”īut more generally, he argues, cruising is dying out. “I’m not familiar with protocol, but I think cottaging has sort of synced with apps in a way - I’ve been on Grindr at stations on occasion, and people will write that they’re waiting in a particular.
) If anything, as an anonymous cruiser tells me, apps like Grindr have stepped in where these intricate rituals of foot-tapping left off. and the U.S., where stings still happen pretty regularly. (It should be noted, however, sex in a public toilet remains illegal in the U.K. Now, it’s arguable that these codes are less necessary than ever. Of course, that’s not to say it didn’t exist - more that firsthand knowledge has been destroyed through censorship, erasure and the decimation of an older, pre-internet gay generation by the AIDS crisis. Internet folklore suggests there are specific codes, one of which is rumored to be 4-2-9 - a reference to the numbers used to tap out “G-A-Y” on an old-school phone - but none of the three LGBTQ+ history professors I interviewed knew anything about it. Then comes the hand, followed by a dick ready to be sucked. The back-and-forth continues until both guys are pretty sure there’s a shared aim - obviously, this is where Craig fucked up. A guy looking for sex in a public restroom pulls his pants and underwear all the way down to his ankles while sitting. Someone else looking will sit in the stall right next to it. One user, hilariously named NotLarr圜raig, breaks things down pretty comprehensively : “A guy looking for sex in a public restroom will choose a stall farthest from the door. ” Glory holes were sometimes drilled into walls for ease, but not always - and police officers naturally sought them out and covered them up, so old-school gays had to get creative with their tapping protocol.Īs always, Reddit houses some pretty valuable, niche insight.
In the U.K., these hotspots were called “cottages” in the U.S., they were called “tearooms” - ironically, a term rumored to reference the British slang term “tea,” which means “piss. This game of kinky cat-and-mouse is known as “tapping.” It started in the days before gay sex was decriminalized, when men would frequent public restrooms in the hopes of finding someone to fuck. In case you hadn’t guessed, Craig was sending a very clear message: He was very much DTF. Things escalated quickly over the next few minutes, with Craig first brushing the officer’s foot with his own and then reaching down to slide his wedding ring-clad hand under the divider. “At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his foot,” wrote the cop, who recognized this as a “signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.” According to a police report, which quickly ruined both his career and reputation, the senator was hiding out in a Minnesota airport bathroom stall when a cop entered the stall next to him.
Back in 2007, Republican Senator Larry Craig found himself in the midst of a media shitstorm that offered a glimpse into a hidden, occasionally dangerous pocket of gay history.