Action News Jacksonville has breaking news: gay men have sex in bathrooms. The local Florida news station recently aired an exposé report about a “website so vulgar we can’t even tell you its name.”
That website is Squirt.org.
The investigative journalists at the program, which airs on CBS and FOX affiliates, found a post on the gay hookup side – run by Xtra’s parent company, Pink Triangle Press – that mentions a local bathroom in which the toilet paper dispenser can be removed, offering a view into the neighbouring stall – a “window to spy.”
Action News brought hidden cameras into the bathrooms of “prominent public places” mentioned on Squirt’s hookup listings, and warned viewers that “perverts” could be peeping on them — or their kids — in the bathrooms. Their cameras showed viewers a window to the neighbouring stall, just to show how perverted people can be.
“These restrooms are next to the Gymboree play area,” the report points out.
A press release from Pink Triangle Press calls the Action News report “sensationalist” and decried the report for giving the “impression that women have been spied on through holes and children have been exposed to ‘danger.'”
The release clarifies that Squirt is used to allow gay and bisexual men to meet up, and that the Action News report fails to explain gay cruising — nor did reporters there contact Squirt for comment.
“Action News is misconstruing what a website like Squirt is all about,” says Jeffrey Freeman, Media and Traffic Manager for Pink Triangle Press. “Squirt.org is a place were men who have sex with men exchange information and facilitate their meeting.”
The Action News team, in their report, went on a mission to many of the now-famous bathrooms throughout the city, informing business owners and security of the dangers lurking in their bathrooms. They also interviewed police at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, asking if the police force would organize a sting operation to catch the naughty voyeurs. The police would only say that they are being “proactive.”
One Squirt user, posting on the thread about one of the public washrooms, writes “This location has been featured in a local news story. Please use caution while here and abide by local laws.”
None of the posts on the thread mention spying on unsuspecting guys – they are all stories of, and invitations for, mutual, and consenting sex acts. Another listing, for the Jacksonville airport, reads “Nudity / Sexual Policy: This is a public restroom in a busy secure airport use common sense.”
At the bottom of the story, Action News lists 11 other locations where “people are looking to spy.” Yet, they write, “we checked them out but we didn’t find any obvious signs of spying.”
That list includes Club Jacksonville, a gay sauna, and a gas station one-person bathroom that has a “bolt action style lock so there is complete privacy.”
Action News didn’t respond to Xtra’s request for comment.
Such hardcore journalism! ***yawn*** Cruising has been going on for decades, long before the Internet.
yawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
The men must to be very careful in the washrooms in the public places in the private to be safe so the men will have to use the stall locked so the man could not see he men go to the toilet it is private.The men will learn to use the stall on the washroom to be safe also.You need to rea them important.
Wow.. She went straight to POLICE..!!!
crusing in public toilets have been going on for centuries hell here in australia there was newspaper articles that guys been busted in the 1800’s for having sex in public toilets and there have been writings on the walls at Pompeii of guys looking for male sex so *yawn*
And of note, the user they were logged on as to view the site, had chat IM’s, and email noted at the top of the screen. LOL
But yes, they are everywhere!
I see
Now there will be a barrage of st8 men heading to the washrooms looking for a hot b/j & h/j, I luv it! You could not ask for better publicity
The news story makes it seem that sex in public places is exclusively a “gay” phenomenon. If you Google “sites for public sex” you have to get halfway down page 9 before you get to the first gay info site…all the others were hetero. How did that elude this ‘investigative’ reporter doing her due diligence to get a real grasp on the issues? Also, on the first two pages were reprints of articles of ‘how to’ have hetero sex safely in public from those kinky, sleazy, brown paper wrapped mags…Esquire, Cosmo, etc..available at every kid’s eye level in supermarkets everywhere. I’m sure this activist reporter will be doing an exposé on these sites as well in the near future to have balanced reporting. A landmark study done in the ’70’s showed a majority of men who had anonymous sex in bathrooms were married. We wouldn’t want gays to threaten the sanctity of marriage or besmirch it by being married ourselves! This reporter also seemed to miss the fact that Squirt is a gay/BI site…no mention of that either. Just more gay bashing in the press…shocking! If we don’t get this gay sex thing between consenting adults under control, it could lead to female teachers having sex with their minor students, cops dismissing tickets by getting BJs from female drivers or, as far fetched as it may sound, priests having sex with kids! Stay tuned for the next revelation….politicians suspected of lying to the public…the shocking evidence!!!
So in other words the “Action News” was in the bathrooms “LOOKING and SPYING” for action themselves? Who’s going to watch out for the camera guys and what all they taped while in there spying to find what they didn’t find?
I bet the the news reports HUSBANDS could have told there wifes all about the rest room act!!!! It’s so funny with married women, they get so crazy about others having sex… stay home and have some with your husbands girls and maybe there would be less action the restrooms
I heard long ago that gloryholes first began when soldiers came back to find the factories full of women. The women lost their jobs but eventually got back in. They didn’t have his and hers bathrooms yet, and didn’t need them… they had separate stalls anyway. As time went on they got their own rooms because glory/peep holes got drilled so often that there was a “need” to separate the genders. So, it’s not just homos with great imaginations on getting past barriers… hetero men have done it as well.
Unfortunately it’ll just take a couple of god bothers to lock these down, they’ll start hanging around your local council memebers and before you know it all those truly loved dunnies will be bull dosed for those new frigin unisex one. Just like here in Queensland. RIP the wonderful dunnie beat.
This news article was all about spying, not about meeting up to have sex. There was no mention of the word GAY or SEX and even the website wasn’t mentioned, it’s all about spying.
Oh dear oh my … men having sex —- that has been going on since year dot.
The oranges are not the only bad in Florida…lol
Surely the setting up of cameras to spy on people is an illegal invasion of privacy. But then Fox is part of the Murdoch Empire which hacks the phones of murder victims so we don’t need lessons on morality from them
Bazman after the unfortunate experience I’ve had of living and working in the states for some years, if the network network used the words GAY or SEX in a speculative sense then bring on the law suits
Weird someone still consider this as news. A journalist desperate for stories?…someone should mail her a copy of the book Tearoom trade…I wonder if she is married and her husband goes to one of these places
I am confused. They are making an issue of being able to see in the next stall however you walk up to a urinal and stand right beside another guy taking a piss. Wouldn’t that be considered a way to spy? Just saying, public bathrooms are not a “private” area at all, especially for men. Not that I am complaining, just strange how they make a big deal out of being able to see in the stall beside you.
“Yellow journalists” like these know to push the envelope just so far…(without actually opening it).
Even if you believe the [misleading] statements regarding its purpose and content, “Squirt”, as a website, was NOT specifically named due to fear of legal action. Period.
And as others noted, the word “spying” was clearly used in place of “looking for gay sex” because, had the works “gay and sex” been used in any combination, GLAAD (and every other LGBT anti-defamation group in existence) would have been on their case “exposing” THEM – not to mention demanding equal air time for a rebuttal to this baseless, sensationalistic nonsense (even the cop being interviewed was straining to be polite, offering curt, evasive responses with a fake smile in an effort to ward off an endless barrage of stupid questions – probably thinking to himself “stop wasting my time with this b.s and just go away”).
Florida truly is the “land of dumb” – a boring, ass-backwards place filled with bible-thumpers, con artists and criminals running from someone or something – where EVERY day is a mind-numbing, slow news day.
I think the point everyone is over looking is this now confirms squirt is being WATCHED by the Media and law enforcement.
Sure we all had a hint of this from time to time, but this proves it by showing the site on the news, albeit, blurred out images, but it is squirt being used to target the community.
So celebrating that Squirt got shown on the nightly T.V. News (even in a bad light) needs to be the warning to all, the Police and NEWS media are watching, looking for oppertunity to make an arrest or a news story.
I am sure that this is not the only city where a reporter is hunting for “The Story of the Day”. So mindful of places even more so now
Who cares what the history in the 70’s or 80’s was, or the status of a guy married or not going to a stall or hanging out in the woods, this posting is more to the point. POLICE AND NEWS PEOPLE ARE LOOKING MAKE A BUST OR MAKE YOU THEIR NEWS STORY AND SQUIRT IS BEING WATCHED, even this post most likely, in an attempt to gauge the reaction of the community.
in short: my solution, Public stalls in high traffic public places and near where people under age are…off limits. As it always should be. Risking your freedom over a cheep thrill, NOT worth it. you can loose everything, as what happened to a guy I knew in High School, who got arrested for a lewd act at 21 years old and now 22 years later, is still on a sex offenders website, and not able to live where he wants and can not get a real job that makes decent money due to that act years ago (as the web never forgets).
Think before you go out looking to play.
I agree with Cruisnboi2. The discretion had go out of the window. The point to note is the web site is being monitored by police, media, and most worryingly by people out there wanting to hurt and destroy gay/bi men.
However we need to be discreet and respect public place.
this reporter is very terrible….. ” yawn” I guess its true, her husband is being spied up and do some action in the bathroom, lol.
just wondering, how did the reporter got the squirt page? who gave her? it was posted on the news, and in the squirt page you can find the cruising listing, whooooaaaaa…. so dangerous, police got an idea already where to find those cruisers.
hope the squirt team will close the cruising listing to keep it safe or do some uodates to resolve the issues.
this is really bad…
in China, some public toilets are very open. People make dump face each other. Nobody feels privacy being violated. 🙂
All I can say, is I’d like to bend over for that Jacksonville sheriff!
No! Not FOX! Isn’t it “fair and balanced?” Just keep tapping your foot congressman someone will assist you shortly.
Any site — Squirt and all the others — that prominently feature a section titled “Hot Cruising Sites” or “Local Cruising Sites” at the top of its page is begging for this kind of attention.
The law is still the law, and if you want to break it and have sex in public places, that’s your business. But don’t ask law enforcement and the press to ignore postings like this. They won’t, and they shouldn’t. That’s their job.
Is it right? Who’s to say?
But we can’t have it both ways — blatantly encouraging sex in public places — and naming them by name, on a Web site that’s accessible to everyone (if they’re clever enough) — and expecting (nay, demanding) that others turn a blind eye to the activity.
Want to be safe, Squirt? Drop the “hot cruising spots” feature. It’s not realistic to flaunt something like this, then become holier-than-thou and “outraged” when it’s used against you.
For heaven’s sake, what did you honestly think would eventually happen? I’m surprised it’s taken law enforcement and the media so long to get around to this.
We as a community STILL have more to worry about than whether a guy is cut or uncut, or has tats or not, or manscapes.
Be careful, guys. Getting your rocks off sometimes just isn’t worth it.
The only thing newsworthy in that expose-
they’ve got some hot cops in Jacksonville!
Only in the U.S.A.
I don’t want Squirt to drop the cruise listings as some above suggest. The police have monitored this site and others for years. Mostly they don’t do much about any of it, as they have more important things to do, and they know it.
At the same time, it is not real wise to post on one of the listings in advance, that they will be somewhere at a certain time. That could set themself up for legal action if some police officer was so inclined to check it out.
Gosh, I’m so glad they’re taking care of business up there in the north Florida bible belt and keeping everyone up there safe, This makes me so proud to be a Florida resident!
I agree with many of these various posts and do not connect in public personally. I do think however that the cultural bias that allows straights to do nearly anything publically with no moral outrage and media violating the same privacy they seem to want to protect needs our unified attention.
Yes its unlawful in some states and one should be wise as always but gay and bi men should have the same acceptance as straight men and couples.
Expose the straight hook up sites or leave the gay alone. The gay media can and should report these stories fully and in true journalistic fashion in response.
The catholic church has straight abuses as well as gay but the media focuses on the gay. Also women as someone stated can be sexually off putting to their spouses and practically celebrated for sex on the side when they finally break out as in Bridges of Madison county or Thelma and Loiuse. Bi men may have wives that know they want or get action with men at times so not all folks are lurking but just looking.
Be respectful of laws yes but expect and demand laws and cultural standards that are fair to all. Is that a reality now no but one we must work towards and demand. Likewise our laws are collective but seems to favor ultraconservative views and all views should influence our law some religions have absolutely no concern over gay activity why then should laws not also consider those influences. perhaps we need to hang out at the councils as flash our own cash around the law makers, but oops the conservative meddlers wouldn’t want the guy who sucked them off in the room where he might suck off the law maker. 😉
Though the video didn’t mention ‘gay sex’ per se, bigots have always used “code” and stereotypes to say unspoken volumes. Many people go to the web for local news and here their site has this video, text of the video and descriptions of the other locations alluded to in the video. ActionNewsJax.com “Restroom spying: personal moments made public”. Working with the Studios, I know the power of visuals quite well…a picture IS worth a thousand words. Obviously the site is a ‘guy’s’ site …the color scheme, fonts used and the titles. If it was for women, there would have been pastels, script and flowers. Clearly it’s also a gay site with headings like: cruising, hot cruising spots, new local guys, “looking for sex in…”. So now we clearly have a ‘gay’ site with the voice over of how its so ‘vulgar’ it can’t be named. So now we have linked gays, vulgar and unspeakable together in the public’s mind. Notice the visual of showing the bathroom sign at the mall with the voice over that it’s next to the Gymboree (children’s play area) and then they show the bathroom at the airport, not the mall, in the next shot….with urinals, so it’s clearly the men’s room. Therefore, the gays have specifically chosen this bathroom so they can prey on your children…its a known fact(stereotype) that gays are pedophiles wanting to pervert your kids. Then they pan down a Squirt page for the Mall and you can catch part of the text about ‘no glory holes’. Most people realize those aren’t primarily for peeking, so sex is obviously implied. On the web page they list all the cruising sites alluded to in the video with phrases lifted from Squirt’s descriptions. These leave little doubt that we’re talking about sex…few mention spying..so why were they mentioned except to add more info about what those vulgar gays are up to…public sex. The bathouse where you can ‘hangout nude’ and where ‘the sauna heats up…and can be fun’. The men’s rooms at the University, other malls, Dillard’s, Home Depot, etc. Kmart where you ‘sit in a urinal till someone looks over the stall’…I guess you’re supposed to wait there until someone spies on you..lol. And of course the Airport featured in the video where there is ‘understall action AND voyeur opportunities. They clearly made the difference between spying and some other activities… sex acts? So yes, they didn’t say it out loud, but they said it in many other ways. Your eyes take in a lot more info than you are consciously aware of…filmmakers, advertizers, etc exploit this all the time to say volumes in seconds by using your experiences, biases and preferences to sway you to their view. Just look at the subtle bigotry and racism we see daily…little is said, but many catch the idea. So, the unspoken word is often the loudest thought. Here we see much implied, but enough deniability to deflect criticism due to your interpretation of the info…nothing they said.
Others above have well explained the dangers of getting caught and the dire results. Just don’t hookup in a public place.
For those that insist on indulging in public sex, I strongly suggest you visit the website of Bruce Nickerson. He is the leading attorney for lewd conduct stings in the U.S. He has very good advice on your rights and how to defend yourself, what to say and do if caught. He has established a lot of case law and has overturned many convictions on appeal. Since they don’t like us posting websites here, just run his name together and add ‘.com’ to get to his site. A must read to protect yourself.
Sounds to me like the news woman needs a big cock up her ass…
[“These restrooms are next to the Gymboree play area,” the report points out.] That is a mark of desperate reporting: equate it with children in some way. I’ll bet that mall is a mile from an Elementary too…
The other humorous part was the stall where the tile is shiny enough to see into the other stall. How is this squirts fault? Lol, uhhhh can you say “crappy” bathroom construction?!
Congratulations lads you could buy this publicity!!!
That policeman is hot!