![\"tearoom\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/tearoom.jpg?resize=740%2C444\")
<\/p>\nNew Videogame Simulates a Public Restroom Where Gay Men Cruise for Sex<\/b><\/p>\n
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The Tearoom<\/a>, a new video<\/a> game\u00a0from Robert Yang described as \u201ca (free) historical public bathroom simulator about anxiety, police surveillance, and sucking off another dude\u2019s gun\u201d takes you into public restrooms where gay<\/a> men<\/a> cruise for sex<\/a>.<\/p>\n Writes Yang in the game\u2019s description<\/a>:<\/p>\n In 1962, the Mansfield, Ohio police department setup a hidden surveillance camera<\/a> behind a two-way mirror, and secretly filmed dudes having sex<\/a> with dudes in a public bathroom. The police used\u00a0the film footage<\/a>\u00a0to imprison them for a year or more under Ohio\u2019s sodomy laws.<\/p>\n Today in 2017, police still target men<\/a> who have sex<\/a> with men<\/a> \u2014 and in video<\/a> game land, I still have to deal with\u00a0Twitch banning my gay games by secret trial<\/a>\u00a0as if they\u2019re the f**king game police. So to appease this oppressive conservative gamer-surveillance complex, I have swapped out any pesky penises in my game for\u00a0the only thing that the game industry will never moderate nor ban \u2014\u00a0<\/em>guns. Now, there\u2019s nothing wrong with guys<\/a> appreciating other guys<\/a>\u2019 guns, right?<\/p>\n The game takes common video<\/a> game tropes and turns them on their head, writes The Guardian<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n Your goal is to engage in sexual acts with other men<\/a>, but before that, you must wait for someone to enter, and then engage in a ritual that involves repeated periods of prolonged eye contact, all the while keeping an look out for the police\u2026.<\/p>\n \u2026In the game, large icons clearly indicate when it is or isn\u2019t appropriate to look towards the man<\/a> at the other urinal. It\u2019s like a subversion of the stealth genre, as this time you want to be seen (though not by the cops). Yang\u00a0wrote on his blog<\/a>\u00a0that this mechanic was difficult to design because \u2013 as he puts it \u2013 \u201cdecades of male<\/a> heterosexual hegemony have trained gamers into thinking of \u2018looking\u2019 as a \u2018free\u2019 action, with few consequences or results.\u201d Players who are used to works that pander to the straight male<\/a> gaze may struggle to empathise with someone for whom a glance may be punished.<\/p>\n If the other man<\/a> doesn\u2019t want to be looked at, a red eye with a line through it appears on screen. The player cannot move away from the urinal, so the only actions available to them when not soliciting or engaging in sex<\/a> are to look around, perhaps glancing out of the window to check for cop cars, or to pee. Ironically, Yang wanted to create his \u201ctechnologically advanced urinal\u201d (which you can aim a stream of urine into and also flush) as a response to the habit other video<\/a> games have of providing bathrooms that serve no purpose.<\/p>\n And substituting guns for male<\/a> organs has other meaning here<\/a>, aside from avoiding being censored by the game network:<\/p>\n Yang is also interested in the political implications, and in the \u201cvery strange relationship\u201d that video<\/a> games have with violence and gun culture. On\u00a0his blog<\/a>\u00a0Yang also highlights the disconnect between how the US treats guns (eg with \u201copen carry\u201d laws) versus the depiction or display of genitals, especially if those genitals belong to a trans<\/a> person.<\/p>\n The post New Videogame Simulates a Public Restroom Where Gay Men Cruise for Sex<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Tearoom\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/2_tearoom.jpg?resize=740%2C416\")
<\/p>\n![\"tearoom\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/tongue.jpg?resize=740%2C416\")
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