Cottaging ... how were things back then for other toilet users?

[Gettingmadderallthetime]

I followed a rabbit hole (POW candidates for GE) that took me to this interview with Emily Thornberry. In this interview with pink news in 2020 she talks about her work as a barrister defending gay men accused of public indecency in toilets. She was obviously very effective at this. It made me think though ... Led me to think about objections to the presence of trans women in female toilets nowadays. Is this the same sort of 'joke' to ET and others trans allies feel they would make now? During the years when cottaging was prosecuted did anyone speak out about the impact of this activity on others - those who wanted to go to the toilet. I assume toilets were removed from service because of this. Some users will have had unpleasant experiences and I wonder whether this was a consideration at all. Other users in this case being men. To my view toilets are not places for sex or sexual gratification. There seems to be no consideration (then or now) for those who want to just use the toilet and be safe and private in doing so.

Yes, I realise that the police entrapped gay men then. This ruined lives. There were presumably some men who were caught in this net who were just using the loo?

'There was a time when the Metropolitan Police was absolutely fixated with cottaging.They used to hang out in cottages, they used to lie on roofs, they used to drill holes in walls of toilet doors and this sort of thing; sit and wait for gay men and then arrest them, and then they’d be taken to court. I basically developed a practice of representing gay men charged with gross indecency.

Basically, what I used to do was just make the jury laugh, because it was so ridiculous.

Here we were at a crown court in front of a jury with a judge and everything else, and they were charged with gross indecency. And it would be the same police officers would always turn up because you had to volunteer for it.
So you get the same police officers again and again, and I remember they would see me coming, and you could hear them saying, ‘Oh, God, I got that b*h again,’ because they knew the way I would be cross-examining them and I would be playing it for laughs.

I would say things like, ‘So, you say he was “masturbating furiously”, could you explain to the jury what that means?’And of course the police officer would just say, ‘Uhh!’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I’ve got some newspaper here, if I roll it up, would you like to show us?’ Once the jury cracked, once the jury starts to laugh, we knew that they were never going to get convicted.

But it was the only way to deal with this. It was ludicrous that people were being persecuted in this way, it seemed to me, and frankly, it had to be shown up to be ludicrous.

And that’s what we used to do.

I had absolutely no compunction of doing this. And the judges just didn’t know where to look – but you had to do it. You just had to take the mickey.'

https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/02/12/emily-thornberry-labour-leadership-contest-lgbt-rights-boris-johnson-trans/

the physiological changes that happen to the body when you go to the loo
Yes, my elderly neighbour fainted and hit her head in the toilet. The ambulance womsn said it is quite common to have a fainting fit after a bowel movement (vagus nerve response, I think?) We are an ageing society and so we really need to take these far from rare occurrences into consideration.

Here’s the science bit:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590314/

And btw, no one has analysed the safety of the ‘gender neutral’ design either. Enclosing the cubicle was just a design choice, as the designer (listed as ‘evidence’ in our government commissioned document) was inspired by American ‘trendy nightclubs’. I was wondering what inspired trendy nightclubs to fully enclose mix-sex private toilet cubicles going back to the route of it all. It certainly didn’t related to safety of the U.K. population who wish to use single sex loos.

I found the different perspectives in this thread interesting and worth hearing and thinking about. Which is the problem I have with Emily Thornberry - rather than take the issue seriously and make arguments for leniency (these men are made outsiders by a homophobic society/these crimes are disproportionately punished etc) she chose to bypass serious consideration and use mockery instead.

I remember David Mitchell talking about Jeremy Clarkson's then dismissive attitude to climate change. Clarkson had written a piece which was mocking measures to limit emissions. Mitchell's point was that acting on climate change is like cleaning your bedroom when you're a kid - nobody wants to do it, the person (usually your mother) trying to get you to do it is a killjoy, but yet it has to be done. Mitchell, a comedian, was saying sometimes it's too easy to use comedy to make a bad argument persuasive. It's not good that Thornberry is proud of her tactics here, even if she could easily be pleased of defending gay men.

Apologies OP. I am looking at how it all started to work out how we got here and what the future is going to look like, in the absence of any quantitative analysis on safety for this design element.

I recommend looking at the YouTube videos about Stud to Stalled for your research. I linked to a recent one earlier. There are lots on YouTube.

I get what you're saying here. She's trying to represent what she saw as an oppressed group but she makes a mockery of the situation. The thing is, an individual gay man in the dock isn't looking for a comprehensive cross-examination of homophobia in society. In this case, he's just looking to not get convicted. Every single case can't become a plea to understand the plight of gay men, it's too nuanced an issue and there isn't time for that when the next case is waiting.

It also reminds me of conversations about how gay people now look back on gay representation in the media (once it became more acceptable for gays to be seen on screen). Think shows like Will & Grace. Gay men had to be portrayed as ridiculous and hilarious stereotypes to be accepted on screen and not be seen as threatening. It's evolved over time but, before society could accept us, they had to laugh at us. Some see that as a humiliating process but necessary. I kinda see a parallel in ET's approach, highlight the absurdity to distract from prejudice.

Not just the 90s. It's been a while since I lived in London but it was the same then, even in the middle of a summer Sunday afternoon with plenty of kids in there. This was well into the internet age, so there was absolutely no need for men to use the park as a meet-up spot, as there were plenty of online hook-up options that didn't involve looking for sex in a graveyard park full of people enjoying outside space/visiting graves.

You've misunderstood my point (I probably didn't make it very clearly). As previous comments have shown, this is a complex issue - on one hand it's true that gay men were ostracised, limited in their opportunities for meeting potential partners, and probably punished disproportionately compared to, say, straight couples having sex in similar spaces. On the other hand, public toilets were in some areas rendered unusable by the general public, and other users had their privacy and comfort undermined.
Thornberry's job at the time was to spare her clients conviction. That's understandable. But she gave the interview as a politician, someone whose job it is to consider all stakeholders when she contributes to policy. That she is proud of encouraging a shallow consideration of the issue by using mockery isn't good.

I've just asked DP (male, 60s) his experience of cottaging, he never came across it, simply avoided those toilets which had a reputation. Back in the day there were more public toilets so that wasn't a problem
I really don't think there is much in common between gay men in the past using men's toilets for meeting up and/or sex and trans women making women's toilets and other private spaces unusable or unsafe- they (or men posing as TW) are potentially a threat to us far greater than the potential threat of a gay man to another man

It's not just other men in men's toilets though. From about the age of seven boys are expected to go to men's toilets, regularly alone as most caregivers are women. Small boys are significantly more vulnerable than most adult women.

The Sheila Jeffreys paper is fascinating and very persuasive

I haven’t come across this before and agree it’s fascinating but I am dismayed at her conclusion ‘The most satisfactory way to provide for the needs of girls and women for safety, as well as the interests of those male-bodied transgenders who fear harassment, may be the creation of individual toilets which contain washbasins, and are entered through individual, full-length doors from a corridor, or public space. They offer dignity, safety and respect to all users and may not require labelling as male or female.’

This has what has happened in design. And the reality is that people have been harmed in them. Mixed sex, private spaces don’t offer safety in areas open to the public. They have been nick named ‘rape cubicles’ and they are the dangerous for anyone having a medical emergency. They are also more likely to be unhygenic. They are not great for rescuers in a building evacuation. They can’t be truly secure as you need to be able to unlock/rehinge the door to be able to get in when people collapse.

If you are a healthy male who likes a good sit down without the embarrassment of people hearing you, then they work out well.

I think we exchanged messages in a thread before; you completely changed my view on public toilet safety.

It's such a niche area in which to develop an interest and expertise; I'm surprised that people have written academic papers about it. I think it's great that you (and others) have put so much effort in and hope that you get properly appreciated for your knowledge and advocacy

Thank you for your kind message. Never expected to have to campaign for safe toilets. Not a path I envisaged! I think of it as some sort of post traumatic growth way of trying to make something positive out of what has happened in my life and for the others whose stories I have heard, after all the research I’ve done as to why we’ve ended up with the designs we’ve got now.

I wouldn’t be that surprised if SJ were open to changing her recommendations given your thoughtful and cogent work and advocacy in this area.
I’ve had family members taken ill in public loos or who would have been trapped with a full door.

Just trying to imagine floor to ceiling doors in nightlife where girls pass out so often (and need medical help) as well as the obvious risk of being trapped in one with a male who decided to take advantage. Safety in numbers ladies!!

Nightclubs that should say not nightlife.

If you googled ‘rape nightclub toilet’ you could find pages about men following women in. It’s depressing but I think women need to be more aware of the risks.

Those kind of men have a fetish for breaking boundaries, often it can go in a very unpleasant direction. See the legal Reddit sub dykeconversion for an extreme example of that. And sadly lesbians irl get raped bc of that mentality.

Plus for other men it's about seeing into a forbidden female space (think of the porn tropes of all girls schools, sleepovers etc) Or having twice the women and no man to compete with.

Remember a lot of lesbian porn is actually of ostensibly bi women who let a man join in or watch, so this fuels the ideas of men who think lesbians are actually bi. Think of the men who choke or want anal bc of what they've seen in porn.

Don't see the issue w an advance in a clothing shop, as long as respectful & accepts no.

Toilets are very different, obvs. I suppose they'd say that they couldn't know someone else was gay unless they asked, but that's no excuse, toilets should not be a sexual environment for anyone, whether the person resists after no doesn't matter. There's plenty of opportunities for gay men to meet since the 70s, lesbians certainly never relied on toilets to meet, even for casual sex!

I do know there was the 'handkerchief code' to indicate things so some gay men did try to distinguish themselves (obvs also hitting on a straight man could potentially have endangered them). But clearly a lot didn't do that...

What sort of advance do you mean in a clothing shop or other place? Personally, I found it quite intimidating being approached by another man who I didn't know, and I had no interest in sexual activity with a stranger. The worst examples were being propositioned in the streets near where I lived; it was not the 'nicest' of areas. I imagine it tends to be even more intimidating for a woman to be approached by a man who is obviously interested in sex, whether that approach is in a clothing shop or elsewhere.

Good point, I see what you mean. In either case, I could definitely see that as being intimidating. Less bad setting than a toilet, but nevertheless not right. I don't think anyone should be randomly propositioning people, v few people are going to be happy about it. Agree re threatening for women, but obvs can be for men, as well.

I think anyone approaching a stranger not simply for a casual encounter is still on thin ice. I don't think that's always wrong or anything, but they should make sure the other person isn't uncomfortable (so obvs not isolated areas etc)

There were certain public loos that were known for it.
There were a lot more public conveniences in general though.
I think that if you were a bloke and hanging around those toilets, then there would be ways that they would make it clear to each other.
I dont think it would affect people who weren't into it.

Reading through the thread, I’m curious to know what other people think the solution ought to be in the present day.

Men using public toilets for hookups is clearly still a problem, and it’s also clearly unfair to other toilet users, but what’s the practical solution? If we assume that it’s understandable for men to not want to risk sex with strangers in private locations, and that no amount of policing (no matter how draconian) is going to stop the urge, what’s the solution to let men to have sex with strangers in a relatively safe way without infringing on the rights of people who don’t want their toilets used in that way?

That's a good question. The traditional places are toilets, saunas, places in woods (Hampstead Heath was notorious) and porn cinemas. But no community wants these places (for very obvious reasons) and many of them, like toilets, have been shut down

I have a friend who, in his youth, was a good looking guy and he was regularly propositioned in public toilets. That's not acceptable even if it wasn't threatening for him in the way that a woman would experience the same thing. He would just say "fuck off" and was left alone.

Anyone here volunteering to have a 'cottage' installed next door?

The cottaging homosexual encounter stuff was so ubiquitous that a geezer coming in for an actual shit was like a breath of fresh air.