About Cruising and Being Cruised

Efforts to explain the phenomenon of cruising have periodically appeared in the psychoanalytic literature. To date, authors have offered rather oblique yet fantastic accounts of what they consider cruising to be, rather than defining the phenomenon, as is if we all knew exactly what it is. Narrow, dramatic, if not pornographic descriptions result: men seeking out sexual encounters with other men in public areas such as the street, restrooms, or parks. As a consequence, analytic authors have approached cruising as an activity unique to men seeking sex with other men. It has been approached in libidinal dynamic terms and is often seen as a repetition compulsion and a retreat from Oedipus, accompanied by elaborate dramatic dynamic formulations as evidence. The phenomenon has been viewed as an acting out of some sort of unconscious dynamics and/or a replay of a traumatic event from childhood (Calef and Weinshell, 1984; Willick, 1988; Bollas, 1992). With the exception of Goldberg (1995), who offers a more complex interplay that includes selfobject dynamics, self-structure, and disavowed affects, self psychology has yet to adequately contribute to this much misunderstood area of human behavior. What I focus on in this paper is the clinical utility of cruising when the patient brings this activity into the treatment relationship.

The title of this paper may have a familiar ring because it was indeed inspired by Anna Freud's (1967) paper, “About Losing and Being Lost.” In her paper, she examined the range of losing objects, from identification with the lost object, to losing people, to being temporarily lost, and, finally, to being chronically lost and wandering. The central themes are the libidinal bond that keeps our objects in our possession, the dynamic unconscious factors that result in losing, and the observation that losing tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Central to this paper, she posited that children who get lost are neglected children, and that it