Soon after moving to Silver Lake last year, Keith Farr realized the daytime serenity of his neighborhood was deceptive. Once he awoke to the sounds of police making an arrest in his yard. Another night, he came home to find two men engaged in sex on the stairs to his second-floor duplex.
At 2 or 3 a.m. on the weekend his street was as noisy as an airport terminal during the holidays, rowdy with men driving back and forth, hanging out on the sidewalks. They were there to meet and flirt, to party and take drugs, and to have sex--in cars and sideyards, and, as Farr discovered, occasionally even on a front stoop.
In the enduring subculture of men cruising for sex with other men, a few pleasant residential blocks of Griffith Park Boulevard had become hot. A nearby sex club had drawn crowds, as did the boulevard's mention in gay guides.
"In no way am I a moralist, but it would be embarrassing," said one exasperated condo owner who regularly got an eyeful from his third floor balcony. "I'd have guests over and guys would be having sex" in the bushes below.
Weary of seeing more than they cared to in the shrubbery, of being propositioned on the street, of having to clean up used condoms, residents demanded that something be done. A police crackdown ensued, largely quieting the scene--but also stirring dissension and complaints that authorities overreacted.
"I don't want cruising here on the street, to subject my family and friends to it," Farr, a 34-year-old investment advisor, said some time ago. "But on the other hand, I don't want them subject to police harassment and running into an undercover vice officer."
After police beefed up their presence in the neighborhood last year with both uniformed and undercover officers, Farr said he was stopped six times ("in various ways, none of them pleasant"). One night he was questioned while standing in front of his duplex with his dog. Officers wanted to know where he lived, demanding identification and threatening to cite him for having his dog unleashed. "The attitude I was getting from them was appalling."
When someone was arrested in his sideyard, Farr said he heard an officer ask the suspect, "Are you a homosexual?"
Others, like the gay condo owner, groused that the matter was unfairly being turned into a gay-rights rallying cry. "It's not a gay issue. It's a quality of life issue," he stressed. "The gay activists are saying our rights are being trampled. Eh, eh. The police did it in a gay-friendly manner." Reflecting just how sensitive the matter became, he did not want his full name printed out of fear he would be harassed.
The cruisers have all but disappeared, but controversy lingers over "No cruising" and "No U-turn" signs placed on the boulevard at the beginning of the year. Many in the neighborhood say they have been effective. Others contend that the signs, which forbid more than two trips past the same spot in six hours, are illegal because the city's anti-cruising ordinance was designed to control a quite different situation: that of teenage low-riders rumbling down the boulevards.
It doesn't matter to Farr any more. Disenchanted with community bickering as well as the police, he moved to the Bay Area in June.
The flare-up in gay-friendly Silver Lake raised delicate questions about community values. But it also has broader dimensions: Once again, complaints were voiced about enforcement of lewd conduct laws, an issue with a long history. And beyond that, the controversy spotlighted the centuries-old culture--disgusting to some, thrilling to others--of gay men who are drawn to sexual adventure outside the bedroom.
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Certainly the cruising scene provides ample opportunity for run-ins with police. The stigmatization of homosexuality may be fading and the laws that kept gay relations furtive and criminal may be long gone in states like California, but for some, the appeal of quick, anonymous encounters remains.
Now, there is even an Internet site that offers an extensive, constantly updated listing of sex cruising spots across the country. "It is the most useful page I have ever encountered on the Web," one site user enthused.
The Southern California section goes on for pages, detailing scores of parks, public restrooms and adult bookstores where men can find public sex--from the bathrooms at Venice Beach and Orange County department stores to the bushes of San Fernando Valley parks and Long Beach parking lots.
Some who frequent these spots are married or deeply closeted, unwilling to engage in conventional ways of meeting other men. Some are sexual compulsives. And some simply enjoy sexual activity with strangers.
"There are times when my emotion department is filled," explained Paul (not his real name), a gay man who is in a long-term relationship but has cruised in bath houses and off the trails of Griffith Park. "You get something different without any commitment. . . . The excitement of a different person.
