A Convenient Exchange (2007) Vol 1 Art 3
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Published:
Jul 30, 2007
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Abstract
These monologues tell the same story, in the same language form across a hundred years of development.
This paper considers the phenomenon of men’s public toilets in New Zealand, with specific reference to the culture of cruising for sex that operates within them.
Based on interviews and oral history recordings of over 150 men whose use of New Zealand bogs for same sex encounters has spanned 85 years, the paper discusses a network of relationships that have developed between changes in legislation, architecture and language.
Central to this research is a desire to offer an effective way of telling the stories of a marginalised population; stories that emanate not so much from ‘empowered’ sources like police records, heath studies, news media and town planners, but from the community itself; a community that has until now often been [under] studied and [mis]represented by these authorities.
A Convenient Exchange suggests that men who use public toilets for same sex encounters exist as a dissipated, yet communicating body. The paper demonstrates, by tracing changes in language, how the experiences of these men have intersected with a range of cultures, including those of prostitutes, prisoners, and the online cruising community.
Through this intersection, bog cruisers have developed an extraordinarily process of criminalised ritual that has continued to operate and adapt just under the surface of the New Zealand urban landscape.
This paper considers the phenomenon of men’s public toilets in New Zealand, with specific reference to the culture of cruising for sex that operates within them.
Based on interviews and oral history recordings of over 150 men whose use of New Zealand bogs for same sex encounters has spanned 85 years, the paper discusses a network of relationships that have developed between changes in legislation, architecture and language.
Central to this research is a desire to offer an effective way of telling the stories of a marginalised population; stories that emanate not so much from ‘empowered’ sources like police records, heath studies, news media and town planners, but from the community itself; a community that has until now often been [under] studied and [mis]represented by these authorities.
A Convenient Exchange suggests that men who use public toilets for same sex encounters exist as a dissipated, yet communicating body. The paper demonstrates, by tracing changes in language, how the experiences of these men have intersected with a range of cultures, including those of prostitutes, prisoners, and the online cruising community.
Through this intersection, bog cruisers have developed an extraordinarily process of criminalised ritual that has continued to operate and adapt just under the surface of the New Zealand urban landscape.
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Copyright in the manuscript remains with the author(s). The author(s) grants the University of Technology, Sydney a licence to exercise any exclsuive rights of the copyright owner required to publish, distribute and advertise PublIc Space: the Journal of Law and Social Justice.
References
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Anon, 'Bashers About', (1980) 13(3) Pink Triangle 1.
Aspin C, Hughes A, Reid A, Robinson E, Saxton P, Segedin R and Worth H, Male Call, Waea Mai, Tane Ma. Report 4, Casual Sex Between Men, New Zealand AIDS Foundation (1997).
Aspin C, Hughes A, Robinson E, Saxton P and Segedin R, Male Call, Waea Mai, Tane Ma. Report 6: Regions, New Zealand AIDS Foundation (1998).
Baker P, Fantabulosa. A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang, Continuum (2002).
Baker P, Polari- The Lost Language of Gay Men, Routledge (2002). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203167045
Burton P, Amongst the Aliens: Some Aspects of Gay Life, Millevres (1995).
Cage K, An Investigation of the Form and Function of Language Used by Gay Men in South Africa, unpublished Masters thesis Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg (1999).
Cage K, Gayle: The Language of Kinks and Queens. A Dictionary of Gay Language in South Africa, Jacana (2003).
Cieri M, 'Between Being and Looking: Queer Tourism Promotion and Lesbian Social Space in Greater Philadelphia', (2003) 2(2) ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies at November 2006.
Chauncey G, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, Basic Books (1994).
Chetwynd J, Profiles of Gay and Bisexual Men: A series of six reports on the socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics of men according to the venues at which they make sexual contacts, Christchurch School of Medicine, (1990).
Chetwynd J, Profiles of Gay and Bisexual Men- Report No 6: The Toilets. A Report to the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, Christchurch School of Medicine, (1990).
City of Dunedin, Annual Report 1905/1906, (1906).
Cooper A, Law R, Malthus J and Wood P, 'Rooms of their Own: Public Toilets and Gendered Citizens in a New Zealand City, 1860-1940,' (2000) 7 Gender, Place and Culture 417.
Cory DW, 'The Language of the Homosexual', (1965) Sexology 32 (3): pp 163-165.
Cryer M, Curious Kiwi Words, Harper Collins (2002).
Delph V, The Silent Community: Public Homosexual Encounters, Sage Publications (1978).
De Rungs P and Ings W, Paul De Rungs: Oral History Interview, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0648-02 (2004).
Desroches F, 'Tearoom Trade: A Law Enforcement Problem', (1991) Canadian Journal of Criminology, 33 (1): pp. 1-21.
Dowsett G and Davis M, Transgression and Intervention: Homosexually Active Men and Beats, National Centre for HIV Social Research (1992).
Eldred-Grigg S, Pleasures of the Flesh: Sex and Drugs in Colonial New Zealand 1840-1915, AH and AW Reed (1984).
Emms J, 'Gay Rights and the Tearoom Trade. A Woman's View', (1980) 10(7) Pink Triangle 16.
Farrell R, 'The Argot of the Homosexual Subculture', (1972) Anthropological Linguistics, 14 (3): pp. 97-109.
Gaw H, 'March Sauna Screwed' (1979) 10(1) Pink Triangle 3
Goddard M, 'The Forgotten World' (1990) (July) OUTRAGE 24.
Holcroft M, 'Hagley Park Murder', Editorial, 5th June 1964, 5 (1288) The New Zealand Listener 5.
Hollister J, 'A Highway Rest Area as a Socially Reproducable Site', in Leap W (ed), Public Sex/Gay Space, Columbia University Press (1999), 55.
Horn J, Chetwynd J and Kelleher J, Changing Sexual Practices Amongst Homosexual Men in Response to AIDS: Who Has Changed and Who Hasn't and Why? A Report to the Department of Health (1989).
Humphreys L, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, Aldine Pub Co (1970).
Ingram G, 'Marginality and the Landscape of Erotic Alien(n)ations' in Ingram G (ed), Queers in Space: Communities / Public Spaces / Sites of Resistance, Bay Press (1997), 67.
Ings W, 'A Matter of Convenience' (1987) 64 Pink Triangle 40.
Jenkin D, Disobedient Desires. Male Sexual Identity and Public Sex Environments, unpublished research project, WISC 420, Victoria University (1997).
Kade A and Gaw H, 'Editorial,' (1980) 12(2) Pink Triangle 3
Keogh P, Weatherburn P and Hickson F, 'Anonymous sex among homosexually active men: implications for HIV protection' (2000) 13 (4) Venereology 144.
Knopp, L, 'Sexuality and urban space: A framework for analysis', in Bell D and Valentine G Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexuality, Routledge (1995), 149.
Lee J, 'Male Homosexuality and Subculture in Adelaide Before World War II', in Aldrich R and Wotherspoon G (eds), Gay Perspectives: Essays in Australian Gay Culture, Department of Economic History, University of Sydney (1992).
Legman G, 'The Language of Homosexuality: An American Glossary', George W Henry, Sex Variants, Paul B. Hoeber (1941).
Legal Aid Defence Fund, 'The Battle of the Beats', (1983) 52 OUT Magazine 24.
Lucas I, Impertinent Decorum, Gay Theatrical Maneuvers, Cassell (1994).
Maynard S, 'Through a hole in the lavatory wall: homosexual subcultures, police surveillance, and the dialectics of discovery, Toronto 1890-1930', (1994) 5 Journal of the History of Sexuality 207.
Meredith R, 'On The Beat', (1991) 99 OUT Magazine 30.
Moore W, Public Sex: Silent Spaces, Leaverson (1995).
Nardi P, 'Reclaiming the Importance of Humphrey's Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places', in Leap W (ed), Public Sex/Gay Space, Columbia University Press (1999) 23.
New Zealand Aids Foundation, BEATS, NZAF Project Plan, (1990).
Niemoeller A F, 'A Glossary of Homosexual Slang', (1965) 2(1) Fact 25.
Pandaram J, Gay sex forces closure of Sydney store's toilets Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2006, at 5 November 2006.
Parkinson P, 'Strangers in Paradise', The Pink Book Editing Team (ed), The Second ILGA Pink Book: a global view of lesbian and gay liberation and oppression, Interfacultaire Werkgroep Homostudies (1988) 163.
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Routledge (1937).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Historical Slang, Routledge (1961).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: Colloquialisms and Catch-phrases, Solecisms and Catachreses, Nicknames, Vulgarisms and such Americanisms as have been Naturalized, Routledge and Kegan Paul, (1961).
Partridge E, Slang, Today and Yesterday, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1970).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. 8th ed, Routledge (2002).
Rogers B, The Queens' Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon, Straight Arrow Press (1972).
Shepherd B, 'Police persecution intensifies', (1980) 29 OUT Magazine 16.
Shepherd B, 'Doing the Beat', (1983) 51 OUT Magazine 9.
Shepherd B, 'Judge shows what he thinks of police', (1984) 58 OUT Magazine 8.
Simes G, 'The Language of Homosexuality in Australia'', Aldrich R and Wotherspoon G (eds), Gay Perspectives: Essays in Australian Gay Culture, Department of Economic History, University of Sydney (1992)
Simes G, A Dictionary of Australian Underworld Slang, Oxford University Press (1993).
Smith G, 'Beat dynamics', National AIDS Bulletin (1993).
Squirt, Your Neighbourhood Cruising Guide, at 13 March 2007.
Stanley JP, 'Homosexual Slang', (1970) American Speech 45(1/2) pp.45-59. https://doi.org/10.2307/455061
Stearn J, The Guild Dictionary of Homosexual Terms, (1965).
Stephens A G and O'Brien S E, Dictionary of New Zealand and Australian Slang (1897), Mitchell Library [19--].
Taylor H and Ings W, 'Howie Taylor: Oral History Interview', Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0648-03 (2004).
Underhill G, 'Gays and the Law: How big the problem?' (1978) 17 OUT Magazine 10.
Vance C (ed), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1984).
Wedding V and Ings W, Vanessa Wedding: Oral History Interview, Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wilde T, Slang Dictionary, Wells (1889).
Yin A, 'QUAC's Beat Outreach Project' 2004 (2 April) Q News 15.
Yoffes S and Mace T, Heritage Walks (Auckland), (2005) at 5 November 2006.
Young, Hugh, A Chronicle of Homosexuality in New Zealand: Part 1: Before Stonewall and NZ Gay Liberation,.
Young Hugh, Death in Hagley Park, < http://www.queerhistory.net.nz/Aberhart.html>.
Young Hugh, Lexicon of Polari (1996), at 5 August 2003. Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (Chairman, Sir John Wolfenden), (1957). www.squirt.org .
Anon, 'Bashers About', (1980) 13(3) Pink Triangle 1.
Aspin C, Hughes A, Reid A, Robinson E, Saxton P, Segedin R and Worth H, Male Call, Waea Mai, Tane Ma. Report 4, Casual Sex Between Men, New Zealand AIDS Foundation (1997).
Aspin C, Hughes A, Robinson E, Saxton P and Segedin R, Male Call, Waea Mai, Tane Ma. Report 6: Regions, New Zealand AIDS Foundation (1998).
Baker P, Fantabulosa. A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang, Continuum (2002).
Baker P, Polari- The Lost Language of Gay Men, Routledge (2002). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203167045
Burton P, Amongst the Aliens: Some Aspects of Gay Life, Millevres (1995).
Cage K, An Investigation of the Form and Function of Language Used by Gay Men in South Africa, unpublished Masters thesis Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg (1999).
Cage K, Gayle: The Language of Kinks and Queens. A Dictionary of Gay Language in South Africa, Jacana (2003).
Cieri M, 'Between Being and Looking: Queer Tourism Promotion and Lesbian Social Space in Greater Philadelphia', (2003) 2(2) ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
Chauncey G, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, Basic Books (1994).
Chetwynd J, Profiles of Gay and Bisexual Men: A series of six reports on the socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics of men according to the venues at which they make sexual contacts, Christchurch School of Medicine, (1990).
Chetwynd J, Profiles of Gay and Bisexual Men- Report No 6: The Toilets. A Report to the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, Christchurch School of Medicine, (1990).
City of Dunedin, Annual Report 1905/1906, (1906).
Cooper A, Law R, Malthus J and Wood P, 'Rooms of their Own: Public Toilets and Gendered Citizens in a New Zealand City, 1860-1940,' (2000) 7 Gender, Place and Culture 417.
Cory DW, 'The Language of the Homosexual', (1965) Sexology 32 (3): pp 163-165.
Cryer M, Curious Kiwi Words, Harper Collins (2002).
Delph V, The Silent Community: Public Homosexual Encounters, Sage Publications (1978).
De Rungs P and Ings W, Paul De Rungs: Oral History Interview, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0648-02 (2004).
Desroches F, 'Tearoom Trade: A Law Enforcement Problem', (1991) Canadian Journal of Criminology, 33 (1): pp. 1-21.
Dowsett G and Davis M, Transgression and Intervention: Homosexually Active Men and Beats, National Centre for HIV Social Research (1992).
Eldred-Grigg S, Pleasures of the Flesh: Sex and Drugs in Colonial New Zealand 1840-1915, AH and AW Reed (1984).
Emms J, 'Gay Rights and the Tearoom Trade. A Woman's View', (1980) 10(7) Pink Triangle 16.
Farrell R, 'The Argot of the Homosexual Subculture', (1972) Anthropological Linguistics, 14 (3): pp. 97-109.
Gaw H, 'March Sauna Screwed' (1979) 10(1) Pink Triangle 3
Goddard M, 'The Forgotten World' (1990) (July) OUTRAGE 24.
Holcroft M, 'Hagley Park Murder', Editorial, 5th June 1964, 5 (1288) The New Zealand Listener 5.
Hollister J, 'A Highway Rest Area as a Socially Reproducable Site', in Leap W (ed), Public Sex/Gay Space, Columbia University Press (1999), 55.
Horn J, Chetwynd J and Kelleher J, Changing Sexual Practices Amongst Homosexual Men in Response to AIDS: Who Has Changed and Who Hasn't and Why? A Report to the Department of Health (1989).
Humphreys L, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, Aldine Pub Co (1970).
Ingram G, 'Marginality and the Landscape of Erotic Alien(n)ations' in Ingram G (ed), Queers in Space: Communities / Public Spaces / Sites of Resistance, Bay Press (1997), 67.
Ings W, 'A Matter of Convenience' (1987) 64 Pink Triangle 40.
Jenkin D, Disobedient Desires. Male Sexual Identity and Public Sex Environments, unpublished research project, WISC 420, Victoria University (1997).
Kade A and Gaw H, 'Editorial,' (1980) 12(2) Pink Triangle 3
Keogh P, Weatherburn P and Hickson F, 'Anonymous sex among homosexually active men: implications for HIV protection' (2000) 13 (4) Venereology 144.
Knopp, L, 'Sexuality and urban space: A framework for analysis', in Bell D and Valentine G Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexuality, Routledge (1995), 149.
Lee J, 'Male Homosexuality and Subculture in Adelaide Before World War II', in Aldrich R and Wotherspoon G (eds), Gay Perspectives: Essays in Australian Gay Culture, Department of Economic History, University of Sydney (1992).
Legman G, 'The Language of Homosexuality: An American Glossary', George W Henry, Sex Variants, Paul B. Hoeber (1941).
Legal Aid Defence Fund, 'The Battle of the Beats', (1983) 52 OUT Magazine 24.
Lucas I, Impertinent Decorum, Gay Theatrical Maneuvers, Cassell (1994).
Maynard S, 'Through a hole in the lavatory wall: homosexual subcultures, police surveillance, and the dialectics of discovery, Toronto 1890-1930', (1994) 5 Journal of the History of Sexuality 207.
Meredith R, 'On The Beat', (1991) 99 OUT Magazine 30.
Moore W, Public Sex: Silent Spaces, Leaverson (1995).
Nardi P, 'Reclaiming the Importance of Humphrey's Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places', in Leap W (ed), Public Sex/Gay Space, Columbia University Press (1999) 23.
New Zealand Aids Foundation, BEATS, NZAF Project Plan, (1990).
Niemoeller A F, 'A Glossary of Homosexual Slang', (1965) 2(1) Fact 25.
Pandaram J, Gay sex forces closure of Sydney store's toilets Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2006,
Parkinson P, 'Strangers in Paradise', The Pink Book Editing Team (ed), The Second ILGA Pink Book: a global view of lesbian and gay liberation and oppression, Interfacultaire Werkgroep Homostudies (1988) 163.
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Routledge (1937).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Historical Slang, Routledge (1961).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: Colloquialisms and Catch-phrases, Solecisms and Catachreses, Nicknames, Vulgarisms and such Americanisms as have been Naturalized, Routledge and Kegan Paul, (1961).
Partridge E, Slang, Today and Yesterday, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1970).
Partridge E, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. 8th ed, Routledge (2002).
Rogers B, The Queens' Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon, Straight Arrow Press (1972).
Shepherd B, 'Police persecution intensifies', (1980) 29 OUT Magazine 16.
Shepherd B, 'Doing the Beat', (1983) 51 OUT Magazine 9.
Shepherd B, 'Judge shows what he thinks of police', (1984) 58 OUT Magazine 8.
Simes G, 'The Language of Homosexuality in Australia'', Aldrich R and Wotherspoon G (eds), Gay Perspectives: Essays in Australian Gay Culture, Department of Economic History, University of Sydney (1992)
Simes G, A Dictionary of Australian Underworld Slang, Oxford University Press (1993).
Smith G, 'Beat dynamics', National AIDS Bulletin (1993).
Squirt, Your Neighbourhood Cruising Guide,
Stanley JP, 'Homosexual Slang', (1970) American Speech 45(1/2) pp.45-59. https://doi.org/10.2307/455061
Stearn J, The Guild Dictionary of Homosexual Terms, (1965).
Stephens A G and O'Brien S E, Dictionary of New Zealand and Australian Slang (1897), Mitchell Library [19--].
Taylor H and Ings W, 'Howie Taylor: Oral History Interview', Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, MS-Papers-0648-03 (2004).
Underhill G, 'Gays and the Law: How big the problem?' (1978) 17 OUT Magazine 10.
Vance C (ed), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1984).
Wedding V and Ings W, Vanessa Wedding: Oral History Interview, Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wilde T, Slang Dictionary, Wells (1889).
Yin A, 'QUAC's Beat Outreach Project' 2004 (2 April) Q News 15.
Yoffes S and Mace T, Heritage Walks (Auckland), (2005)
Young, Hugh, A Chronicle of Homosexuality in New Zealand: Part 1: Before Stonewall and NZ Gay Liberation,
Young Hugh, Death in Hagley Park, < http://www.queerhistory.net.nz/Aberhart.html>.
Young Hugh, Lexicon of Polari (1996),