Why can't they meet in bars and clubs like normal people

The Protective State and Bioregulating Gay Public Sex Spaces

Bibliographic Data

ID3978328
AuthorsGrant Anderson (0000-0003-0181-5992, University of Glasgow, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume19
Issue6
Pages699-719
Publication date2018-08-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2017.1301542
OpenAlexW2593224789
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited33

State regulation of gay public sex spaces (PSS) has prompted geographers to assess the influence that localised legalities exert in specific micro-spaces of interaction, and to expand this research into cities not considered to be archetypically ‘gay friendly’. Through the lens of Foucault’s governmentality, it is important to consider state-directed bioregulatory influences upon toilets and parks as PSS. Such bioregulation, with its aim of producing a ‘healthy’ sexual population, seeks to expose public sex as ‘dangerous’, encouraging a policing of PSS and the men who use them. Part of this bioregulation also enlists men using PSS as responsible for peer surveillance to ensure anonymity and privacy in PSS. This auto-surveillance develops a ‘common code of conduct’ leading these men to develop their own modes of ‘normativity’ within these hetero-challenging spaces. By consulting with men who use PSS, I unearth oral histories of how changing laws, policy and ‘mainstream’ attitudes towards PSS in Glasgow, Scotland, have impacted upon cruising and cottaging. This paper will provide a place-specific reading of gay urban sexscapes, exploring how state bioregulation encourages the creation of new gay practices, identities and geographies

Anonymity · Criminology · Governmentality · Human sexuality · Mainstream · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · State (computer science · Gender Studies · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

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