Park Cruising

What Happens When We Wander Off the Path

By: Marcus McCann

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Paperback | 7 September 2023

At a Glance

Paperback
256 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.0 x 12.7 x 2.2

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

In these surprisingly poetic essays, lawyer Marcus McCann uses park cruising--the practice of men visiting public parks in search of sexual connection--as a way of discussing consent, empathy, gay culture, policing, and public space. Along the way, the book delves into queer Covid responses, the entangled relationship between civic infrastructure and gayness, and a deeply thoughtful consideration of the social value of sex.

Prompted by the author's involvement in opposing a high-profile police sting in Toronto's Marie Curtis Park that targeted men looking for sex with other men, the idea of park cruising becomes a jumping off point for ruminations about sex-positive legal reform, contemporary culture, and the law as a way of exploring the contemporary sociality of gay culture. What McCann finds is not just a rat's nest of legal issues, but a warm and empathy-expanding world of connection and community and a startling conclusion: that we just might have something to learn from this group of social renegades.

Industry Reviews

Park Cruising feels immediate and personal in the exact way orator and rhetoritcian Isocrates counselled millennia ago: the emotion and the facts become a combined triumph that delivers McCann's argument straight to the heart.

* Xtra *

[McCann] shows us the past and the present, and provides us with a vision of how the views of park cruising could and should evolve in the future.

* In Magazine *

McCann's strong prose explores sex and sex laws in Canada. Park Cruising shows how those laws shape our behaviours and contribute to our urban fabric, but most importantly how they demonize an act that he argues should be joyous and full of pleasure.

* The Grind *

Thoroughly researched but not drily academic, journalistic yet substantial ... McCann forges likeable, roving essays that are interesting, pointed, informative, and insistent.

* Plenitude *

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