RECOGNIZING STRANGERS : GAY CRUISING IN THE CITY

Abstract

This study attempts to examine the intricacies involved as gay men forge a sense of privacy through public sex. Cruising in the city streets allows the gay male to explore a reality relevant to their construction of what it means to be gay. Salient to this study is how gay men privatize public streets as they attribute gay meanings to these spaces. Through symbolic transformation, the gay community demarcates and defines gay spaces in which they create their private world. In Chapter 3, I explore the repertoire of skills and strategies as gay men recognize each other and negotiate the liaison. Membership in the gay community dictates the dynamics and politics of how the game should be played. Entering their gay life-worlds, I examine the ironies and complexities gay men face in a so-called heterosexist world. They balance between competing constructions of the gay reality with a sensibility created from how they perceive the difficulties. Hence in Chapter 5, I discuss the "myth of antagonism" that circumscribes how the gay male sees himself and the gay community. Through disciplining the gay body, gay men in Singapore remain hidden, secret and silent. The endnotes and appendices in this study should not be neglected as they offer additional interesting glimpses of the gay male and his lifeworld. In an effort to have a better understanding of gays and their reality, I hope this study will contribute another facet of how we see a largely misrepresented community.