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Park Cruising

What Happens When We Wander Off the Path

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About this listen

An intimate look at one of culture's most enduring taboos: public sex.

Park Cruising takes a long look at the men who cruise for sex in urban parks. Human rights lawyer Marcus McCann uses park cruising as a point of departure for discussions of consent, empathy, public health, municipal planning, and our relationship to strangers. Prompted by his work opposing a police sting in a suburban park, McCann's ruminations go beyond targeted enforcement and police indifference to violence to examine cruising as a type of world-building.

The result is a series of insightful and poetic walks through history, law, literature, and popular representations of cruising in search of the social value of sex. What McCann ultimately reveals is a world of connection, care, and unexpected lessons about the value of pleasure.

Contains mature themes.

©2023 Marcus McCann (P)2023 Tantor Gay Studies Human Sexuality LGBTQ+ Studies Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
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This is a challenging, playful book that’s part cruise, part crusade to test and reframe social assumptions about the ethics of public sex and its policing (literally and metaphorically). It’s worth searching for Marcus McCann as a guest on podcasts: he’s thoughtful, superbly articulate (he’s also a poet and campaigning lawyer), naughty, and very funny. So is this book.

McCann’s prose is intricate and complex, it needs real clarity and nuance in the reading. Unfortunately the reader of this recording doesn’t always succeed in bringing this to the text. I found the tone tended towards “explaining” and didn’t quite capture McCann’s playfulness with his argument. If you want to engage with the ideas in this book, though, and audio is the best medium for you, this audiobook is fine.

Provocative book - adequate reading

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