That's the language that gets used in the same-sex marriage lawsuits. That's the image of homosexuality that you see in television shows like Will and Grace--or at least the pursuit of such relationships. A gay law professor recently took exception to my remarks about Senator Craig's behavior as indicative of a significant subculture (known as the "Tearoom Trade" after one of the early sociological works about this subject) within homosexual men--but if I'm wrong about that, what explains this booklet offered by Lambda Legal, a gay rights law firm?

If you cruise in parks, bathrooms or other spaces open to public view, trust your instincts, be aware of your surroundings -- and know your rights. While Lambda Legal and other groups are fighting against the ways police target men who have sex with men, having sex where others might see you and take offense can subject you to arrest, publicity and other serious consequences. If you feel unsafe, you should leave.
CRUISING SAFELY
Always carry identification in case you get hurt or arrested.
Providing your ID (driver’s license, green card, passport) may decrease your chances of spending time in jail, especially if you don’t have a criminal record. If the police stop you, they may instead give you a summons (which tells you the charge and when to appear in court) and let you go.
Remember cops may be "cruising" too.
Be aware that undercover cops may be "cruising" to arrest you. A cop doesn't have to tell you he's a cop, even if you ask. If you’re cruising for sex and an undercover cop hits on you, what you do can still be a crime. Don’t count on proving the cop "entrapped" you (which is difficult). Talk to your lawyer if you think you were set up.
Make sure that anyone you have sex with is over the age of consent.
Having sex with a minor is a serious crime with heavy punishment.
Understand that many laws could be used against you.
Thanks to a Lambda Legal U.S. Supreme Court win, all laws that banned consensual sex by adults in private, including oral and anal sex, have been struck down. But other laws, like those against sex where you might be seen by others, adultery and prostitution laws, or laws against criminal transmission of HIV — might still be used against you.

I would really like to think that this depraved behavior--having sex in public restrooms, or at least soliciting complete strangers for a one-time sexual act somewhere else--is a really, really tiny minority of homosexuals. But I am skeptical of that for two reasons:

1. If it is a tiny minority, why do supposedly respectable gay rights groups like Lambda Legal and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force feel the need to defend it or provide legal advice about how to deal with the legal consequences? This would be equivalent to Focus on the Family providing instructions for Christians about how to get away with assaulting homosexuals--confirming a false and nasty stereotype.

2. There are about 150,000,000 males in the United States, of which perhaps 120,000,000 are adults. If we use the figure that 4.5% of the adult male population is homosexual and bisexual, that would mean that there are about 5,400,000 gay men in America. If 1% of that population are part of the "Tearoom Trade," that would be about 54,000 men scattered across a huge country.

Yet over the years, I have been impressed how much evidence I see of this activity. When I went to USC and UCLA, there were certain restrooms you learned pretty quickly not to go into or you would see or hear things that you didn't want to see or hear. In most public restrooms in rest areas in California that I have used over the last 30 years, in spite of efforts by the state to paint over graffiti and repair "glory holes" (which are holes drilled through stall walls and used for what you think), I have seen advertisements indicating at what time and how to signal one's interest. Arrests such as Senator Craig's are actually pretty common in most big cities--and vice squads devote resources to this because there is a big problem with this. Tucker Carlson of CNN apparently admitted being so angry at some guy soliciting him for sex in a public restroom that he grabbed the guy and banged his head against the wall. There are website devoted to nothing but telling homosexuals where to go for this, like this one. There are homosexual celebrities like George Michael who keep doing this again and again. The Advocate (not a worksafe website because of the ads) did a poll of their readers:

Caught having sex in a London park, George Michael told a reporter, "This is my culture! I'm not doing anything illegal. The police don't even come up here any more. I'm a free man, I can do whatever I want. I'm not harming anyone." Do you agree with George?

And 53.5% of the 2792 votes agreed with George Michael. For all the attempts to pretend that this is a minor subculture of male homosexuality--the evidence suggests that it is not minor at all.

UPDATE: Here's an article from the August 31, 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Laud Humphreys' pioneering sociological research, done in restrooms in the St. Louis area:

Laud Humphreys' research was pioneering. It shattered stereotypes. It also cost him his job.

Humphreys discovered the majority of men visiting "tearooms" were married and generally upstanding citizens. Many did not think of themselves as gay or bisexual. In his groundbreaking 1970 Ph.D dissertation, "Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Personal Places," Humphreys detailed the trade's constant rituals: shoe-tapping and reaching under the stalls as a covert way to seek out willing partners.

"This is exactly what you find in the case of (U.S. Sen.) Larry Craig," said John Galliher, sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and co-author of a Humphreys biography.

The parallels between Humphreys' research and the accusations against Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho, are striking. The undercover cop described how the senator tapped his foot in a stall at the Minneapolis airport in June and reached under the divider as an invitation for "lewd conduct." Even the senator's very public "I am not gay" protest earlier this week matches the theme of men whose actions do not match their public identities.

It was as if the Craig case had been plucked from Humphreys' pages, said Wayne Brekhus, another Missouri sociology professor and biography co-author. "Even this dance of nonverbal anonymity, it seems to have been preserved for 35-plus years."

The article goes on to characterize the sort of men who were doing this:

Humphreys conducted in-depth interviews with 100 men. Half of those he interviewed in the bathrooms. The other half he interviewed using clever and controversial methods. He would write down the men's license plate numbers and track them down a year later. He donned a disguise and talked to the men under the pretense of a social health survey. The men presumably never learned they were part of Humphreys' study.

Humphreys found that 54 percent of the men were married and living with their wives. He found 38 percent considered themselves neither bisexual nor homosexual. The men wanted a sexual release that was quick and would not endanger their standing with their family or society. Just 14 percent of the men identified themselves as living-in-the-open homosexuals.

Well, what a surprise, it was the 1960s when Humphreys did this study. I am not surprised that only 14% were out of the closet. It makes you wonder about the rationality of of the 38% who considered themselves "neither bisexual nor homosexual" but were doing this.

"Most of the people who do these things are actually heterosexual," said Joel Jackson, youth advocacy coordinator for Project Ark, a St. Louis-based AIDS outreach group.

Oh yeah. Men who look for sex with other men are "actually heterosexual." I hear this a lot from homosexual activists--the insistence that these embarrassing sorts aren't really homosexuals, but are straight men. I'm reminded of Lincoln's famous observation that you can call a tail a leg, but a dog still has four legs, no matter what you call it.

To their credit, the article goes on to emphasize how widespread this practice is:

The senator's case also brought attention to the little-known tearoom trade. Today, websites share ratings and comments on different public places for homosexual sex. There are hundreds listed in the St. Louis area, from restrooms along the highway to big-box stores in Kirkwood to shopping malls in Chesterfield and Frontenac.