BY LUKE MCKENNA

Hot married dude, love to deep throat and swallow cum. 8 The message appears to have been written hastily in blue ballpoint pen over a flaky patch of paint on the wall of a city park lavatory that takes the squeak out of Vancouvers clean reputation. Across from it: a hammered-out glory hole that connects one toilet stall to the next. Ink etchings cover the bulk of surfaces: crude witticisms, mostly, and a few tags. But that one stands out. It was written by a man well call Robert, who, 48 hours ago, was nothing but a lewd and furtive proposition, a set of digits dripping with the promise of anonymous sex. Yesterday, he became a hushed voice on the other end of the phone line when he agreed to be interviewed. Today, hes the reason Im back at the toilet block, hours after the last child left the playground and unknowingly seceded ownership of the park for the night. Robert participates in an ebbing movement that still trades in hidden identities and engages in secret sex the old-fashioned way. As the growing masses flock to the Internet, impatient for the

instant gratification with which theyre met online, a horny handful still try their luck with pens by the pissoir. No profiles, no photos, no ASLjust 11 digits graffitied inside an acrid cubicle, pregnant with possibility. Its a tough scene to crack as an outsider looking for information. Ive been screamed at, hung up on, and nearly beaten during my search for private details in public places, which has taken me to back-alley dive bars, highway rest stops, dimly-lit parks, shady bowling joints, and covert phone boothsanywhere with clean slates that can be sullied with pen or marker. The Scylla and Charybdis of the scene are two very protective (and diametrically opposed) groups: the participants themselves, reluctant to talk, and an army of aggressors fighting to preserve their sacred spaces. Drinking-hole regulars, sanitized bathroom attendants, and playground parents band together to form a neighborhood watch of sorts. To these comparably upstanding citizens, the sexual scribbler is a nameless, perverted peril. A masturbatory menace. What are you doing with that? asks an

accusatory drunk, who looks down at the pen and camera in my hand as I exit the mens room of a grimy cowboy-themed dive. Im just working on a story. I head for the exit but the old man blocks the doorway with his thickset frame. His eyes fixed menacingly on mine, he asks, You writing that shit on the wall? Robert keeps out of trouble by maintaining a low profile. He looks like an everyman, a 40-something office worker who barbecues on the weekend and sleeps beside his wife. He refuses to discuss her. Roberts willingness to talk, while generous, isnt boundless. Secrecy is, after all, the name of the game. He has always been seduced by tearooming, as its known in the world of bathroom cruisers. Nowadays, its his only sexual escape. He was in his 20s the first time he allowed himself to mess around in public with a male stranger. His partner was an older guy, and they fooled around at the urinal for a bit before heading their separate ways. A virgin, as it were, he didnt go all the way that time. While describing his many restroom encounters 37

since, Robert uses words like quick, quiet, stink, and sleaze. His days as a nervous newcomer now behind him, Robert is up for just about everything. Before gay rights and Internet Explorer, the mens room was a rite of passage for many gay males, a secretive space hidden from judgmental eyes and public profiles, where the cloistered and closeted sought frantic release. These gritty stalls are remembered alongside establishments like the Stonewall Inn, the New York bar where the gay rights movement was born, as rare places where sexual outcasts could congregate unnoticed in an anything-goes environment. American sociologist Laud Humphreys, who spent the 1960s poking around mens rooms for his groundbreaking examination into the tea-room trade, reported that most bathroom encounters involved married men. More than half of his subjects were outwardly straight with unsuspecting wives. (Typically, they were also social and political conservatives.) Back then, when the American Psychiatric Association officially labeled homosexuality a sociopathic personality disturbance, just 14 percent of the men he studied identified as being gay. Today, homosexuality has been thrust from the hush-hush periphery into the mainstream, flinging open both toilet and closet doors. Updated research from the UK, by the AIDS Education Unit of Barnet Healthcare NHS Trust, has shown that the men who continue to convene in cubicles are usually either too young to explore gay clubs, or openly gay and looking for some quick actionin either case, theyre no longer hiding in the shadows of society. The world of secret, anonymous gay sex, once a critical form of expression, is going the way of secret, anonymous straight sex. It has become, or at least its becoming, a fetishistic niche, reserved for raunchy networking sites and the part of Craigslist that doesnt sell used ottomans. Nobody calls anymore, types BigBoy4U, who I meet online in a tea-rooming forum. Hes a new-age cruiser who has given up on scribbling in stalls. You can find guys online anytime, and you can see who you are talking to and find out about them, he says, warning that the unpredictable world of offline hookups is full of disease, butt ugly men and violence. In the early 2000s, long before he adopted his suggestive net handle, BB4U was called to a toilet block in a terrible part of town, lured there with the promise of grungy sex. But rather than being roughed up by the

hot gym junkie he wanted, he was beaten and robbed by a vicious crackhead looking for a vulnerable target. That happens less these days, says BB4U, who now researches each tea-room beforehand by reading online reviews and warnings. Theres a certain charm to Roberts thinning ranks, which remain stubbornly analog as their dirty world goes digital. Hes afraid to enter the online stalls of the 21st century and to advertise his lifestyle to a global audiencealthough its anonymous, its also risky and too foreign to him. Besides, the notes he leaves in bathroom stalls take timing out of his control, keeping his behavior in check. And, like any vice just out of reach, it makes the eventual payoff infinitely more satisfying. Its like tantric sex for the toilet set. You can wait weeks or even months for a call, he says. You have no idea when it will come, who he will be, or if he will show up. Its the anticipation. Robert is a throwback to Humphreys day, when social networking consisted of eye contact, coughs and coded handkerchiefs in back pocketsdark blue if hes looking for sex, light blue for a blow job, and yellow for watersports (the colorful list goes on). Nowadays, cell phones help remove some of the guesswork, but without a profile picture there still needs to be a ciphered system to protect the willing and unwilling alike. By just sticking it through a hole and hoping for the best, well, theres a good chance youll get the worst. A date arranged over the phone with Robert only includes a time, a meeting spot, and a brief physical descriptionhe doesnt exchange names. Robert likes to arrive early to secure a stall. Then, once the clock ticks over, the careful courtship begins. First, Robert taps his foot twice and waits for an identical response. This continues until hes sure his partner is in the next cubical. He then slides his hand under the dividing wall into the next stall, waiting for a go-ahead. From there, Robert says, You never know what youre going to get. If theres a glory hole, hell use itand he likes to go first. If not, theres plenty he can do with hands underneath the dividing wall, Robert says, describing a situation where both men kneel on either side of the partition, making contact through the gap at the floor. To take things further, Robert might slide the bottom half of his bodyface up or down all the way into the next stall, maneuvering underneath the divider. The handicapped cubical is also big enough for two. When

more than two people join the party, doors are sometimes unscrewed from their hinges altogether. Each tea-room has its own allure, says Robert, who picks his locations carefully. Over the years he has written his number in truck stops to attract bigger men who are passing through the city, and university stalls to meet young, smart guysnot that hes there for the conversation. Parks pull a broader crowd; hes had calls from postpractice soccer players, tourists, and the occasional dad. He does get the odd prank call, typically from giggly teens, but they dont stay on the line much past, Fuck you, faggot. This might be because the cubical canvas is also the target of a crueler class of tagger with an axeor exto grind. Robert says he can tell these fake invitations apart, though. Theyre tamer. A guy wrote it as a joke, says the irate female voice on the other line whose number was scribbled in a rest stop bathroom underneath the message, Call for sexytimes. I suck dick. Have you had many calls? Enough. What do they want? What do you think. Do you ever chat with them? I usually tell them to fuck off. Its disgusting. The trick to longevity is to write your message in a spot that goes unnoticed by cleaners. Robert likes to use the underside of plastic toilet-roll dispensers, or the covered, inside edge of the door, where its hinged to the frame. But you can be a lot less discrete in some of the filthier toilet blocks, like the one were sitting in front of. Robert likes it here. The unassuming park on the outskirts of town attracts the right kind of crowd, and its close to home so he can get there in a hurryhe never knows when hell get the call. He turns his phone off late at night so that he doesnt arouse suspicion from his wife. After weve said our goodbyes, he heads back to the stalls in search of a new number or message. If he waits long enough he might even find some company. Twenty minutes later he could be on his way home, rehearsing a familiar story about his bus being delayed. Not tonight honey, hell say. Im exhausted.

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