Once, when Orlando and I were lounging on a plum bush, his sombrero fell off. I grabbed the hat, ran away and hid behind a plant in a secluded spot. He understood exactly what I wanted; we pulled down our trousers and began to masturbate.
(Reinaldo Arenas: Before night falls)
Naked in the forest - and not alone
The path in the Grunewald forest is a winding labyrinth, as if created by human hands. Or rather: by human feet. Only my footsteps can be heard, an occasional bird call. The temperature is pleasant on this afternoon in late May. Apart from my trainers, I am naked. I catch a glimpse of a man, also naked, leaning against a tree. Another man is kneeling in front of him and sucking his cock. The man looks at me impassively, but I lower my gaze. Every fibre in my body pulls me towards the scene, but another impulse in me is stronger and I keep walking.
From writing to self-experimentation
When I was asked to write a text about cruising locations, my first thought was: I don't have much experience with cruising. So I set off in search of clues, read texts, asked friends, rummaged through my memories and conducted a self-experiment in Grunewald.
I remember last summer when I went to the somewhat secluded caves on the gay beach in Sitges with my partner. I remember how exciting it was to discover this place with him. How we first made out in pairs, and later with a whole group of boys. How I seemed to be completely at peace with myself, my knees chafed by the sand, lapped by the regular waves of the Mediterranean.
Cruising, writes Henry Hagemann in his historical search for clues Cruising locationsis a historically evolved practice in which gay men and queer people seek quick intimacy in semi-public spaces with the help of codes and non-verbal communication.
On the one hand, the anonymity of cruising offers protection from criminal and social discrimination, while on the other, the potential danger of being caught is associated with thrills and excitement, which further fuels sexual desire.
Cruising: between art and eye contact
I step back into the clearing in the Grunewald forest, where a friend of mine is looking after our things. "So?" I shake my head. We continue talking about the "imperfect art" of cruising, as Mexican activist and author Leo Herrera calls it. "Pretend you're in a museum. You are either the art or the viewer," writes Herrera in his (analogue) Cruising Manual. My friend describes it like this:
"If you see someone you find attractive, you look them in the eye, if not, you avoid eye contact." I remember so many moments in my life when I averted my eyes although or just because I found someone attractive. Naively, I ask if smiling is allowed when cruising. "You can if you want to be cute - but usually you just grab your crotch. When you're both doing it, you get down to business." Herrera writes of a "smirk", which can perhaps be translated as a "meaningful grin". Holding the gaze, a meaningful grin, grabbing the cock... I feel completely untrained in this coded language, which is rather a coded silence that, according to Herrera, is intended to serve "both safety and fantasy".
It is precisely these fantasies that the cruisers I interviewed emphasise: "I have a certain fantasy and go on the hunt for someone who can play this role." Another friend I meet on the naturist meadow in Hasenheide tells me:
"Cruising is an exciting and surprising experience. Who's round the next corner? The daddy who's going to ride me hard? The TwinkTwink is a term from the queer scene, especially among gay and bisexual men. It describes a certain body type and appearance. Mehrwho gives me a blow job?"
Cruising - wider than expected
I read that Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde could be considered prominent first cruisers. The strolling of well-to-do men was not an uncommon sight in Victorian England. I remember being approached by a man while strolling the streets of Manhattan when I was 19 and then walking home with him. The same thing happened to me again at 34, when I was in Madrid for the first time. Perhaps these were cruising experiences without me labelling them as such. Maybe my previous definition of cruising as anonymous sex in parks and "flaps" was a bit too narrow.
Flaps, i.e. public toilets, are predestined for cruising: a potential sex partner's cock is inspected at the urinal. Most of the friends I talk to about cruising are not fans of toilet sex - they say it's a less personal encounter than in the great outdoors. But flaps and motorway service stations offer greater anonymity for those who are not outed or not gayGay refers to men who are romantically and/or sexually attracted to men. Important facts about the term: - "Gay" is the term used to... Mehr living cruisers - in contrast to gay bars, pubs and saunas, for example, whose often labyrinthine design is reminiscent of the winding paths in parks and forests.
Cruising - instinct or coincidence?
I realise that I have found myself at cruising locations again and again throughout my life. Did this happen by chance? Or because of an innate "gay instinct"? I've always liked lying naked on the Werdinsel in Zurich or in the Hasenheide in Berlin, usually engrossed in a book. When I think of One hundred years of lonelinessI think of the nudist beach at Müggelsee at the same time. How many interested and interesting men must have walked past my naked bum while I - apparently or actually - only had eyes for Aureliano Buendía, the introverted protagonist of the novel?
The connection between nature and gay sex has a long tradition: Reinaldo Arenas - Cuban writer and dissident - instinctively knew during his first sexual experience in the early 1950s that what he wanted to do with his cousin Orlando had to take place in a secluded location. Cruising locations in nature are usually a little harder to get to - while the families with children, cars and a thousand things bustle on the beach next to the car park, the cruiser wanders further along the beach, possibly climbing over rocks and fighting his way through bushes until he reaches a lagoon with caves and crystal-clear water.
Cruising locations as shelters for queer freedom
Through the practice of cruising, cruisers appropriate less accessible places "in a spiritual way", as one friend puts it. In this way, cruising spaces become a queer utopia: places secluded from the judgemental outside world where we can enjoy our own and other people's bodies - our sexuality - without shame. Or, to paraphrase the Cuban-American theorist José Esteban Muñoz: Cruising as the cautious search for new forms of desire and life, for a better "there" as opposed to a standardised "here".
The fact that these utopian spaces can also exist in reality depends on a delicate balance between political decision-makers and the cruisers themselves. In Hasenheide, for example, large areas are currently cordoned off because new trees and grass are being planted. However, the naturist meadow, of all places, is not cordoned off. Apparently the political authorities here are concerned about preserving this space.
From shelter to target of repression
But this is not always the case: cruising areas are often deliberately destroyed by trimming bushes, for example, accompanied by sex-hostile and homophobic public discourse. Cruising areas have also been - and still are in many parts of the world - deliberately used by undercover police officers to criminalise homosexual acts. A good counter-example is the officially signposted cruising area in Amsterdam. Here, the cruisers in return ensure that cruising is limited to this specific area and does not get out of control.
I remember meeting a man on a lonely beach in Tarragona, Spain, two years ago - a man I had previously texted with on Grindr. I've always found it easier to get in touch with men online, even though as an Xennial I was still very familiar with a world without the internet. I usually met my first sexual contacts while dancing in gay clubs. The gay dance club and the dating app are also cruising rooms. However, the friend in Hasenheide doesn't think much of online cruising: "You can spend two hours on Grindr to - maybe - find the perfect guy. But I often have a higher success rate when cruising outside, and it's definitely more fun than chatting endlessly."
A walk into your own longing
During my self-experiment, I walk a second time through the labyrinthine bushes in Grunewald forest. It's now dusk, the air is cooler - and I don't meet anyone else. As I listen to my footsteps and the birds, I ask myself what's stopping me from going out cruising more, why I look for sex almost exclusively on apps. It probably also has to do with a certain performance anxiety, exacerbated by all the internalised images of gay porn.
A lot of what I found out about cruising during my research fascinates me: the sex outdoors, the openness towards different bodies, the pursuit of fantasies, being surprised in the moment, the utopian nature of these places, the historical and spiritual connection to my queer ancestors, cruising as a rebellious alternative to homosexual lifestyles, which are becoming more and more like the heterosexual majority society. And perhaps this KindThe abbreviation ART stands for antiretroviral therapy. - It refers to the treatment of an HIV infection with special medication that prevents the... Mehr of cruising can even heal certain aspects of my sexuality - which is still shameful even after 30 years.
I step out of the forest into the clearing and decide to come here more often in future.
