„Shromaždiště mravně zchátralých“? Intimní kontakty mezi návštěvníky
                               veřejných toalet v historické a antropologické perspektivě











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            * Jan Seidl
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            “A Meeting Place for the Morally Decrepit?” Intimate Contact between Patrons of Public Res

            Historical and Anthropological Perspective

            Abstract

            Since their introduction in the public space of European and American cities, public restr
            irrespective of specific countries and individual historical periods of the 19th and the 2
            a privileged place of anonymous sexual contact between men. Recent scholarship focusing on

            history of homosexuality in what is today the Czech Republic has brought abundant evidence
            sexual pattern throughout the 20th century also in cities such as Prague, Brno, or Pilsen.

            usually conclude that due to various external factors, including a radical improvement of 
            of LGBTI people in general, this pattern, very vivid until the end of the 1980s, more or l
            in the following decades. In this paper, I argue that this is not the case: on the contrar

            various dating applications and on-line LGBT forums, the rather anonymous sexual intimaten
            men at public bathrooms is still of a very strong attraction for many men today. In trying
            the reasons why this is so, I proceed to analyse the meanings that actors themselves were 

            to this pattern in the interwar period, in the Communist period, and today (using archival
            and internet sources, respectively). My conclusion is that today, this pattern may serve t
            degree as an extension of on-line dating, introducing an element of randomness to what may

            as a too predictable way of making contacts. Due to this, paradoxically, the internet has 
            ancient socio-sexual pattern of homosexual subcultures from extinction.


            Keywords: public bathrooms; sex between men; actors’ perspective; reshaping of an archaic 

            Článek v PDF ke stažení [ URL "LM-1125-version1-seidl.pdf"]


            Jan Seidl [ URL "LM-1134.html "]