The recent guilty plea by Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has brought national attention to the practice of "cruising" for sex in public places, but this is not a new phenomenon.
Cruising, the practice of men meeting and having anonymous sex in bathrooms or other public places, continues at USC in bathrooms in Bovard Auditorium and Taper Hall of Humanities, according to a facilities management employee, evidence in the restrooms and websites dedicated to cruising.
The Daily Trojan originally reported on this activity, a misdemeanor, in an article last year.
The two cruisers featured in the Sept. 12, 2006 article, one a USC graduate student and the other a university employee, both said they were married men and felt that the activity was not about the sex, but rather "an adventure."
They declined to give their names, fearing retribution from other cruisers.
Many cruisers are "straight-acting" men who feel they can't be openly gay, Julie Albright, a lecturer in USC's Department of Sociology and an expert on relationships and sexuality on the Internet, said last year. They might be in a "very masculine environment" such as an athletic team or fraternity, or live with others - a spouse or roommate, for example - who wouldn't accept homosexual activity, she said.
"If they're not out, they can't go to a gay bar," Vincent Vigil, a graduate student and director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center said last year, adding that anonymous sex is prevalent in the heterosexual community as well.
Mary Andres, a psychologist and assistant professor of clinical education at USC who has counseled cruisers, said many are attracted to the expediency and anonymity of casual, public sex.
"They're having a good time having sex, and there's a certain disconnect intellectually [between the sex act and the sex of the partner]," she said.
Andres added the arousal factor is conflicted by the risks involved and the shame attached to cruising.
"People feel this great sense of excitement … and then they go away from it [thinking], 'I don't know if that was worth it,'" Andres said.
One cruising website lists 86 cruising locations in Los Angeles - including 10 at USC.
Some locations haven't been used in years, but as recently as Tuesday evening, someone posted explicit pictures of male genitalia and sexual activities in a Bovard Auditorium bathroom stall with graffiti advertising a date and time to meet.
In a Taper Hall bathroom, a 19-year-old left an advertisement soliciting oral sex.
"[Cruising is] on every college campus that you can name, even the most religious college campuses," the graduate-student cruiser said last year.
USC Department of Public Safety Chief Carey Drayton has said his officers won't patrol the bathrooms unless someone complains.
Despite evidence and testimony pointing to continued cruiser activity on campus, DPS Capt. Dave Carlisle said DPS has not received any complaints relating to cruising since last year's article ran.
