A museum in Berlin, Germany is displaying an exhibition about the history of gay sex in public toilets.
Specifically, the Schwules Museum is displaying Fenster Zum Klo: Public Toilets, Private Affairs from now until February 5, 2018.
The exhibition displays photos taken by Marc Martin, a French photographer who is focused on exploring male fantasies in his art.
As GayStarNews reports, the topic is of special importance to the creator as he expressed in the introduction to the show.
Martin writes that his earliest sexual encounters happened in public bathrooms, and so there’s special interest in him for the subject.
“And I’m proud of them! … These places, where men were constantly coming and going, were instrumental in my sexuality, aroused my desires and quenched my curiosity.”
“In there, I also had the most unlikely, unexpected encounters. “Cottages” (or “Tearooms”) were no heaven, granted. But they were no hell either.”
But, it’s not only Martin who’s sharing his thoughts on cruise culture in public bathrooms. The exhibition also includes quotes from French writers Jean Genet and Arthur Rimbaud. Plus, film historian and journalist Marc Siegel also participates.
Siegel spoke to GayStarNews and praised the exhibition as, “an overdue exploration of an important part of queer culture and the culture of homosexual sex more broadly.”
He went further on to say:
“Exploring the culture of sex in public toilets is also a means of thinking about the damages urban development, gentrification, privatization and surveillance have wrought on the existence and use of public space.”
“That said, we shouldn’t think sex in public toilets is completely relegated to the past. Thankfully, men still meet up for sex with strangers in toilets in universities, hotels, train stations and other public and semi-public locations. And, of course, there’s still park sex – at least in Berlin, where I live.”
And it’s not just gay men or academics who approve of the exhibition but even Berlin’s public transportation service BVG (Berliner Verkehrs-Geseelschaft), which was kind enough to sponsor it.
Again, if you are interested in checking out the exhibition, it will be going until the 5th of February.
h/t: GayStarNews
Dumb.
Dumb.