Make no mistake: it’s very illegal, it’s very dangerous, and it can be very damaging for those who get caught. Whatever you call it, it revolves around men hunting for anonymous, casual sex in a public place: parks, public restrooms, rest stops, backrooms, alleyways, anywhere clandestine enough to feel edgy. The Origins of Cruising CultureĬottaging. His answer: “I do get anyone I want, but I like a bit of everything.”įor many gay people in Milwaukee, cruising an area like Juneau Park was the only way to have any type of authentic sexual identity at all.
Why was one of the most famous musicians of his era cruising for sex in a public park? During a 2009 interview, the Daily Mail asked Michael exactly that. tabloid News of the World, eight years after being outed by an indecent exposure arrest in Beverly Hills. George Michael was caught here in 2006 by U.K. Hampstead Heath, one of the largest and oldest green spaces in the U.K., has a long and often sordid history as a gay cruising park, of “Going up the Heath” as it was known. “His sexuality was used to both criminalize and humiliate him…so we want to use this celebration of one of the community’s finest to continue to challenge the barriers that still remain.” “George Michael still found it impossible to be open about his sexuality in the late 1990s,” reads the group’s press release.
