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Cottaging

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The appearance of public lavatories, like this one in Pond Square, 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"[1] or "tea-room"[2]),[3] or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere.[4][5] 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.[6]

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.[7][8] This usage is predominantly British, though the term is occasionally used with the same meaning in other parts of the world.[9] Among gay men in the United States in the early 1970s, lavatories used for this purpose were called tea rooms.[10][11]

Locations

[edit]
Graffiti on the side of a cubicle in a male toilet. Sydney, Australia 2024

Cottages were and are located in places heavily used by many people such as bus stations, railway stations, airports and university campuses.[12] Often, glory holes are drilled in the walls between cubicles in popular cottages.[13] 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.[11]

Since the 1980s, more individuals in authority have become more aware of the existence of cottages in places under their jurisdiction; as such, they 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.[14][15]

Australia

[edit]
An underground toilet block located at the northern end of Taylor Square, that was a popular place for people to cruise for gay sex in Sydney for decades[16] until its closure in 1998.[17][16] In 2024 the toilet block became a part of Qtopia Sydney, and it now hosts "...adults-only exhibitions exploring Sydney's gay beat, sauna and cruising culture of the 1980s and 90s...".[16] 2025
Construction hoarding alongside Oxford street in Darlinghurst,[18] Sydney that references the underground toilets in Taylor Square, Darlinghurst, indicating their connection to the queer community through it being a popular place for people to randomly meet and have sex.[16] 2025

An underground toilet block located at the northern end of Taylor Square, Sydney, that was opened to the public in 1883,[17] was a popular place for people to cruise for gay sex in Sydney for decades[16] until its closure in 1998.[17][16]

In 2024 the toilet block became a part of Qtopia Sydney,[19][20] a museum that has an extensive collection of objects related to queer culture in Sydney[21][22] and the toilet block has hosted "exhibitions exploring Sydney's gay beat, sauna and cruising culture of the 1980s and 90s."[16]

Another popular gay cruising location is a public toilet block off Yarra Bend Road in Melbourne[23] and it has been commented in a 2012 article that "As a dutiful dog walker I have been an observer of the beat for a long time...In all the years I’ve been walking by, I have only seen this car park empty once...for the cruisers, at least those daytime subjects of my curiosity, are not chatty folk. Their language is a subtle one of glances and head-turns – I’ve never seen them converse. They pull into the car park, sometimes sit for a while, sometimes move straight to the toilets; there are always one or two lonely souls wandering the grass. The men size each other up continuously, hyper-alert to each new arrival. Some stay only briefly, others settle in for the afternoon. Cars come and go, all kinds of cars – muscle cars, tradesmen’s vans, family station wagons. The men are all kinds, too – young, old, business-suited, tracksuited...The busiest times are lunch and after dark – the narrow road becomes jammed."[23]

Cottages as meeting places

[edit]

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.[24] 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.[25]

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.[26] Today, an online community has been 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.[13][27] 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.[3]

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.[28] 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.

George Michael

[edit]
The music video for the song "Outside"[29] by George Michael satirises the events that occurred during his April 1998 arrest in a public toilet in Los Angeles.[30][31] In 2004 he commented that "I do think I was set up between Fleet Street and the Beverly Hills Police Force. I'm absolutely convinced...I found out things in the week after that arrest that totally suggest that there was corrupt, major corruption going on."[32]
Public toilets on Hampstead Heath, which has been described as "...the most popular cruising area in London"[33] that has a long history of gay cruising going back to Victorian times.[34] In response to a 2006 News of the World story alleging that George Michael had sex on Hampstead Heath,[35] Michael responded "I went out last Tuesday night and uh, came off of Hampstead Heath, I don't even remember if I got any action right,...I don't suppose this will be much of a... story. Which I don't suppose it would have been without the addition of a completely fabricated encounter..."[36]

Cruising for sex

[edit]

The UK popstar George Michael began cruising for gay sex when he was 16 in 1979[31] and in an interview in 2004 he commented that, "When I made the 'Outside' video I knew I was helping a whole generation of 15-year-olds who are cruising and dying of shame about it. I felt that lightening the stigma around cruising was the most immediately beneficial thing I could do. I know for a fact that when I was 16, 17, when I started cruising, that watching the 'Outside' video would have taken some of the weight off my shoulders."[31]

In the same interview Michael further went on to comment that cruising for gay sex was something that he had done throughout his entire life, "...that’s the wonderful thing about cruising. The vast majority of men were either married or in the closet. So you have a mutual secret and that’s pretty water tight...If you’re a suburban cruiser like my good self and you like guys that are really straight-acting, then most of the people you pick up...are not going to tell your secret because they’ve got one themselves. I mean, fuck, it worked for years. Interviewer: Was there a moment when people would double-take and realise it was you? Michael: I think probably most of them did. Sometimes we’d talk about it afterwards and have a laugh..."[37]

Michael also commented that having gay sex with while cruising was one of the ways he was able to meet new people "One of the things about cruising and having a secret sex life for so long is that...it meant that I was constantly meeting ordinary people...And I still believe that with the people I meet for sex. It’s nowhere near as regular as it was but I constantly meet new people via people that I know are cool and I can trust. When you meet somebody, see them a few times, and basically say, ‘who do you know that’s cool and tasty with a big knob?’ [laughing] and I meet people all the time that way.[38]

On the 19th of September 2008 Michael was arrested inside the South End Green underground toilets[39] just over 100 metres from Hampstead Heath station and the southern end of Hampstead Heath.[40] He was found to be in possession of Class A and Class C drugs and was taken to the police station and cautioned for controlled substance possession.[40] In 2009 he discussed what occurred in an interview with the Guardian,[41] "Interviewer: 'And did you have crack with you then?' George Michael: 'No, that wasn't any, that wasn't the car thing. That was another little sexual, that was one of my little sexual things. Anything to do with cruising I don't give a shit really what people think, really... ...you know I've sex in the wong places and they don't agree with my geography when it comes to sex I really don't give a shit...'. Interviewer: '...Were you smoking crack?' Michael: 'Was I? On that occasion? Yeah. You know I didn’t go in there with it. I just said yes as they...' [...said yes as they were doing it in the South End Green underground toilets.]".[42]

1998 arrest in a public toilet in Los Angeles

[edit]

On the 6th of April 1998[43] George Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act"[44] in a public toilet in Los Angeles. Michael commented in a November 1998 MTV interview[45] that "I got followed into the restroom and then this cop — I didn't know it was a cop, obviously — he started playing this game, which I think is called, 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm going to nick you!'...Actually, what happened was once he got an eyeful, he walked past me, straight past me and out, and I thought, that's kind of odd. I thought, maybe he's just not impressed. And then I went to walk back to my car, and as I got back to the car, I was arrested on the street. ... If someone's waving their genitalia at you, you don't automatically assume that they're an officer of the law...".[45] Whilst on the Late Show with David Letterman Michael commented that "...actually the police report said that he was simulating urination...if you tried to simulate urination doing that with your hand you'd get wee all over the shop is all I can say."[46] Michael further commented on Letterman that "...the police are not allowed to do something illegal in order to make you do something illegal, you know, it was definite entrapment."[47]

Michael was not obligated to attend the court hearing in person which he did not do[48] and he pleaded "no contest" to the charge in court and was given an $810 fine and ordered to do 80 hours of community service[49][50] and Michael commented that "...normally if you pay your fine you don't do community service but I'm doing community service which is yet to be arranged but I will do it...".[51] Michael also commented that he had "...been given, twice the probation people normally get..."[51] which was a 2 year probation period and that he was ordered to participate in sex therapy[48][50] and was given double the penalty that would normally be given in such a circumstance.[48] He also commented that the judge said he would "...throw me in jail next time" if he did it again[48] and that the toilet in the music video for "Outside" was not the same as the one he was arrested at as he was "...not allowed to go back there...".[52] Later on in 1998 Michael satirised the events in the music video for the song "Outside"[30][31][29] and was sued by one of the officers in the original arrest for portraying him as non-heterosexual and mocking him and the suit was ultimately dismissed.[53][54][55]

Michael has commented in relation to his arrest on MTV in 2004 that "It was definitely setup, but, on top of the setup, I was like one of the people setting myself up, you know, they only had to do two thirds of the work... ."[56] In a 2004 TV interview for Danish television he commented that "I do think I was set up between Fleet Street and the Beverly Hills Police Force. I'm absolutely convinced that there was serious corruption going on. And I found out things in the week after that arrest that totally suggest that there was corrupt, major corruption going on."[32] In a 1998 TV interview in the Netherlands Michael commented, "...the actual arrest, the arrest itself was illegal so the video is my perfect opportunity. I mean, i might not be able to tell people exactly what happened but i can at least say, 'look, one I can laugh about it... Interviewer: You were arrested for disorderly conduct, how disorderly was it? Michael: Well it was no, no more or less disorderly than the policeman involved put it that way." [57] In a 2012 LBC radio interview Michael also commented that "I mean I promise you the day that I got arrested in, in Los Angeles...the day that that happened, because it was all organized between um the News of the World and the, or the Sun, and the the LA police. Believe me, it was a setup, right?...But the day that they actually succeeded in outing me, the Sun newspaper closed down for the afternoon and had a party."[58]

In a November 1998 MTV interview it was commented that after his arrest in Los Angeles for "engaging in lewd conduct" Michael and his partner Kenny Goss were still together "...you didn't break up, it didn't break up your relationship, you guys are still together." with Michael responding "...no and apart from anything else you know, um, even though, I'm not saying I have an open relationship with my boyfriend but he knows who I am. He knows that you know, I'm generally oversexed, so, so he's been very very good... ...it's just he, just we love each other and, and he understands that it was a stupid mistake and, and he's forgiven me I hope."[59] Later on, in a July 2002 interview Michael commented that he was in an open relationship with Kenny Goss saying, "...maybe because I'm, I'm stupid enough to be honest about the fact that I'm not monogamous. Uh, I'm in a long-term relationship. Um, I've been together with my partner for six years. We're in our seventh year... ...We're not monogamous. We live the way many gay couples do...".[60]

Michael further commented in 2004 on Danish television on the way he was publicly outed in Los Angeles, "...it's funny though, I don't,.. ...I don't really even look back and think what was I thinking or regret it because so much good stuff came out of that for me personally, that uh, you know laughable though it is, it doesn't bother me in the slightest."[61]

Hampstead Heath story in a 2006 edition of the "News of the World"

[edit]

In July 2006 the "News of the World" published a story that alleged that Michael had been having sex on Hampstead Heath in London on the 18th of July 2006.[35][62] Whilst being interviewed for TV on BBC News 24 shortly after the "News of the World" story was published Michael commented that he had "...never ever seen let alone wanted to have any kind of sexual encounter with..."[63] the individual the News of the World alleged that Michael had sex with.

On the 27th of July 2006 Michael commented further that "I went out last Tuesday night and uh, came off of Hampstead Heath, I don't even remember if I got any action right,...and my car was parked right by the public foot, footpath off of Hampstead Heath, or one of them, because I have nothing to hide. I don't worry about people seeing my car there you know, I walked straight off a public pathway on my own...[There were] two photographers who have been tailing me for the best part of 6 months, almost 24 hours a day...went home...I don't suppose this will be much of a of a story. Which I don't suppose it would have been without the addition of a completely fabricated encounter with I suppose a very deliberately chosen very unattractive man in order to try and somehow turn...[it] into some act of desperation, you know."[36]

Michael has further commented that "...the absolutely normal thing to do, is to do it at 2:00 in the morning because...if you cruise um, out of sight of the average individual or an individual who's not involved in that cruising then you are in, within the parameters of the law..."[64] Michael also commented that "...there are people able legally to follow me around 24 hours a day...as long as they have cameras, that to me is the issue...".[65] During the BBC News 24 interview Michael further described his gay cruising as being "de facto" private, saying "...it's private that's the point, what I was doing was private...I don't know anybody that actually goes to Hampstead Heath at 2:00 in the morning for anything other than the reason of playing about...If they are there at 2:00 in the morning then they're a little bit strange or they just don't know the local area...".[35] In the 2007 Extras Christmas Special Michael appears in a scene which begins with Ricky Gervais's character, Andy Millman, sitting on a park bench on Hampstead Heath talking to a third character who is cruising for gay sex, and then ends with Michael leaving the bench and walking off into the Heath to cruise for sex in the bushes while a newspaper photographer then arrives looking for a photo and they are then told of Michael's hidden location inside the bushes by Andy Millman.[66]

Later on in 1998, after George Michael had beeen arrested in Los Angeles Boy George commented that "I think it was really a lot of fuss about nothing really. I mean, I think it's okay to have sex in public places. I live on Hampstead Heath. Everybody does it up there."[67]

[edit]

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.[68][69]

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.[70][71] 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.[69] 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.[72] These men would then be arrested for importuning or soliciting and in some cases indecent assault.

Timeline of historic cases

[edit]
Date Event
1943 Newspaper editor Clarence McNulty[73] was arrested for wilfully and obscenely exposing his person in the Lang Park toilets near Wynyard railway station, Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. He denied the charges and this early case highlighted the practice of the police using pretty policemen[74] (i.e. as "bait") to entrap the public. As only one police officer was present in the toilet, the magistrate determined that the police were unable to correctly corroborate the evidence and gave McNulty the benefit of the doubt.[75]
1946 Sir George Robert Mowbray, 5th Baronet, was fined for importuning men at Piccadilly Circus Underground station.[76]
1940s Labour MP Tom Driberg was charged with indecent assault after two men shared his bed in the 1940s and used his position as a journalist several times to get off later charges when caught soliciting in public toilets by the police.[77][78]
1953 Actor John Gielgud was arrested and fined £10 for cottaging ("persistently importuning").[79][80][81]
1953 MP William J. Field was arrested for persistently importuning in a public toilet. Field appealed against the conviction twice but failed on both occasions.[82][83][84][85]
1954 American mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. arrested in a public toilet in Santa Monica, California. He was stripped of his top-secret security clearance and fired from the think tank where he was a consultant.[86]
1956 Sir David Milne-Watson was fined for importuning at South Kensington railway station.[87]
1962 On 6 November 1962, actor Wilfrid Brambell was arrested in a toilet in Shepherd's Bush for persistently importuning.[88]
1962 In 1962, the Mansfield, Ohio Police Department conducted a sting operation in which they covertly filmed men having sex in the public restroom underneath Central Park. Thirty-eight men were convicted and jailed for sodomy. After the arrest, the city closed the restrooms and backfilled the site. The police later made a training film of the footage. It was rereleased in 2007 as Tearoom.[89]
1964 In October, US President Lyndon B. Johnson's aide Walter Jenkins was arrested in a YMCA in Washington, D.C., and the case was subsequently dismissed.[90][91]
1968 Michael Turnbull was arrested in Hull for cottaging in a public toilet, before he became Bishop of Durham.[92]
1975 In September 1975, actor Peter Wyngarde was arrested (under his real name, Cyril Louis Goldbert) in Gloucester bus station public toilets for gross indecency with Richard Jack Whalley (a truck driver). He was fined £75.[93]
1976 Sixty-six-year-old retired U.S. Major General Edwin Walker made sexual advances to an undercover police officer in a public lavatory at a park in Dallas, Texas, on June 23, 1976, and was arrested for public lewdness. The general pleaded no contest and was fined $1,000 and court costs.[94]
1976 Former Judge G. Harrold Carswell was convicted of battery for advances he made to an undercover police officer in a Tallahassee public lavatory.[95]
1981 Coronation Street actor Peter Dudley was observed exposing himself to another man in a public toilet in Didsbury, Manchester, and was charged with importuning. He pleaded guilty and was fined £200. Some months later, Dudley was charged again with gross indecency for an alleged similar offence, though this time he claimed he was not guilty and had been set up by the police. A Crown Court jury failed to reach a verdict, but while waiting for a retrial, Dudley suffered a series of strokes and heart attacks and died on 20 October 1983.[96]
1984 The Labour MP Roger Thomas was convicted in Swansea of importuning for immoral purposes in a men's lavatory. He was fined £75.[97]
1984 Actor Leonard Sachs was fined for importuning in a public toilet.[98]
1988 Australian radio personality Alan Jones was arrested in a public lavatory block in London's West End and charged with two counts of outraging public decency by behaving in an indecent manner under the Westminster by-laws. He was later cleared of all charges and awarded costs.[99]
1990 British pop star Stedman Pearson (of the group Five Star) appeared at Kingston Magistrates Court in October 1990 and pleaded guilty to a charge of public indecency after being arrested in a public toilet in New Malden in London.[100][101][102][103][104]
1998 On the 6th of April 1998[43] George Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act"[44] in a public toilet in Los Angeles. Michael commented in a November 1998 MTV interview[45] that "I got followed into the restroom and then this cop... ...started playing this game, which I think is called, 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm going to nick you!'... ...If someone's waving their genitalia at you, you don't automatically assume that they're an officer of the law...".[45] Whilst on the Late Show with David Letterman Michael commented that "...actually the police report said that he was simulating urination...if you tried to simulate urination doing that with your hand you'd get wee all over the shop is all I can say."[46] Michael further commented on Letterman that "...the police are not allowed to do something illegal in order to make you do something illegal, you know, it was definite entrapment."[47] He was given an $810 fine and ordered to do 80 hours of community service[49][50] and was ordered to participate in sex therapy[48][50] In a 2004 TV interview he commented that "I do think I was set up between Fleet Street and the Beverly Hills Police Force. I'm absolutely convinced that there was serious corruption going on. And I found out things in the week after that arrest that totally suggest that there was corrupt, major corruption going on."[32]
1998 In October 1998, Labour Party MP Ron Davies was mugged at knifepoint on Clapham Common. He resigned after it became clear he was engaging in homosexual activities in a known cottaging area.[105][106][107][108]
2007 On 11 June 2007, Republican US Senator Larry Craig was arrested in the men's public toilet in the Lindbergh Terminal of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport for allegedly soliciting sex. Craig later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and announced his intent to resign from his post as Republican senator from Idaho; ultimately,[109] he did not resign. He contested his guilty plea, paid a fine, and served out his term; he did not run for re-election in 2008.[110][111]

Cultural response

[edit]
A sign outside a toilet cubicle in the Duke of Wellington gay bar in Soho which explains that it is one person per cubicle. 2023

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]

Citations

[edit]
  1. ↑ (Dalzell & Victor 2007, p. 165) "cottage noun a public lavatory used for homosexual encounters (UK)."
  2. ↑ Andre(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'.
  3. 1 2 Mowlabocus, Sharif (2008). "Revisiting old haunts through new technologies". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 11 (4). Sage Publications: 419–439. doi:10.1177/1367877908096004. ISSN 1367-8779. OCLC 438850398. S2CID 145664316.
  4. ↑ Sex Tips for Gay Guys by Dan Anderson; Published by Macmillan, 2002; ISBN 0-312-28873-5, ISBN 978-0-312-28873-0
  5. ↑ "Spies lke 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". The Guardian. 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.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ James Redding Ware (1909), Passing English of the Victorian era, EP, ISBN 0-85409-932-8 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  8. ↑ Michael George Schofield, Gordon Westwood (1960), A minority: a report on the life of the male homosexual in Great Britain, p. 74, Most homosexuals regard 'cottaging' as very sordid and look down upon those who resort to this method of finding partners.
  9. ↑ Maupin, A. (1984). Babycakes. Harper Collins. p. 105. ISBN 0-06-092483-7. 'I was busted for cottaging... You know..doin' it in a cottage... A cottage', Wilfred repeated. 'A public loo.'
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. 1 2 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 (Humphreys 1975).
  12. ↑ Johnny Caldwell (8 Apr 2008). "'Cottaging' closes campus toilets". BBC News. A university toilet block has been closed for more than two years over fears it was being used for sex.
  13. 1 2 Chris Ashford (2007), Commons Publications: Memorandum by Chris Ashford, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Sunderland, 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.
  14. ↑ Tom Geoghegan (27 Sep 2005). "A public inconvenience". BBC News. 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.
  15. ↑ "Council vows to fight public sex". BBC News. 16 Aug 2006. A council takes action to stop people using public toilets at a park in Derby for sex.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jordan Hirst (22 April 2024). "Qtopia Sydney has transformed the Taylor Square substation". Q news. Retrieved 26 March 2025. The historic Underground Men's Conveniences were built over a century ago at Taylor Square. The public toilet was also a popular beat in the heart of gay Sydney for decades until its closure in 1988. Now as part of Qtopia, The Toilet Block will host adults-only exhibitions exploring Sydney's gay beat, sauna and cruising culture of the 1980s and 90s.
  17. 1 2 3 "Taylor Square Substation No.6 & Underground Public Conveniences". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H01700. Retrieved 14 October 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  18. ↑ "Proud, pink and full of pop: The artwork making Oxford Street look the part". City of Sydney. 8 December 2022. Retrieved 20 March 2026.
  19. ↑ Douglas Magaletti (27 March 2024). "The Substation At LGBTQ Museum Qtopia Sydney Now open". StarObserver. Retrieved 17 March 2025.
  20. ↑ "Locations". Qtopia Sydney. Retrieved 26 March 2025.
  21. ↑ "Australian-first queer museum Qtopia opens as Sydney WorldPride kicks off". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 February 2023. Retrieved 21 March 2026.
  22. ↑ "The Polson Effect". Star Observer. 3 January 2024. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  23. 1 2 "Sex and Secrets in Public Parks". The Monthly. Australia. 13 February 2012. Archived from the original on 1 July 2026. Retrieved 1 July 2026. As a dutiful dog walker I have been an observer of the beat for a long time – long enough to know that observation makes cruisers nervous, although not so nervous as to abandon their quests. The toilet block off Yarra Bend Road, on the edge of off-leash territory, is one of the busiest hubs of the beat... ...In all the years I've been walking by, I have only seen this car park empty once... ...for the cruisers, at least those daytime subjects of my curiosity, are not chatty folk. Their language is a subtle one of glances and head-turns – I've never seen them converse. They pull into the car park, sometimes sit for a while, sometimes move straight to the toilets; there are always one or two lonely souls wandering the grass. The men size each other up continuously, hyper-alert to each new arrival. Some stay only briefly, others settle in for the afternoon. Cars come and go, all kinds of cars – muscle cars, tradesmen's vans, family station wagons. The men are all kinds, too – young, old, business-suited, tracksuited... ...The busiest times are lunch and after dark – the narrow road becomes jammed.
  24. ↑ David Northmore (11 April 1998). "Finding private passion in a public place; Why is it that some gay men go in search of sexual encounters in lavatories?". The Independent. 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.
  25. ↑ 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.
  26. ↑ David Smith (26 October 2008). "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". The Observer. 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.'
  27. ↑ Ashford, Chris (2006). "The only gay in the village: Sexuality and the net". Information & Communications Technology Law. 15 (3). Taylor & Francis: 275–289. doi:10.1080/13600830600961202. ISSN 1360-0834. OCLC 441920510. S2CID 143673992. 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.
  28. ↑ Humphreys, Laud (2011). Tearoom Trade: a study of homosexual encounters in public places. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-202-36942-6.
  29. 1 2 "George Michael - Outside (Official Video)". Youtube. George Michael. 24 November 2009. Retrieved 1 May 2025.
  30. 1 2 "George Michael: RARE Throwback 1998 Australia Interview". youtube. Sound Museum. 1 May 2025. Event occurs at 17:15. Retrieved 17 June 2026. Interviewer: You've had some fun with the video, haven't you, with "Outside"? Michael: Oh, yeah. Interviewer: There's a lot of, a lot of gagging going on there. Michael: Absolutely. But there had to be, didn't there? Interviewer: Take us through some of the images and some of the lyrics in the song. Michael: It's about the fact that, that, you know I got arrested in a public place, which, you know, public depends how you want, what you want to call public. Of course, it was a public place. It was a stupid thing to do, but there was nobody around regardless of what the police arrest report said. There was absolutely nobody else around. And um so really what you're talking about is what I thought was a private situation, right? And then and, and ultimately you're still just talking about sex and sex is sex, whether it's in the middle of a park or in a bedroom or on a table or whatever. You know, it was really I suppose just drawing attention to that immediately, was saying, "well, look, you know, this is really about where it happened, not what happened.
  31. 1 2 3 4 "George Michael's candid 2004 interview with Attitude". Attitude. Archived from the original on 19 June 2026. Retrieved 20 June 2026. When I made the 'Outside' video I knew I was helping a whole generation of 15-year-olds who are cruising and dying of shame about it. I felt that lightening the stigma around cruising was the most immediately beneficial thing I could do. I know for a fact that when I was 16, 17, when I started cruising, that watching the 'Outside' video would have taken some of the weight off my shoulders.
  32. 1 2 3 "George Michael on Coming Out As Gay (2004)". Youtube. 14 June 2026. Event occurs at 0:10. Retrieved 18 June 2026. ...I do believe in retrospect that there were three entities, you know, um planning that particular uh fall from grace, let's say. Um, and I think it was I do think I was set up between Fleet Street and the Beverly Hills Police Force. I'm absolutely convinced that there was serious corruption going on. And I found out things in the week after that arrest that totally suggest that there was corrupt, major corruption going on.
  33. ↑ "George Michael Interview on Cruising, Homophobia, and the Press (2006)". YouTube. Frontline by ITN. Event occurs at 20:08. Retrieved 20 June 2026. ...the position I put myself in at, at 2:00 in the morning, a mile from my house right in the most popular cruising area in London...
  34. ↑ "Hampstead Heath hampstead heath dog walkers homophobic cruising campaign". The Daily Telegraph. 9 March 2025. Archived from the original on 5 April 2025. Retrieved 16 April 2025.
  35. 1 2 3 "George Michael in BBC NEWS". YouTube. 2Funkyangel. Event occurs at 2:15. Retrieved 20 June 2026. ...it's private, that's the point. what I was doing was private... ...I don't know anybody that actually goes to Hampstead Heath at 2:00 in the morning for anything other than the reason of playing about... ...If they are there at 2:00 in the morning then they're a little bit strange or they just don't know the local area..."
  36. 1 2 "George Michael Interview on Cruising, Homophobia, and the Press (2006)". YouTube. Frontline by ITN. Event occurs at 3:40. Retrieved 20 June 2026. I went out last Tuesday night and uh, came off of Hampstead Heath, I don't even remember if I got any action right,... ...and my car was parked right by the public foot, footpath off of Hampstead Heath, or one of them, because I have nothing to hide. I don't worry about people seeing my car there you know, I walked straight off a public pathway on my own... ...[There were] two photographers who have been tailing me for the best part of 6 months, almost 24 hours a day... ...went home... ...I don't suppose this will be much of a of a story. Which I don't suppose it would have been without the addition of a completely fabricated encounter with I suppose a very deliberately chosen very unattractive man in order to try and somehow turn... ...[it] into some act of desperation, you know.
  37. ↑ "George Michael's candid 2004 interview with Attitude". Attitude. Archived from the original on 19 June 2026. Retrieved 20 June 2026. Interviewer: Weren't you worried all the time about someone going 'oh my god, I've just picked up George Michael' and then hopping off to the papers and selling the story? Michael: Well, that's the wonderful thing about cruising. The vast majority of men were either married or in the closet. So you have a mutual secret and that's pretty water tight. Especially if you're cruising outside London. If you're a suburban cruiser like my good self and you like guys that are really straight-acting, then most of the people you pick up, whether you take them home or do it there and then, are not going to tell your secret because they've got one themselves. I mean, fuck, it worked for years. Interviewer: Was there a moment when people would double-take and realise it was you? Michael: I think probably most of them did. Sometimes we'd talk about it afterwards and have a laugh...
  38. ↑ "George Michael's candid 2004 interview with Attitude". Attitude. Archived from the original on 19 June 2026. Retrieved 20 June 2026. Interviewer: Was cruising your secret place? Michael: One of the things about cruising and having a secret sex life for so long is that I think it helped me keep my feet on the ground. Because I was constantly in contact with people that I had a shared secret with... ...And it meant that I was constantly meeting ordinary people... And I still believe that with the people I meet for sex. It's nowhere near as regular as it was but I constantly meet new people via people that I know are cool and I can trust. When you meet somebody, see them a few times, and basically say, 'who do you know that's cool and tasty with a big knob?' [laughing] and I meet people all the time that way.
  39. ↑ "South End Green Public Conveniences". Point of Entry. 16 July 2025. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  40. 1 2 "George Michael arrest over drugs". BBC. 21 September 2008. Archived from the original on 14 August 2010. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  41. ↑ Hattenstone, Simon (5 December 2009). "George Michael: 'I'm surprised I've survived my own dysfunction'". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  42. ↑ "George Michael The Guardian interview - Recorded at george michael's house". YouTube. AEFAN CHANNEL. 18 November 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026. Interviewer: 'And did you have crack with you then?' George Michael: 'No, that wasn't any, that wasn't the car thing. That was another little sexual, that was one of my little sexual things. Anything to do with cruising I don't give a shit really what people think, really... ...you know I've sex in the wong places and they don't agree with my geography when it comes to sex I really don't give a shit...'. Interviewer: '...Were you smoking crack?' George Michael: 'Was I? On that occasion? Yeah. You know I didn't go in there with it I just said yes as they...' [said yes as they were doing it in the south end green underground toilets.]
  43. 1 2 "Real TV interview with George Michael". YouTube. The Illusionist 17. 23 September 2017. Event occurs at 0:12. Retrieved 1 July 2026. Interviewer:...April 7th, what,... Michael: 6th Interviewer: 6th, I'm sorry, okay April 6th, what was going on that led to the arrest?
  44. 1 2 "George Michael TV Special (BIO Channel)". YouTube. Sound Museum. 1 August 2025. Event occurs at 0:56. Retrieved 22 June 2026. Michaels was arrested for a violation of 647A of the penal code 'engaging in a lewd act'. George Michae: In a way, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. What I was embarrassed by was the kind of stupidity of it. Um, and then it took me a long while to realize it wasn't just plain stupidity. There was an undercurrent of real self-destruction there. Um, and it takes a long time to admit to yourself that...
  45. 1 2 3 4 "Real TV interview with George Michael". YouTube. The Illusionist 17. 23 September 2017. Event occurs at 0:42. Retrieved 1 July 2026. I got followed into the restroom and then this cop—I didn't know it was a cop, obviously—he started playing this game, which I think is called, 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours, and then when you show me yours, I'm going to nick you!'"... ...Actually, what happened was once he got an eyeful, he walked past me, straight past me and out, and I thought, that's kind of odd. I thought, maybe he's just not impressed. And then I went to walk back to my car, and as I got back to the car, I was arrested on the street. ... If someone's waving their genitalia at you, you don't automatically assume that they're an officer of the law...
  46. 1 2 "George Michael Explains His Outdoor Nookie Arrest Letterman". youtube. Letterman. 16 May 2024. Event occurs at 8:47. Retrieved 17 June 2026. Letterman:so this this guy actually drops his pants there in front of you? Michael: No he didn't have to drop them. He had his... he had his the important equipment... Letterman:...all right so uh the guy standing there trying to engage in some sort of activity... Michael:He said, he said, actually the police report said that he was simulating urination... ...if you tried to simulate urination doing that with your hand you'd get wee all over the shop is all I can say.
  47. 1 2 "George Michael Explains His Outdoor Nookie Arrest Letterman". youtube. Letterman. 16 May 2024. Event occurs at 8:47. Retrieved 17 June 2026. The point being and the point being, ultimately the point being that I think it's kind of irrelevant in terms of the law what my general behavior is, even though I've admitted to to you know similar sort of behavior, um point is, the police are not allowed to do something illegal in order to make you do something illegal, you know, it was definite entrapment.
  48. 1 2 3 4 5 "George Michael: RARE Throwback 1998 Australia Interview". youtube. Sound Museum. 1 May 2025. Event occurs at 18:23. Retrieved 17 June 2026. Interviewer: Obviously, the judge thought differently because he's given you some sex therapy. Micheal:...For God's sake, the judge and he's going to throw me in jail next time. You know, homophobia, there's no other word for it. Homophobia and ponceing about in front of the world's cameras is what I call it. So, he made his little speech and he gave me double the um, the penalty that people normally get in a similar situation. It was all total rubbish... ...Interviewer:It must have taken a lot of testing and fortitude to get up there and say, "Yep, that's what happened. Yep, I did that and yes, I am." Michael: I think that takes much less bravery than than not bravery. No, it doesn't seem brave to me because it was completely obvious to me that's what I had to do. But um, it I know for a fact that it would have been much much more difficult and much more humiliating and um, wrong just to sit back and let people carry on with their own misconceptions and to let the, just let the press have a field day.
  49. 1 2 "BBC News - UK - Court fines George Michael for 'lewd' act". news.bbc.co.uk.
  50. 1 2 3 4 Hall, Allan (15 May 1998). "George sentenced to sex therapy". Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland).
  51. 1 2 "Real TV interview with George Michael". Youtube. The Illusionist 17. 23 September 2017. Event occurs at 9:54. Retrieved 1 July 2026. "...so now, I mean having been given, twice the probation people normally get, been given my fine which, normally if you pay your fine you don't do community service but I'm doing community service which is yet to be arranged but I will do it and I have no problem doing it...".
  52. ↑ "Real TV interview with George Michael". YouTube. The Illusionist 17. 23 September 2017. Event occurs at 6:20. Retrieved 1 July 2026. Interviewer:..."We should mention that was not the actual Park where the arrests happened...[The public toilet that is seen in the music video "Outside" is not from the actual park where he was arrested]... George Michael:...No, because I'm not allowed to go back there..."
  53. ↑ A. Wallace Tashima (3 December 2002). "Marcelo Rodriguez v Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou" (PDF). United States Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. Archived from the original (.PDF) on 27 June 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2008.
  54. ↑ "George Bust 'Bad Karma' Says U.S. Cop", Sunday Star, 5 March 2006
  55. ↑ Cole, Mike (2000). Mike Cole (ed.). Education, equality and human rights: issues of gender, 'race', sexuality, special needs and social class. Routledge. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-7507-0876-0.
  56. ↑ "George Michael-Interview MTV-2004". YouTube. Daivd Sebile. 31 May 2014. Event occurs at 12:55. Retrieved 18 July 2026. It was definitely setup, but, on top of the setup, I was like one of the people setting myself up, you know, they only had to do two thirds of the work. Cos I was, you know, I was already determined that they were going to get what they wanted. But I didn't realise it, you know, its all clever old subconcious doing its job.
  57. ↑ "George Michael - Interview (1998, Dutch TV)". YouTube. dubuisgram. 5 October 2020. Event occurs at 0:09. Retrieved 18 July 2026. Interviewer: Okay George is it exaggerated to say that the video [For the song "Outside"] is a bold statement? Michael: A bold statement, no i think it's a very bold statement um, it, it shouldn't really surprise people quite as much as it has... ...You know i was really stitched up, I had, I had something completely awful happen to me, i'm firmly convinced that it didn't happen by accident um and i didn't plan it, so uh, and the actual arrest the arrest itself was illegal so the video is my perfect opportunity. I mean, i might not be able to tell people exactly what happened but i can at least say, 'look, one I can laugh about it and two the police are bastards', you know. Interviewer: You were arrested for disorderly conduct, how disorderly was it? Michael: Well it was no, no more or less disorderly than the policeman involved put it that way.
  58. ↑ "Fascinating interview with George Michael (Part 1/2)". Youtube. 15 February 2017. Event occurs at 9:52. Retrieved 18 June 2026. ...I mean I promise you the day that I got arrested in, in Los Angeles at the beginning of all of this, the scandal and my coming out, the day that that happened, because it was all organized between um the News of the World and the, or the Sun, and the the LA police. Believe me, it was a setup, right? I mean, I've I've admitted to to people before that I was part of that setup and I did it to myself. But the day that they actually succeeded in outing me, the Sun newspaper closed down for the afternoon and had a party.
  59. ↑ "Real TV interview with George Michael". YouTube. The Illusionist 17. 23 September 2017. Event occurs at 0:12. Retrieved 1 July 2026. Interviewer: ...but as I was saying you didn't break up, it didn't break up your relationship, you guys are still together. George Michael: No, no, no and apart from anything else you know, um, even though, I'm not saying I have an open relationship with my boyfriend but he knows who I am. He knows that you know, I'm generally oversexed, so, so he's been very very good and he's the only person... Interviewer: "He has the same latitude I take it if, that's that's cool..." George Michael: "No, no, it's just he, just we love each other and, and he understands that it was a stupid mistake and and he's forgiven me I hope."
  60. ↑ "George Michael Tonight TV Interview 2/2". YouTube. Wooodrowtracy. 20 January 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2026. Interviewer: How much of this negative publicity do you think is due to the fact that you put this record out and what you said in it? Or how much do you think is due to the fact that you were a gay man? George Michael:There's a lot of connection in the press as to those two things. You know, maybe because I'm, I'm stupid enough to be honest about the fact that I'm not monogamous. Uh I'm in a long-term relationship. Um, I've been together with my partner for six years. We're in our seventh year... ...We're not monogamous. We live the way many gay couples do. But I've been stupid enough to be honest about it.
  61. ↑ "Honest George Michael Interview from Copenhagen 2004 - VHS rip - Danish Sub". YouTube. TV channel. 30 January 2023. Event occurs at 7:13. Retrieved 23 July 2026. Hans Pilgaard: 'What would you tell a 20 year old George Michael with the knowledge you have today...?' George Michael: '... I probably would have told him to come out earlier. I definitely would have told him to come out earlier.' Hans Pilgaard: 'In a different way, as well?' George Michael: 'Yeah, it would have been a different way... ...it's funny though, I don't,.. ...I don't really even look back and think what was I thinking or regret it because so much good stuff came out of that for me personally, that uh, you know laughable though it is, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.'
  62. ↑ "George Michael". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Archived from the original on 29 July 2009. Retrieved 20 June 2026.
  63. ↑ "George Michael in BBC NEWS". YouTube. 2Funkyangel. Event occurs at 0:28. Retrieved 20 June 2026. ..never ever seen let alone wanted to have any kind of sexual encounter with...
  64. ↑ "George Michael Interview on Cruising, Homophobia, and the Press (2006)". YouTube. Frontline by ITN. Event occurs at 4:55. Retrieved 20 June 2026. "...the absolutely normal thing to do, is to do it at 2:00 in the morning because... I'm no longer breaking the law in any way. I've said I enjoy cruising and cruising now if you cruise um, out of sight of the average individual or an individual who's not involved in that cruising then you are in, within the parameters of the law... ...the law has changed I'm, I'm with well within the law and I should not have to worry about people following me about uh and jumping out at me with cameras at 2:30, uh at the side of hampstead heath.
  65. ↑ "George Michael Interview on Cruising, Homophobia, and the Press (2006)". YouTube. Frontline by ITN. Event occurs at 20:08. Retrieved 20 June 2026. ...there are people able legally to follow me around 24 hours a day... ...as long as they have cameras, that to me is the issue...
  66. ↑ "Andy Millman Gets His Big Break... But At What Cost? Extras: Christmas Special 2007 BBC Playback". YouTube. BBC Playback. 24 December 2025. Event occurs at 00:15. Retrieved 15 July 2026.
  67. ↑ "Boy George: "George Michael Was Scared Of Me" TFI Friday (1998)". TFI Friday Official. 17 May 2026. Event occurs at 00:15. Chirs Evans: See, what's your take on that whole thing on the George Michael thing? Boy George:I think it was really a lot of fuss about nothing really. I mean, I think it's okay to have sex in public places. I live on Hampstead Heath. Everybody does it up there.
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  72. ↑ Clifford Williams, "Gay men and the police 1950-2010" in The Journal of the Police History Society (2019)
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  110. ↑ Quatro, Scott A.; Sims, Ronald R. (2008). Executive Ethics: Ethical Dilemmas and Challenges for the C-Suite. IAP. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-59311-783-2.
  111. ↑ Harris, Paul (2 September 2007). "Sorry I quit, says anti-gay senator arrested in airport toilet". The Observer.
  112. ↑ Gilbey, Ryan (29 March 2007). "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". The Guardian. 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.
  113. ↑ Grew, Tony (17 July 2008). "Interview: What's wrong with angry? Gay play revived for Edinburgh". Pink News. Archived from the original on 21 September 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2009.
  114. ↑ Reid, Kerry (24 June 2015). "Chinese immigrant's story in Chay Yew's insightful 'Porcelain'". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  115. ↑ "All About Me".
  116. ↑ Spencer, Charles (20 February 2009). "An erotic relationship of convenience". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010.
  117. ↑ Arditti, Michael (6 November 1993). "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". The Independent. 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.
  118. ↑ Nightingale, Benedict (1 March 2008). "Plague Over England at Finborough Theatre, London SW10". The Times. 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]
  119. ↑ Starkey, Dan (30 June 2017). "Penis-Gun Game Explores Illegal Gay Hookups In The '60s". Kotaku. Retrieved 27 December 2023.

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