Public sex has lost some of its popularity over the years thanks to the internet and modern cybersex, but its taboo nature—and, ironically, increased privacy away from home—still renders it popular. Still, there’s an ongoing culture war within the queer community between those who advocate for public sex and those who believe it’s abhorrent. As radical queers go toe-to-toe with burgeoning purity culture, issues of class, race, gentrification, sexual consent, and the long-term legacy of the AIDS crisis merge together to create one of the most complex issues the LGBTQ community deals with. [...]
During the 20th century, public sex was a cornerstone of LGBTQ sexual expression. By having sex in public, queer men, women, and nonbinary folks reclaimed public spaces from heteronormative society and turned them into hubs for queer eroticism and desire. Queer cruising for public sex is born out of necessity, author Alex Espinoza argues in his book Cruising. [...]
Instead, moral panic over gay public sex has grown. While cisgender heterosexual couples are much less likely to be seen as boundary violators for hooking up in a bathroom stall or the backseat of a car, queer sex is inherently transgressive, so queer public sex quickly becomes a target for homophobia from within and without the queer community. This past June, one queer Twitter user argued public sex at Pride is akin to being “flashed and traumatized by someone who decides its [sic] okay to pull their dick out.” The year prior, another queer user criticized “dumbasses who [have] public sex at pride” because the event is “family-friendly.” The user, who has acronyms for Black Lives Matter and the abolition slogan “All Cops Are Bad” in their profile, promised to “call the police” on these attendees and vowed to “bring a bat to pride and shut shit down.”
