Three websites are promoting two men’s bathrooms at City College as hot spots for anonymous sexual encounters. An observation of one of those bathrooms last week indicated that at least one such encounter had occurred there in an hour-long period.
Campus police said they are regularly patrolling the bathrooms at City College and Mesa College, which is also promoted on the websites.
In April, a student reported to campus police that two people were having sex in the C Building women’s upstairs bathroom, according to the police log. The people were gone by the time officers arrived.
Campus police have tackled this illegal activity before. In 2009, campus police arrested 16 people, two of them City College students, in a sting operation of the C Building bathrooms.
City Times found three sex cruising sites where men post that they are seeking a sexual encounter in the second floor men’s bathroom of the C Building or in the lower-level one in LRC Building. The sites are craigslist.org, squirt.org and cruisingforsex.com.
Users post their preferred times and sexual activities, then wait to meet up in the restrooms. They are directed to signal each other using foot tapping, waving their hands under the restroom doors, or knocking against bathroom stalls, among other signals., according to squirt.org’s list of signals.
Due to the renovation of the C Building, the bathroom was taken off as an available hookup site between 2013 and 2015, according to that site. Since its reopening in January, that bathroom has apparently regained its regular activity.
The C Building holds a rating of three stars on a five-star rating system based on cruising times, who goes there, and privacy. The LRC building holds a 2.3 rating, according to that site.
User OUGGZ72 posted to that website: “In my opinion, the new C building restroom is no good anymore for cruising.” The user added, “There’s really nowhere to hide and you are caught right away, it’s best to just play at the ground/lower level floor of the LRC/library.”
A review of OUGGZ72’s profile indicates he’s a 40-something-year-old Asian male.
Various squirt.org users repeatedly ask throughout the week who will be around and what time they prefer to meet. In April, there were 10 inquiries looking to hook up in the C Building bathroom.
A male staff reporter was sent to observe the C Building men’s bathroom during suggested meet times. In his first observation he found some men hanging out in the bathroom for 30 to 40 minutes. He then observed two men leaving the restroom together when there appeared to be only one stall in use.
Then he was approached by a blond male in his twenties with plug earrings who asked him, “What are you looking for?”
The reporter didn’t respond and left the bathroom to sit outside. The man followed him and the reporter asked why he was in the restroom. The man answered, “I just like the spontaneity of it.”
City College is not alone in this problem. Two of the sites list San Diego Mesa College, San Diego State University and University of San Diego as having hook-up spots.
San Diego Community College District Police indicated that they are aware of the problem.
“We are conducting regular patrols around the restrooms at both colleges throughout the day and evenings,” said Chief Raymund Aguirre. He added, “We also rely on people calling us as soon as they see suspicious behavior in those locations so we can investigate immediately.”
However, this isn’t anything new at City College.
In 2009, Campus Police completed a sting operation of the City College bathrooms conducted by Sgt. Jordan Mirakian that led to 16 men being detained, two of them City College students.
According to the October 20, 2009 City Times article, “City officers stay up to date with the sources that announce such ‘bathroom cruising’ hot spots in an effort to keep ‘cruisers’ away from campus and continue maintaining safety.”
In 2009 Mirakian said, “But more importantly, it’s for their own safety. A cruiser might approach the wrong person and expose themselves to an act of violence; then we have an entirely new situation.”
There are long-term legal and health problems for people engaged in this activity. People arrested and convicted of having sex in a public location have to register as sex offenders. People also make themselves susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases.
According to stdcheck.com, the rates of AIDS infection rose 14 percent and HIV rose 16 percent between 1998 – 2005, and syphilis rose 19 percent between 1999 – 2008 after Craiglist casual encounter ads were made available. This amounted to 6,658 new diagnoses and potentially $94 million in long-term health care costs.
