The Tearoom

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The Tearoom
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Developer(s) Robert Yang
Composer(s) The Lonesome Billies
Platform(s) Linux, macOS, Windows
Release28 June 2017
Mode(s) Single-player

The Tearoom is a 2017 game by independent developer Robert Yang. Described by the creator as a "historical public bathroom simulator", The Tearoom is an erotic game that simulates the experience of participating in 'tearoom' public sex, also known as cottaging, with the goal of avoiding interference with the police. Taking inspiration from the 1970 non-fiction book Tearoom Trade and a 1962 public sex bust by police in Mansfield, Ohio, Yang developed the game as a political commentary on the past and present traditions of queer sex and persecution of sex by police. Upon release, The Tearoom received attention from publications and academics about the relevance of its historical subject matter and the effectiveness of its gameplay to convey themes of uncertainty and danger.

Contents

Gameplay

Eye contact in The Tearoom between the player and other characters is designed to simulate the practices of cottaging. The Tearoom Gameplay.jpg
Eye contact in The Tearoom between the player and other characters is designed to simulate the practices of cottaging.

Set in a Mansfield, Ohio public restroom in 1962, players aim to cruise for sex with men that arrive and leave a public restroom whilst avoiding attention from the police. The player is positioned at a fixed space at a public urinal and can look around to monitor arriving cars and incoming men, or exit the game. As men enter the restroom and use the urinal, players meet their eye contact when they are interested in the player to fill a meter bar reflecting the man's disposition, with the bar depleting when players fail to meet their gaze or stare when they are disinterested. [1] A time limit is displayed representing the time for players to respond. When the bar is filled, the character reveals their 'weapon', which can be stimulated by the player's tongue in a simulation of oral sex by shaking the mouse cursor in target areas on the screen. After this is done several times, the character reaches a climax and leaves, giving players statistics about the type and caliber of weapon. The aim of the game is to collect all eight types of weapons revealed when successfully cruising them, with unlocked weapons being reviewable from within a toilet stall. [2]

Players also must avoid being disrupted by police, who will arrive in a police car seen from a window outside the restroom. They must also avoid undercover police, who will induce the player into sex more quickly and be accompanied by a police car. If the player reaches the stage of getting an undercover policeman to reveal their weapon, more police will enter the restroom. When this occurs, the player's progress of collecting weapons resets to zero. [1] 23% of the men the player interacts with in the game will be undercover police, a reference to a 2015 study by the UCLA which found that 23% of strangers that commit violence against LGBT people are police officers. [1] [3]

Development

Yang was inspired to create The Tearoom as an interpretation and commentary upon historical practices of anonymous and public sex between men, [3] influenced by the 1970 non-fiction book Tearoom Trade by Laud Humphreys. Humphreys' book was a sociological work examining the male subculture of anonymous sex with men in public bathrooms, described as "tearooms" in the United Kingdom or cottages in the United States, seeking to identify the behaviours and motivations of participants through observation. [4] The publication is considered by academics to be a controversial but pivotal study as an early sociological investigation into homosexual behaviors and practices. [5] Observing that Humphreys' approach to his study of imitated the features of game design, Yang integrated the interviews, diagrams and "rules" of tearoom behavior canvassed in Humphreys' study into the game. [2] Yang was also heavily influenced by Tearoom, a 2007 documentary by William E Jones, featuring reconstructed surveillance footage taken from a police sting operation targeting men engaging in public sex in a restroom in Mansfield, Ohio in 1962. [3] [6]

Development of The Tearoom was Yang's most complex project to date, with the game taking 8 to 9 months of "on-and-off" work to complete. [3] Yang, wanting to explore the "intersection of sex and politics", [1] set the demographics of men and police encounter rates to real-world statistics, with the game's racial composition of men reflecting the majority white composition of census statistics for Mansfield, Ohio. [3] In addition, following the decision by streaming services such as Twitch to prohibit the broadcasting of Yang's previous games, Yang substituted the genitals of the characters in The Tearoom with weapons as a commentary on the uneven toleration of violence in contrast to sexual content on online platforms. [7] [3]

Reception

Upon release, The Tearoom received interest from several publications, with some authors expressing amusement at the game, and others commenting on the game's intersection with cultural and historical experiences. [8] [9] [10] [11] Dan Starkey highlighted the game's "anxious undertone" and assessed it as effective of evoking the intended theme of "uncertainty" and "fear about whether or not your most basic identity will be respected or protected". [7] Bruno Dias of Vice wrote that the game was a "perfect meshing of games culture, guns, game sex and gay history", stating that it "weaves all those disparate milieus together into a single thing, showing their shared faultlines of repression, surveillance, public space, and performance". [12] Writing for The Guardian, Jordan Erica Webber noted the game subverted stealth and collection mechanics to reinforce the player's experience of danger and "give (them) something to lose". [2]

The Tearoom has also received academic attention. Harvat examines how the game's design reflects "queer historical engagement" and mediates the "balancing act of pleasure and paranoia", noting that the game pursues positive depictions of queer sex and emphasises "camp, humour and pleasure" whilst taking care not to "romanticize the past and its traumas". [13] Muriel & Crawford discuss how the game simulates the "lives of homosexual men in a time and place where they were being targeted and persecuted", but raises "questions and emotions" about the ongoing status of that persecution today. [14] Discussing The Tearoom in the context of the interplay of "threats and desire", Fowler investigated how Yang's game "simulate(s) the play, desire and risk of cruising", writing that the role of police in the game, and the substitution of guns for genitals, "puts the violent threat against queer life as the centerpiece of the erotic exchange of the game". [15]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cottaging</span> Gay slang term

Cottaging is a gay slang term, originating from the United Kingdom, referring to anonymous sex between men in a public lavatory, or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere. The term has its roots in self-contained English toilet blocks resembling small cottages in their appearance; in the English cant language of Polari this became a double entendre by gay men referring to sexual encounters. See also gay beat in Australian English.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public toilet</span> Room or building with toilets for the general public

A public toilet, restroom, public bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils or prisoners and are commonly separated into male and female toilets, although some are unisex, especially for small or single-occupancy public toilets, public toilets are sometimes accessible to people with disabilities. Depending on the culture, there may be varying degrees of separation between males and females and different levels of privacy. Typically, the entire room, or a stall or cubicle containing a toilet, is lockable. Urinals, if present in a male toilet, are typically mounted on a wall with or without a divider between them. Local authorities or commercial businesses may provide public toilet facilities. Some are unattended while others are staffed by an attendant. In many cultures, it is customary to tip the attendant, especially if they provide a specific service, such as might be the case at upscale nightclubs or restaurants.

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Robert Allan Humphreys (1930–1988), known as Laud Humphreys, was an American sociologist and Episcopal priest. He is noted for his research into sexual encounters between men in public bathrooms, published as Tearoom Trade (1970) and for the questions that emerged from what was overwhelmingly considered unethical research methods. He influenced generations of scholars who research issues related to sexuality and sexual identity.

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<i>Tearoom Trade</i> 1970 book by Laud Humphreys

Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places is a 1970 non-fiction book by American sociologist Laud Humphreys, based on his 1968 Ph.D. dissertation "Tearoom Trade: A Study of Homosexual Encounters in Public Places." The study is an analysis of men who participate in anonymous sex with other men in public lavatories, a practice known as "tea-rooming" or "cottaging". Humphreys asserted that the men participating in such activity came from diverse social backgrounds, had differing personal motives for seeking sex in such venues, and variously self-perceived as "straight," "bisexual," or "gay."

Tearoom may refer to:

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Robert Yang is an academic, artist, and indie video game developer, whose work often explores gay subculture and the boundary between video games and art. His work focuses particularly on sociologically deviant and sometimes illegal sexual behavior. His projects include Borges adaptation Intimate, Infinite and The Tearoom, a game that involves soliciting sex in a public toilet. He is a former member of faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts's Game Center and curated their annual indie game exhibition in 2015.

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<i>Cobra Club</i> 2015 video game

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 McCarthy, Caty (6 July 2017). "Robert Yang's New Game Asks: Can You Suck A Man's Gun on Twitch?". VG247. Archived from the original on 24 January 2024. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 Webber, Jordan Erica (11 July 2017). "The Tearoom: the gay cruising game challenging industry notions". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 20 May 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Yang, Robert (29 June 2017). "The Tearoom as a record of risky business". Radiator. Archived from the original on 30 June 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  4. ↑ Humphreys, Laud (1970). Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Aldine Publishing Company.
  5. ↑ Nari, Peter (1995). "Twenty-Five Years After Laud Humphreys' Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places" (PDF). Journal of Homosexuality. 30 (2). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-12-27. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  6. ↑ Jones, William (2008). "A Witch Hunt at Amateur Hour". Tearoom (PDF). pp. 40–43. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-12-27. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  7. 1 2 Starkey, Dan (30 June 2017). "Penis-Gun Game Explores Illegal Gay Hookups In The '60s". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  8. ↑ Whitaker, Jed (29 June 2017). "This historical public gay sex simulator replaces penises with guns". Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Caldwell, Brendan (29 June 2017). "The Tearoom is a 'historical public bathroom simulator'". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 28 July 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  10. ↑ de Koff, Derek (3 July 2017). "Free video game "The Tearoom" lets you hook up with rough trade in a public restroom". Queerty. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  11. ↑ Nichols, James Michael (12 June 2017). "This New Video Game Lets You Cruise For Gay Sex In Public Bathrooms". Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  12. ↑ Dias, Bruno (1 July 2017). "This Flirtation Game Lets You Wrap Your Mouth Around Another Man's... Gun". Vice. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  13. ↑ Harvat, Zachary (1 March 2018). "S(t)imulating history: Queer historical play in Gone Home and The Tearoom". Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture. 3 (1): 9–26.
  14. ↑ Muriel, Daniel; Crawford, Garry (2018). "Video Games Beyond Escapism: Empathy and identification". Video Games as Culture: Considering the role and importance of video games in contemporary society. Routledge. pp. 115, 127–8. ISBN   978-1-138-65510-2.
  15. ↑ Fowler, Daren (2020). "Cruising Risk, Surviving Desire". In Bishnupriya Ghosh and Bhashar Sarkar (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Media and Risk. Routledge. p. 427. ISBN   978-1-138-63893-8.
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