Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

On Miss Poubelle's first visit to San Francisco, nearly 20 years ago, she was accompanied by her rather attractive friend, David. David was convinced that in nearly every bar we entered, people were cruising him. And by that, he meant that they were giving him the kinds of looks that indicated that they would like to have sex with them. David was probably right about all the men cruising him; he was as handsome then as he is now. But the world of cruising was somewhat new to Miss Poubelle at the time, and it took her some time to become accustomed to the vocabulary of gazes with which men make silent sexual contracts. In particular, it seemed that West Coast gay men had a culture of looks and glances that was very different from the hyper-verbal students she knew in Boston. She knew a lot about chatting boys up, but not much about cruising them.

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Cruising, in the sense in which David used the word, is a relatively recent name for what must be a very old phenomenon. The earliest record of the word used in quite this way comes from a 1949 publication called The Gay Girl's Guide. They defined to cruise as follows: "as a transitive verb, to seek to catch the eye of someone in whom one is interested, after placing oneself in his vicinity."

A much older use of the word cruising refers to walking or driving around in a particular area in hopes of meeting a sexual partner. The two senses are obviously related, though not quite the same thing. One sense of cruising refers to a kind of motion in search of a potential sexual partner. The second sense refers to the kind of look you give him to let him know what you want. Cruising in the "walking around" sense goes back at least to the Victorians, when prostitutes were called both street-walkers and cruisers.

Now cruising in this sense ultimately comes from the nautical sense of cruising, which is sailing "to and fro over some part of the sea without making for a particular port or landing place, on the lookout for ships, for the protection of commerce in time of war, for plunder, or (in modern times) for pleasure." The verb cruise comes from Dutch kruissen, which means "to cross." A boat that cruises crosses backs and forth. And in the same way, a prostitute cruising the street for a customer walks back and forth along the street hoping for a profit.

Despite the increasing availability of forms of anonymous communication, like the Internet and telephone chat lines, most sexual contacts are still made face to face, and it's useful to have a relatively non-threatening way to communicate interest. Those who are uninterested, unavailable, or heterosexual-at-the-moment need do nothing but ignore the cruise; no words need to be said. Cruising someone with your eyes is a valuable way of establishing contact in a way that is ambiguous enough to minimize the chances of bruised egos or broken noses. **