dating site, or present themselves to others as a member of a particular community.
This does not, of course, mean that every man standing around in the park in the evening is leading a secret double life. Rather, it shows just how significantly real human sexual behaviour can differ from the simple labels we use to categorise sexual orientation.
A relic of the past that refuses to become a thing of the past
Cruising is unique precisely because it belongs to both queer history and the present.
It developed in a world that offered gay men very little safe public space. Parks, public toilets or bathhouses could thus take on a second meaning, often hidden from mainstream society. For some men, such places were not an adventurous alternative to open gay dating – the option to date openly simply did not exist.
Today, the situation is dramatically different in many countries. Gay men can use dating apps, go to queer venues and, far more often, live openly. Yet cruising has not disappeared. For some, it offers anonymity. For others, chance encounters and excitement. Some people don’t want a digital profile or endless messaging. Others may not want to label their sexuality at all.
And then there’s something else – when cruising takes place, the city ceases to function exactly as it was designed to. An ordinary park can become a meeting place. A street corner, a point of interest. A route along which hundreds of unsuspecting people walk every day becomes a space that holds a completely different meaning for some.
That is precisely why cruising is not merely a curiosity of gay sexual life. It is also a reminder of a time when queer people had to create their own spaces within the city, which was unable to provide any safe spaces for them. And the fact that cruising has survived even the era of Grindr suggests that today it is no longer merely a relic of necessity. For some men, it remains a specific way of meeting people that no app has yet been able to fully replace.
