Aug 11, 2006  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

Eighties pop star George Michael’s latest tabloid scandal is raising questions about the role of cruising in gay male culture.

Last month, Michael was photographed by paparazzi emerging from the woods in London’s Hampstead Heath — a gay cruising site — after an alleged sexual encounter with another man. When confronted by photographers, Michael blamed gay “culture” for his behavior.

“Are you gay?” British tabloid “News of the World” quoted Michael as asking the photographer who snapped pictures of him after allegedly engaging in a sex act with a middle-aged, unemployed van driver. “No? Then fuck off. This is my culture.”

Cruising, or anonymous sex in public places, has long been part of the gay male experience, but Michael’s claim that such behavior is a part of gay “culture” has met with some raised eyebrows. 

Michael Alvear, who writes the gay male sex advice column “Need Wood?,” which appears in the Blade, and is a sex and relationship coach on the British TV show “The Sex Inspectors,” says that he considers anonymous public sex to be a behavior of a minority of gay men.

“When [Michael] says cruising is part of our culture what he means is anonymous sex in public toilets is part of our culture and I reject that completely,” Alvear says. “To say that it’s an inherent part of our culture is wrong.”

ROB WEISS, A GAY social worker and therapist, says he considers anonymous sex to be more an issue of gender than sexual orientation.

“Certainly, cruising and anonymous sex is endemic to gay culture,” Weiss says. “There’s no question about that, but I don’t think gay men’s pursuit of sex is any different from straight men’s pursuit of sex.”

The female pursuit of sex may require more of a relational approach than cruising allows, says Joe Kort, a gay social worker and therapist who wrote “Ten Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Find Real Love.”

“Cruising doesn’t involve any social grace,” Kort says. “You don’t have to talk, you don’t have to really do anything but stare. It’s a stare down. It’s so predatory. With flirting, women know how to do that because it’s relational and it’s more playful and respectful.”

Because straight men have to adapt to women’s methods of courting, cruising becomes less of an option for them.

THE ACCEPTANCE OF partners engaging in “extracurricular activities” in gay male relationships may also have to do with the absence of women.

Kort says that although the vast majority of gay men he counsels have non-monogamous relationships, the lesbians he counsels almost never do.

“Women tend to not want that to be part of their relationship,” Kort says. “It feels like it’s a violation against them, whereas males don’t take it as personally.”

George Michael has a fiancé, his long-time partner Kenny Goss, but says that Goss doesn’t mind his dalliances.

“It’s never been an issue between us,” he said recently on Richard & Judy, a British TV show.

“My 10th anniversary present to him cost me a million quid so I reckon I should get away with more than [having sex with an unattractive man],” Michael also said on the show.

Non-monogamous relationships are common among the men he counsels, Kort says.

“After five years together, most gay couples have open relationships,” Kort says. “I think it serves two functions. Number one, it helps gay men find partners. It’s how they look for partners and I also think it keeps relationships together so that these gay male couples who are non-monogamous and cruise, they have emotional fidelity, but they have sexual openness.

“The other reason that it works is that every couple has a sexual desire discrepancy. In gay couples, the one that wants it more can go get it. It relieves the pressure in their relationship in that area. It’s the truth and I can’t hide from it. But I do believe this — you open your relationship up for more problems when you’re not monogamous.”

Alvear, however, says that his observations have led him to conclude that younger gay men are pursuing monogamous relationships.

“I can almost tell you with 90 percent accuracy that whenever I get a letter from somebody who is longing for monogamy or is upset at seeing couples who have open relationships, it’s inevitably somebody younger, someone in their 20s,” Alvear says. “It’s a sort of retro gay, a turn to traditional values and relationships in guys in their 20s.”

KORT, ALVEAR AND WEISS all say that sex in public can be problematic.

“It’s rude because you’re using a public space for something ...