Program helps men explore reasons for cruising

Cruising. It's nothing new — a subculture of men who seek out sexual encounters with other men in public places. Many don't identify themselves as gay. Some are married, often with children.

It's a behavior that Jerrie Buie, director of Pride Counseling, describes as complex. Men who struggle with their sexual identities sometimes stumble upon cruising. They're attracted to the anonymity, he says, but also to the social connections, the "common sense of we're all sitting here for the same reason."

Through the Healthy Self-Expressions program, Buie counsels men arrested for cruising. It's a therapeutic response to cruising that grew out of a collaboration among the gay community, law enforcement, therapists and others who got together in 2000 to address the issue.

"There are so many layers to this issue," Buie says. "It really goes beyond a bunch of men looking for sex. People in this kind of culture really struggle with a sense of orientation."

Traditionally, men charged with public lewdness or disorderly conduct, a class B misdemeanor, would be prosecuted just like any other offender, says Salt Lake City prosecutor Sim Gill.

But that wasn't addressing the issue of why otherwise law-abiding men were participating in public sex. Healthy Self-Expressions has given men the option of having the charges dismissed if they participate in the program, Gill says.

"We've been transitioning people out of this behavior," Gill says. "It is a permanent change in their behavior, and that's the systematic win."

Buie says many of the program's participants identify themselves as straight. Many are also active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and roughly 40 percent are married, he says. The average length of those marriages is 23 years. Two of the men with whom he is currently working have been married for more than 40 years.

"They do a lot of compartmentalizing," he says. "They live one particular life and, for 45 minutes, they'll step outside of that."

Many men have a deep-rooted fear that if their secret is discovered, they'll be rejected by their families and their church. The fear runs so deep, Buie says, that men who are outed publicly sometimes require crisis counseling.

That's why, in addition to education about issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and understanding the impact of public sex behaviors, the program also includes a discussion of sexual identity, he says. It's about overcoming their fears, so they can come to terms with themselves.

"Just because you have an attraction to men doesn't mean you have to be a slave to those attractions," he says. "As a therapist I try to encourage people to be honest with themselves."