INTRODUCTION
A bit of an edgier topic to discuss as I move toward modern day, the Tearoom Trade. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal sex in public places by Laud Humphreys is a book published in 1970, about impersonal homosexual sex in public areas, such as restrooms. The facilities, or 'tearooms' as they are known, were common meet up places for participants in "deviant behavior". While discussing his findings in the book, Laud Humphreys give detailed accounts of which kind of bathrooms were more commonly used for impersonal sex. I will use these descriptions as my primary source.
Although the restrooms described in the passage below refer to facilities built in the Depression Era, I am using them for this period based on when the public became became aware of their use for this specific function.
A bit of an edgier topic to discuss as I move toward modern day, the Tearoom Trade. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal sex in public places by Laud Humphreys is a book published in 1970, about impersonal homosexual sex in public areas, such as restrooms. The facilities, or 'tearooms' as they are known, were common meet up places for participants in "deviant behavior". While discussing his findings in the book, Laud Humphreys give detailed accounts of which kind of bathrooms were more commonly used for impersonal sex. I will use these descriptions as my primary source.
Although the restrooms described in the passage below refer to facilities built in the Depression Era, I am using them for this period based on when the public became became aware of their use for this specific function.
ORIGIN
PURPOSE
VALUE
LIMITATIONS
SOURCES
- The cover art and passage above originated through Laud Humphreys' book, which he wrote after compiling data and observations concerning the impersonal public sex habits of Americans in a metropolis.
- During the 1970s, the fight for gay rights was beginning. By using public restrooms as their meeting places, gay men would flaunt police arrest.
PURPOSE
- This book and the research methods it employed shocked the world in the '70s, because nobody had done anything like it before. Also, it presented the gay community in a light not everyone had been exposed to yet.
- The book was created as a follow up to a graduate paper Humphreys had written, because he believed it was a necessary step to reduce the amount of gay men being arrested for petty incidences.
- While I could provide a basic summary of the first chapter of the book, this is a bathroom fixtures blog, so I'll describe the types of bathrooms Humphreys would find to be places of high traffic.
- As described above, the bathrooms were usually very uniform-looking, and built during the Great Depression by the WPA. Also commonly used as places of observation by Humphreys are secluded bathrooms where no straights will bother them. One bathroom described later in the book details a nondescript toilet in the basement of a downtown building, but with a loud metal staircase that would allow caution.
VALUE
- This book (and its topic of research) were indicative of the time because they signified a big change in the way police viewed gay men in the community. The book was also released near the beginning of the gay rights movement.
LIMITATIONS
- However, the book contains very little in actual laboratory research, or the reactions of opposers to gay rights at the time.
- The extreme unusualness of the book took everyone by surprise in the '70s, so it was very counter to what would have normally occurred, such as mass arrests and discrimination of gay men.
SOURCES
- http://web.missouri.edu/~bondesonw/Laud.html
- http://books.google.com/books?id=NZjAEZsBWvMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Laud+Humphreys&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-L57U5v0IpCMqgazjoLoCw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Laud%20Humphreys&f=false
- Special thanks to my mother, Dr. Professor Georgina Hickey, author of Hope and Danger in the New South City, and 'Women in Public Space' advocator. (She knows a lot about toilets and urban design)