By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use. Looking for cruising grounds? There's an app for that. Technology may alter our lives, but gay lust is eternal. Men would meet behind evergreen trees, shrubs, and lava rocks, to have sex.
Queer knowledge has often been communicated undercover, via word of mouth, covert gestures, shared cultural touchstones. The bar had burned down in a likely hate-fueled arson fire.
In its place rose The Phoenix. Upper Ross Park is no longer a gathering place for queer men. Families and disc golfers now crawl over the rocks and into the underbrush that once shielded covert lovers.
One of the newest, Sniffies , the map-based cruising app , helped show me where the boys are now. The first time I walked there I was with my mom. As I waited for her to slowly exit the vehicle, I noticed a folded piece of paper on a log. But I did carefully refold it and place it back on the log like it was sacred.
It had made me smile. It helps me to know other queers are here. It makes living on a small farm in a conservative community a tiny bit more tolerable. It helps me to know there are gay guys getting blown nearby. Even if I never meet them. This piece initially ran in the Wanderlust section of Out Traveler 's Fall print edition.
