Cottaging
{{Short description|Gay slang term}}{{See also|Gay beat}}File:public lavatorie-Pond Square-London.jpg, Highgate (London Borough of Camden), is the origin of the term cottaging.]] Cottaging is a gay slang term, originating from the United Kingdom, referring to anonymous sex between men in a public lavatory (a "cottage"{{harv|Dalzell|Victor|2007|p=165}} "cottage noun a public lavatory used for homosexual encounters (UK)." or "tea-room"Andre{{harv|Dalzell|Victor|2007|p=642}} "tearoom; t-room noun a public toilet. From an era when a great deal of homosexual contact was in public toilets; probably an abbreviation of 'toilet room'.), or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere.[https://books.google.com/books?id=xJIe1E4myUMC Sex Tips for Gay Guys] by Dan Anderson; Published by Macmillan, 2002; {{ISBN|0-312-28873-5}}, {{ISBN|978-0-312-28873-0}}{{cite news |title=Spies like us: His new thriller uses the latest DNA research and mobile phones as deadly weapons. So why look for inspiration in a Brompton cemetery? Henry Porter recalls a mix of luck, judgement and detective work 21 June 1999 |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/jun/21/features11.g23 |quote=I watched from the corner of my eye and began to notice something else: the men seemed to be pairing off and dipping from view. Finally the penny dropped – I had hit cottaging hour among the moss-covered memorials to Kensington's long-dead bourgeoisie.}} The term has its roots in self-contained English toilet blocks resembling small cottages in their appearance; in the English cant language of Polari this became a double entendre by gay men referring to sexual encounters.[https://books.google.com/books?id=T72TJfZoywAC Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang] by Paul Baker; Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004; {{ISBN|0-8264-7343-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8264-7343-1}}.
The word "cottage", usually meaning a small, cosy, countryside home, is documented as having been in use during the Victorian era to refer to a public toilet and by the 1960s its use in this sense had become an exclusively homosexual slang term.{{citation|title=Passing English of the Victorian era|author=James Redding Ware|author-link=James Redding Ware|year=1909|publisher=EP |isbn=0-85409-932-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/passingenglishof0000ware}}{{citation|title=A minority: a report on the life of the male homosexual in Great Britain|page=74|author=Michael George Schofield, Gordon Westwood|year=1960|quote=Most homosexuals regard 'cottaging' as very sordid and look down upon those who resort to this method of finding partners.}} This usage is predominantly British, though the term is occasionally used with the same meaning in other parts of the world.{{Cite book|year=1984|author=Maupin, A.|title=Babycakes|page=[https://archive.org/details/babycakes00maup_0/page/105 105]|publisher=Harper Collins |quote='I was busted for cottaging... You know..doin' it in a cottage... A cottage', Wilfred repeated. 'A public loo.'|isbn=0-06-092483-7}} Among gay men in the United States, lavatories used for this purpose are called tea rooms.Rodgers, Bruce Gay Talk (The Queen’s Vernacular): A Dictionary of Gay Slang New York:1972 Parragon Books, an imprint of G.P. Putnam’s Sons Page 195.In 1970, an American graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, Laud Humphreys published a famous and controversial PhD dissertation, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, on the tearoom phenomenon, attempting to categorize the diverse social backgrounds and personal motives. See {{harv|Humphreys|1975}}.
Locations
File:Graffiti in Sydney - 0142.jpg
Cottages were and are located in places heavily used by many people such as bus stations, railway stations, airports and university campuses.{{cite news |title='Cottaging' closes campus toilets |author=Johnny Caldwell |date=8 Apr 2008 |newspaper=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7329383.stm |quote=A university toilet block has been closed for more than two years over fears it was being used for sex.}} Often, glory holes are drilled in the walls between cubicles in popular cottages.{{citation|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmcomloc/636/636we25.htm|title=Commons Publications: Memorandum by Chris Ashford, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Sunderland|quote=This submission will focus on addressing the subject of "anti-social behaviour" in public toilets, specifically the subject of sex in public toilets, a practice referred to as "cottaging" ... Evidence of sexual activity in these spaces has traditionally taken the form of sexualised graffiti and/or the drilling of holes in lavatory holes. These holes are termed "glory holes" and dependent upon their size may be to pass a penis through in order for the men to engage in anonymous oral sex and on rare occasions intercourse. They more often serve as a peep hole through to the other toilet or out towards the urinals. On those occasions the person entering the cubicle would check that the adjacent cubicle is empty before unblocking the cubicle hole. These holes are often blocked up by tissue paper which will be removed so that one cubicle occupant can view through to the other. The addition of metal plating on cubicle walls is often an effective mechanism of preventing this. Alternatively the cubicle can be designed with a solid brick wall so as to make the cutting or drilling of a hole impossible.|year=2007|author=Chris Ashford}} Foot signals—tapping a foot, sliding a foot slightly under the divider between stalls, attracting the attention of the occupant of the next stall—are used to signify that one wishes to connect with the person in the next cubicle. In some heavily used cottages, an etiquette develops and one person may function as a lookout to warn if non-cottagers are coming.
Since the 1980s, more individuals in authority have become more aware of the existence of cottages in places under their jurisdiction and have reduced the height of or even removed doors from the cubicles of popular cottages, or extended the walls between the cubicles to the floor to prevent foot signalling.{{cite news |title=A public inconvenience |author=Tom Geoghegan |date=27 Sep 2005 |newspaper=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4285740.stm |quote=To many, the UK's public toilets are a source of national shame. But an international conference under way in Belfast could be the first step towards their rehabilitation.}}{{cite news |title=Council vows to fight public sex |date=16 Aug 2006 |newspaper=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/4797899.stm |quote=A council takes action to stop people using public toilets at a park in Derby for sex.}}
Cottages as meeting places
Before the gay liberation movement, many, if not most, gay and bisexual men at the time were closeted and there were almost no public gay social groups for those under legal drinking age.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/finding-private-passion-in-a-public-place-1155631.html|title=Finding private passion in a public place; Why is it that some gay men go in search of sexual encounters in lavatories?|date=11 April 1998|newspaper=The Independent|quote=But Robert Cole, 40, despises the time he has spent hanging around public lavatories. "I started cottaging at 12 because I was too young to go to pubs, but wanted to find a boyfriend. But it then becomes compulsive and a mechanism for avoiding sorting your life out" ... This month sees the publication of a survey of men who cottage in north London by the Aids Education Unit of Barnet Healthcare NHS Trust. More than 200 men were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire, and the results are eye-opening. Twenty per cent of those questioned started cottaging between the ages of 10 and 14, and 32 per cent started between the ages of 15 and 19. And the survey's finding that just over 75% of those questioned also regularly visit gay social venues and groups somewhat destroys the myth that cottagers are sad, closeted individuals who are unable to come to terms with their sexuality.|author=David Northmore}} As such, cottages were among the few places where men too young to get into gay bars could meet others whom they knew to be gay.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Xu89AAAAIAAJ Prejudice and Pride: Discrimination Against Gay People in Modern Britain] by Bruce Galloway; Published by Routledge, 1983; {{ISBN|0-7100-9916-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-7100-9916-7}}.
The internet brought significant changes to cottaging, which was previously an activity engaged in by men with other men, often in silence with no communication beyond the markings of a cubicle wall.{{cite news
|title=The web of desire or just deceit?: The internet has made it easier than ever to find a partner for casual sex, but having it all on a plate could mean that we end up losing our appetites.
|author=David Smith
|date=26 October 2008
|newspaper=The Observer
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/26/internet-sex-web-desire
|quote=Cottaging in toilets or bushes, in places such as Hampstead Heath, has reportedly declined or even vanished because sex is so readily available via broadband. The author and Gaydar user Mark Simpson once observed: 'If Joe Orton had his time again his diaries would have been just printouts of thousands of Gaydar profiles and alarming digicam photos.'}} Today, an online community is being established in which men exchange details of locations, discussing aspects such as when it receives the highest traffic, when it is safest and to facilitate sexual encounters by arranging meeting times.{{Cite journal |last=Ashford |first=Chris |year=2006 |title=The only gay in the village: Sexuality and the net |publisher=Taylor & Francis |journal=Information & Communications Technology Law |pages=275–289 |volume=15 |issue=3 |doi=10.1080/13600830600961202 |s2cid=143673992 |issn=1360-0834 |oclc=441920510 |quote=Just as the creation of the information society has allowed for the expansion in e-commerce and online communication, so too has it allowed for the expansion of online sites and communities that support minority sexual practices and activities. One such activity is the cottaging phenomenon, which involves men seeking sexual satisfaction in public lavatories with other men. Like many other groups, participants in this online community have embraced the emerging technology, utilising message boards and online discussion to offer advice, spread awareness of locations, arrange sexual meetings in the physical world and share cautions and warnings. }} The term cybercottage is used by some gay and bisexual men who use the role-play and nostalgia of cottaging in a virtual space or as a notice board to arrange real life anonymous sexual encounters.{{Cite journal |title=Revisiting old haunts through new technologies |last=Mowlabocus |first=Sharif |publisher=Sage Publications |year=2008 |journal=International Journal of Cultural Studies |pages=419–439 |volume=11 |issue=4 |issn=1367-8779 |oclc=438850398 |doi=10.1177/1367877908096004 |s2cid=145664316 }}
Laud Humphrey's Tearoom Trade, published in 1970, was a sociological analysis and observance between the social space public "restrooms" (as toilets are euphemistically known in the US) offer for anonymous sex and the men—either closeted, gay, or straight—who sought to fulfill sexual desires that their wives, religion, or social lives could not.{{Cite book|title=Tearoom Trade: a study of homosexual encounters in public places|last=Humphreys|first=Laud|publisher=Transaction Publishers|year=2011|isbn=978-0-202-36942-6}} The study, which was met with praise on one side due to its innovation and criticism on the other due to having outed "straight" men and risked their privacy, brought to light the multidimensionality of public restrooms and the intricacy and complexity of homosexual sex amongst self-identifying straight men.
Legal status
Sexual acts in public lavatories are outlawed by many jurisdictions. It is likely that the element of risk involved in cottaging makes it an attractive activity to some.[https://books.google.com/books?id=TDWtYqEUiWgC Public Sex/gay Space] by William Leap; Published by Columbia University Press, 1999; {{ISBN|0-231-10691-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-231-10691-7}}.{{cite news
|title=Cruise Control
|last=Kirchick
|first=James
|date=1 November 2009
|newspaper=The Advocate
|access-date=22 October 2009
|url=http://www.advocate.com/Print_Issue/Features/Cruise_Control
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091010144019/http://advocate.com/Print_Issue/Features/Cruise_Control/
|archive-date=10 October 2009
|url-status=dead
}}
Historically, in the United Kingdom, public gay sex often resulted in a charge and conviction of gross indecency, an offence only pertaining to sexual acts committed by males and particularly applied to homosexual activity.{{cite news|newspaper=The Times|date=23 June 1965|page=13|issue=56355|title=Police Observation|author=Walter Bluhm|quote=The officers described the toilet in question as a notorious meeting ground and referred to 26 convictions as a result of their observations.}}{{cite news|publisher=The Guardian (London)|date=17 October 1984|title=Far from gay / Prejudice against homosexuals|author=Helen Chappell|quote=There's all the extra police interest – raids on gay bookshops, the changes in the Police Bill, the belief of the 'pretty police' in their holy quest to stamp out cottaging.}} Anal penetration was a separate and much more serious crime that came under the definition of buggery. Buggery was a capital offence between 1533 and 1861 under UK law, although it rarely resulted in a death sentence. Importuning was an offer of sexual gratification between men, often for money. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 permitted sex between consenting men over 21 years of age when conducted in private, but the act specifically excluded public lavatories from being "private". The Sexual Offences Act 2003 replaced this aspect with the offence of "Sexual activity in a public lavatory" which includes solo masturbation.
In some of the cases where people were brought to court for cottaging, the issue of entrapment arose. Since the offences were public but often carried out behind closed lavatory doors, the police sometimes found it easier to use undercover police officers, who would frequent toilets posing as homosexuals in an effort to entice other men to approach them for sex. Clifford Williams, "Gay men and the police 1950-2010" in The Journal of the Police History Society (2019) These men would then be arrested for importuning or soliciting and in some cases indecent assault.
=Timeline of historic cases=
Cultural response
- After the murder of playwright Joe Orton by his boyfriend Kenneth Halliwell in 1967, Orton's diaries were published and included explicit accounts of cottaging in London toilets. The diaries were the basis of the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears and the play of the same name.{{cite news |title=Prick Up Your Ears again: Revisiting Stephen Frears' Joe Orton biopic brought back memories of 1987, when it was a good time for gay cinema, but a bad time to be gay |date=29 March 2007 |last=Gilbey |first=Ryan |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2007/mar/29/prickupyourearsagain |quote=The impressively matter-of-fact scenes of Orton cottaging – picking up sexual partners in public lavatories – won't ruffle any feathers now that George Michael's extracurricular exploits have made that practice a topic fit for discussion in the People's Friend. If the story was set in today's Britain, Orton could simply have done his cruising on Gaydar, though you'd have to agree the film would be the poorer for it. }}
- The film Get Real was based on the 1992 play What's Wrong with Angry?, which features schoolboys cottaging as a key theme.{{cite news |title=Interview: What's wrong with angry? Gay play revived for Edinburgh |last=Grew |first=Tony |date=17 July 2008 |newspaper=Pink News |access-date=21 October 2009 |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8405.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110921154044/http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8405.html |archive-date=21 September 2011 |url-status=dead }}
- The 1992 play Porcelain by Singaporean-born playwright Chay Yew describes cottaging as a backdrop of violence between a gay Asian man and his white lover in a Bethnal Green lavatory.{{Cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-porcelain-chay-yew-review-story.html|title=Chinese immigrant's story in Chay Yew's insightful 'Porcelain'|last=Reid|first=Kerry|website=chicagotribune.com|date=24 June 2015 |access-date=2020-02-18}}
- The Chinese film East Palace, West Palace, released in 1996, is centred on cottaging activity in Beijing.{{cite news |title=An erotic relationship of convenience |last=Spencer |first=Charles |date=20 February 2009 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4710358/An-erotic-relationship-of-convenience.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100615023623/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4710358/An-erotic-relationship-of-convenience.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 June 2010}}
- The modern dance company, DV8, staged a piece in 2003 called Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM), which explicitly portrayed the theme of cottaging.{{cite news|last=Arditti|first=Michael|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/dance--at-the-theatre-of-blood-and-bruises-dv8-tread-a-fine-line-between-athleticism-and-masochism-their-new-work-msm-goes-one-step-further-michael-arditti-reports-1502507.html|title=Dance: At the theatre of blood and bruises: DV8 tread a fine line between athleticism and masochism. Their new work MSM goes one step further.|date=6 November 1993|newspaper=The Independent|quote=Unlike his previous work, which was created from company improvisations, MSM is based on detailed research. The piece sprang from a project at the National Theatre Studio in which Newson and six hand-picked actors conducted formal interviews with men who 'cottaged'. They were given two days' technical training by a consultant and worked to a very specific brief, with guideline questions including personal background, age, job, how they defined themselves sexually and first 'cottaging' experience.}}
- Nicholas de Jongh's play Plague Over England was based on the arrest and conviction of John Gielgud for cottaging and premièred in 2008.{{cite news |title=Plague Over England at Finborough Theatre, London SW10 |last=Nightingale |first=Benedict |date=1 March 2008 |newspaper=The Times |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3463540.ece |quote=The protagonist is Jasper Britton’s recently-knighted John Gielgud and the central event his conviction for some Chelsea cottaging that amounted to barely more than a smile. But this was 1953, a time when the Montagu scandal would soon be inflaming the pharisees and Pecksniffs. The actor contemplated suicide and faced ruin, only to find that his public was more supportive than even the gay impresario Binkie Beaumont, who had to be gently blackmailed into retaining Gielgud as the star of a pre-London tour. Days after being fined and pilloried in the press, he walked on to the stage in Liverpool to a standing ovation. }}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
- The 2017 video game The Tearoom by independent developer Robert Yang simulates cottaging practices set in a public restroom in 1962 Mansfield, Ohio.{{cite web|website=Kotaku|last=Starkey|first=Dan|date=30 June 2017|title=Penis-Gun Game Explores Illegal Gay Hookups In The '60s|url=https://kotaku.com/penis-gun-game-explores-illegal-gay-hookups-in-the-60s-1796561708|accessdate=27 December 2023}}
See also
{{portal|LGBTQ|Human sexuality}}
References
= Citations =
{{Reflist|33em}}
= Sources =
- {{Cite book |last1=Dalzell |first1=Tom |year=2007 |title=The concise new Partridge dictionary of slang and unconventional English |first2=Terry |last2=Victor |editor=Tom Dalzell |editor2=Terry Victor |publisher=Routledge |isbn = 978-0-415-21259-5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cCVnlIUTpg4C }}
- {{Cite book |last=French |first=Robert |year=1993 |title=Camping by a billabong: gay and lesbian stories from Australian history |publisher=BlackWattle Press |isbn = 978-1-875243-14-3 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=kR0bAAAAYAAJ }}
- {{Cite book |last=Humphreys |first=Laud |year=1975 |title=Tearoom trade: impersonal sex in public places |edition=2 |publisher=Aldine Transaction |isbn = 978-0-202-30283-6 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FyUzI_iWzw8C }}
{{LGBT slang}}
{{Toilets}}