The men’s restroom has long been a location in which men
look closely at men. It’s a chance to see how you
measure up, and for some, it’s a chance to express sexual desire in the
most logical place on earth. As a gay
man, what better location is there to survey then a space in which men stand
side-by-side and unzip? The
men's restroom is a site that hosts many dualities:
It’s both public and private. It’s both queer and straight. And
it provides a place of isolation in which people
find companionship. However, the public men’s room is a highly regulated
space utilizing a variety of forms, including architecture.
Given the methods used to contain the homosexual from acting out,
it would seem that the power of the
homosexual resides not in his deviancy, but in his gaze. Restroom architecture
actually allows a great deal of
visual access to a man’s zipper. What’s regulated most of all is
the returned gaze. That is to say, it’s the eye-to-
eye contact and the non-verbal communication that poses the greatest threat
to the heterosexual male.
Silence is not always silent and a returned gaze is a moment in time where nothing
is definitive and a myriad
of potentials is brought to the surface for evaluation.
