An Edinburgh man says he was left “horrified” after walking in on a gaggle of men partaking in a 12-man orgy inside a park restroom.
The incident happened in an area called The Mound, an artificial hill in central Edinburgh. The 32-year-old grocer, who was with his six-year-old nephew, walked into the restroom and saw one man “crouched down at another’s groin” while another ten or so guys watched and pleasured themselves.
“I just quickly walked out,” the grocer tells Edinburgh Evening News. “Luckily, I had my nephew over my shoulder facing the other direction. I was just so taken aback.”
Related: Man sues police after being falsely accused and arrested for cruising
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Cops were called. They arrived and began banging on stall doors and quizzing men who were nearby; however, no arrests were made.
“I totally understand that cruising happens in every city,” the grocer says, “but to do it in the public view takes it to another level.”
The bathroom is a popular cruising zone for gay men, according to several online internet boards.
A Police Scotland spokesperson says: “Police in Edinburgh were called to a report of lewd behaviour around 4.20pm on Wednesday 3 of October in The Mound area of the city centre. Nothing was detected, however inquiries are ongoing.”
Meanwhile, the grocer says he will never use those bathrooms again and will be very cautious of which ones he uses in the future.
“I think from now on I’ll be using toilets within premises,” he says. “I don’t want to experience anything like that again.”
Related: Take a peek under “D*ck Dock,” one of the world’s most frequented cruising spots
martin_erickson
I’m hoping he didn’t turn around to leave, giving his nephew an eyeful.
Seriously, our community’s time-honored tradition of public cruising and multiple participants in a scene demand that we also use caution and discretion. Discretion as in being aware of the surroundings, location, local demographics, etc. Take the scene to a private place, if need be, rather than risk interruption. I’m sure the mood was spoiled for all concerned, not just the grocer, for whose indignant reaction I am not surprised and am supportive.
KevInSD
It’s disgusting, criminal behavior, not a time-honored tradition. I will never be in a “community” with people who act like this. Anyone who tries to normalize this conduct, as you do in your comment, is part fo the problem.
scotshot
@KevinSD You’re not a member of “this community”. Why do you show up so often? Doing so makes you a member of this community.
Rock-N-RollHS
The kid would have rolled his eyes, having no idea what he was seeing. It’s adults, not kids, who get so freaked out by these things.
Bryguyf69
First off, why was his profession as a grocer relevant? Because of that title, I assumed that he was delivering grocery to a private home. And I was ready to slam him as a homophobe since it’s none of his business what people do at home. But after reading the entire story, I completely agree with him and the men should be arrested. In fact, he doesn’t sound homophobic or even moralistic since he seems okay with discreet cruising.
Xzamilloh
Okay, did the title change from what I see? Because I see a title that for once gives enough pertinent details without being vague.Although I don’t think him being a grocer was relevant, because I was under the impression at first that he walked in on them in a grocery store bathroom.
gymmuscleboy
It is relevant to the author, as he is trying to denigrate him, as evident with the mocking “may never recover from shock” and putting “horrified” in quotes. Not cool.
Rock-N-RollHS
Big deal, he saw them having sex. I’ve seen straight people having it in public places all my life. Never traumatized, often titillated, frequently indifferent and bored.
batesmotel
Well he does have a point. At least use some measure of discretion where the odds of someone walking in are so slim that it would be super rare. Unless this was one of those situations. And he just happened to be in the neighborhood. I don’t know that I’d call the police. I would’ve just watched or left. Ha. But if I had a child with me, that would change everything so I get it.
LilChuck68
“Orgy” is a bit of an over statement, no? Just a wee blow job with a circle jerk. I imagine once the grocer made himself known, the gaggle scattered. At least, that’s how it happened when I was last having an encounter in a men’s room. It’s been years, so maybe the protocol has changed.
Robothedestroyer
Am I the only one who read this and heard Ms. Doubtfire’s voice…?
dinard38
I’ve never understood the appeal of public sex, especially in public bathrooms. For starters public bathrooms are not usually clean, and who’d want to risk getting caught and thrown in jail and having your face plastered all over the news? Hell to the no!!
This is just one aspect to gay culture that I’ve never understood. But to each his own, I guess.
gaybygod
Right! Rest rooms are mainly to piss and shit, then get out.
Vince
Way back I did the bathroom sex thing. He had me stand in a paper bag and blew me in the JC Pennies restroom. Not sure how functional I was because I was too nervous with people going in and out. The next time I ran into him he wanted to get together with and this time I countered with going to my apartment we go to down the street instead. Nope. Not interested.
aidanbh
What I find interesting is that the member of the public actually took the time to stop and count them all. But I do have to wonder whether he would have felt so ‘scarred’ if he had walked in on a dozen straight people busily at it, or would there have been a bunch of high-fives and “good on ya’, mates” flying around.
Fortunately, in my country, while we have a law criminalising “indecent or offensive acts in a public place”, that same law also has that “it is a defence to a charge under this section to prove that the defendant had reasonable grounds to believe that they would not be observed”. These days, the vast majority of sex in toilets, IF done within a locked cubicle, has their charges thrown at the very outset for this very reason.
jkb
4:20… heh heh
Italicsmine
Yes. 4:20. A coincidence I’m sure.
Brian
Does that really meet the definition of an “orgy”? I think you’re turning this into clickbait.
How do we know this is even real? One random man from Scotland says something happened, and now it’s repeated as fact in global news. Did anyone fact-check? The story will spread faster than any correction, we can be sure.
ElPillo
Read what you wrote again. A “dozen” is one of those catch-all numbers; like saying “give me a minute.” Unless your country has public bathrooms with side rooms, books and crannies, it’s safe to imagine one large rectangle with stools, urinals and somewhere to wash your hands. Where do you hide (let’s say just 8) adult males together so they can have “reasonable grounds that they will not be observed”? Use discretion. It just gives bad PR to gays and feeds into that “depraved” image that some awful people use to sway the public. And this shit does. Stop excusing it.
Kevan1
How things may have been different had his nephew not been with him.
Rock-N-RollHS
lol!
KevInSD
Despicable behavior by broken, damaged men. Every survey ever done on this behavior shows that it is highly associated with poor mental health, STIs, closetedness and “homo negative” attitudes (i.e., internalized homophobia). It is nothing to be celebrated or defended. Why weren’t there arrests? In Scotland, the police track you down and arrest you if you send mean tweets. But exposing a young child to lewdness doesn’t warrant arrest?
dwes09
I used to enjoy sex outdoors in parks, but always after sundown when families and others not of like mind had gone home. But I have never understood a desire for furtive sex in bathrooms. That has always been the last resort for men trapped in heterosexual marriages or otherwise not out.
On the few occasions I have happened into park or highway restrooms where men were cruising, I have found places in the bushes to pee, and then moved on.
I feel bad for people who feel they have no other choice, and don’t understand those few who make a fetish of that activity.
Heywood Jablowme
@dwes09: You raise the most important point, dwes09. These men are mostly in heterosexual relationships. Almost none of them are OUT gay guys, nowadays.
Hdtex
Sounds to me like YOU are the broken one. Bitter, judgemental, petty, and petulant. Go clutch your (fake) pearls somewhere else.
Godabed
with app, adult sex clubs, sex sauna… wtf do you even need to cruise. Particularly in dense cities. It makes no sense. the practice is outdated, and that poor kid may be traumatize if his uncle didn’t back out of that restroom.
those men should be arrested, you would think people would have learned by now not to do that. This isn’t the 80s
Hdtex
ERNurse
Why must you condemn the gay community for cruising. It goes way back in time. The only places Parks, toilets, etc where men can gather and meet during those times when homosexuality was illegal. Everyone has done it at least once in their time, and if you didn’t you lost out. While I agree Discretion is key to all public cruising, you shouldn’t shame anyone because You May think it’s wrong. Perhaps all of you who’ve commented might have negative feelings about your own sexuality that have to shame others. As a gay kid growing up in San Francisco, public cruising was the only way at that time to explore my horniness. I grew up in the 70’s. I still enjoy public cruising to this day. I love the outdoors. So think twice before you every condemn a whole community.
JessPH
Guess what? It’s not the 70s anymore. There are a lot of ways to hookup with someone privately if you’re horny. Public spaces are not created for people to have sex in it. You love the outdoors? Great. But do remember that the outdoors do not belong solely to you.
Rock-N-RollHS
Public sex is a very different thrill than App hookups, which are largely a total bore.
Lacuevaman
should have had a lookout…..
JessPH
Gay or straight, orgy or not… Sex in public is NEVER okay.
Hdtex
Never okay, but sometimes WONDERFUL!!!!
girldownunder
I cannot understand this. You want to have a sex go, get out of the public area!
Why is this so hard to understand?
I also wouldn’t want to walk in on a str8 couple, ffs.
yaletownman
I’m all for anything that people are into that doesn’t hard anotherr however I don’t believe that anyone no matter what their sexual preference has the right to force others to witness their sexual practices. What if this grocer had of been a child?
Screw as many people as you want whenever you want just respect other people’s boundaries. If you want to have an orgy in a bathroom findmone that is private and gives people the choice whether or not they want to enter. Keep it classy.
GayEGO
I remember going into a men’s room underneath the World Trade Towers in New York with my partner and brother-in-law who was visiting with my sister back in 1987. There was a man standing in front of a urinal with his butt exposed to the crowd. My brother-in-law looked shocked!
Kangol
Just walk in one of the bathrooms in Grand Central Terminal in 2018, and you might something similar to what you saw at the WTC 21 years ago.
Aires the Ram
As everyone clutches their purse and runs at the mere mention of public cruising, remember that your modern-day “hook-up” apps are the same damn thing, men out-and-about cruising for other men to have sex with. Men have done this for ages, and they’re not about to quit now. It’s going on right now in every country in the world. The more repressive the country/area, the more that cruising in parks (etc.) goes on. I grew up in the 70’s in a rural area of the upper Midwest, and if you wanted dick, that’s where you went. I suspect those casting aspersions on those doing this, have never done this, and use hook-up apps and/or sit at home alone and jerk off to porn on the internet. Did you nay-sayers ever think that this might be a whole lot of fun? I didn’t think so. Because you’ve never done it, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Oh, and if you ever do get up to a little “fun” in one of these scorned places someday, be smart and have a look-out.
Heywood Jablowme
“The more repressive the country/area, the more that cruising in parks (etc.) goes on.”
But that’s exactly the point. In a less repressed place, public sex in unauthorized places is no longer needed. In a less repressed place, the guys doing this are not even out gay men, they’re mostly in heterosexual relationships. And you bring up the ’70s too. Yeah yeah yeah the ’70s. As pointed out above, it’s not the ’70s (or ’80s) anymore.
“remember that your modern-day ‘hook-up’ apps are the same damn thing”
The same thing??? Only in the sense that it results in sex. You might as well call a date at the opera the same thing.
Juanito malo
agree
ConCon1974
Think is just a “casual” happening? Not really, it’s been a staple of gay men’s lives since the days before the 1960’s Stonewall Revolt. It’s an issue and one that eventually the LGBT community needs to address and reaffirm their commitment to cracking down on because it exposes the vulnerable like children to unwanted solicitations of indecency.
How can you say that you care for the children that are separated from their families but the engage in sexual lewd behaviour in public? That absolutely makes no sense and tantamount to being hypocritical.
These acts of public lewdness have been and were the cause of many HIV infections of the past. Today? Who knows and that includes other STD’s and even new viruses seeping into the human society.
Time to clean up the act here, but only those within the LGBT community can hold their own to moral standards.
Aires the Ram
@Heywood Jablowme:
There are many places in this world, and in this country, that are still very repressed, and to your point, in those areas, most men with homosexual tendencies, to survive in their hostile environment, marry and/or date women, to make a show of it. It’s terrible, yes, but many have lived through it. Just because someone on here lives in a large American or Canadian city, with a large and ‘out’ gay population, doesn’t mean that the guy 50 miles out of town isn’t living a completely different life than you are. It doesn’t matter that it’s 2018, not the 1970’s, as so many keep mentioning. If you live in a big city here in North America, you have one kind of “gay life” (for lack of any better word), but if you live out in the hinterlands, you have quite another.
Heywood Jablowme
Edinburgh isn’t “the hinterlands,” it’s the capital of Scotland and one of the biggest cities in the U.K.
As for the hinterlands, oh please. “The guy 50 miles out of town” in 2018 is no longer at so much of a disadvantage, compared to the past. With the apps, he’s now living pretty much the same casual sex life (if that’s what he wants) as most urban gay guys are. And if he wants a more serious relationship, he’s probably on the more serious dating sites.
Who still goes to the truck stop or mall restroom, risking arrest for public sex? — only a closeted guy who’s afraid that his wife/girlfriend will snoop on his phone!
Geeker
Having sex in a public bathroom is just sad and creepy not to mention just gross.
Rock-N-RollHS
Not if the guys are hot!
russdog
Yes, I’ve enjoyed T-room sex. No, the public shouldn’t be inconvenienced. No, any exposure to children should be avoided. That said, pursuit of sexual contact in parks, restrooms, porn shops, is no more “broken” an activity than looking for meaningless hook ups through an app from home. Inviting strangers over, going to a stranger’s place usually for no-strings sex with no emotional development or time to barely get his name (if that) is not the most emotionally healthy or the safest way to interact with other men. You might not approve of the venue, but the desire and the hook up at restrooms and parks is for the same reason and the same effect as it is for those with a dozen profiles who are constantly on the prowl for what’s usually empty sex even though it’s done from home.
Heywood Jablowme
That’s more of an argument for sex in (legal) bathhouses, or even (tacitly unofficially legal) back-room bars, certain park areas at night, etc. — all of which I’ve done — than it is for having sex in public restrooms in the middle of the day. Keep in mind that the latter has no practical legal defense. Gay “tradition” or not (and okay it’s sort of a “tradition”), it’s always going to be illegal.
The “broken” lingo is probably not helpful, I agree. But anytime you’re invited into a stranger’s home, you can potentially learn a lot about them just from all the little clues of what their home is like. Friendships, even relationships sometimes result. Nothing is stopping you from talking.
I get what you’re saying about meeting strangers on apps. That has risks too, but at least you won’t get arrested. To bring up the ’70s & ’80s again, back then no one had a permanent internet record of their arrest following them around for the rest of their life.
Aires the Ram
Exactly Russdog!
Birdbrain1963
I thought that I needed to post this as the most applicable reply:
Cruising for sex, the process of searching in public places for sexual partners, especially by gay men.
Gay Orgy When a group of guys get together and have sex.
Males who have sex with males, are male persons who engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, regardless of how they identify themselves; many such men do not sexually identify as gay, homosexual or bisexual.
Just wanted to make all these unsaid and misquoted terms clear…
StraightnNarrow
It is useless to reason with the unreasonable sort like Aires the Ram and russdog who believe that they can break the laws any time they want because having gay public sex is justified. They maintain that cruising in public restrooms is what gays did in the 60s and 70s and they have no respect for laws and traditions. These deranged and sex-obsessed gays feel entitled because they are above the law. They are stuck in the 70s gay mentality and have never grown up.
old man river
Queerty–Thank you once again for presenting us with ridiculous, salacious clickbait as your lead “article.” Bravo you reeled me in. This “news” site is so stupid and it’s an embarrassment to the gay community. Why don’t you write some stories that actually matter.