“How the Hell do I Cruise!?”

A Cruising Guide by the London Leatherdykes

So you want to come to a London Leatherdykes cruising party? That’s awesome! Very cool and sexy of you. But what if you don’t know how cruising works? Don’t worry, your humble Leatherpresident Astrid Johnson is here to help with a handy guide. I’m a woman of faggot experience (read: trans woman who used to suck guys off in public toilets when she was a boy) and spent a lot of my youth cruising, which means I have experience and know-how. So, if you want to know how to cruise dykes, read ahead.

What even is cruising?

The definition of “cruising” is very broad and contextual. Historically, cruising is a pastime in the gay community of roaming a public space seeking sex, typically one-off anonymous encounters. This tradition was born of a time where being gay was illegal, and often punishable by death or being institutionalised; hence, it’s often done using secret codes, non-verbally, and in secluded spaces.

When leather bars began opening, cruising increasingly made its way into third spaces too. These days, the working definition that I like the most comes from a now-deleted Reddit user: “Cruising is making an intentional connection with a stranger. It doesn't always have to be for sex, but disproportionately is.”

There’s a modern-day misconception that cruising is an exclusively gay men’s tradition, or at the very least is confined to the realm of masculine and male-oriented spaces. This isn’t true! In more historic Leatherdyke communities, and parts of the world which still fortunately have dykey leather spaces, cruising happens all the time. And for myself and everyone else in the London Leatherdykes, this is something we want to bring back for our community to enjoy and engage in. 

Okay, how do I do that? 

The way you conduct yourself when cruising is often non-verbal. Bars can be noisy places, and darkrooms can be… well, dark. While having a chat for clarity is always an option, one of the many joys of cruising is in experimenting with these elements of non-verbal communication. It can be very exciting and sexy! And if you’re in the darkroom, it can be the most polite way of attempting to make a connection without pulling people out of what they’re getting up to, or interrupting the flow of the space.

When you cruise in this way, you rely heavily on three primary means of communication; visual cues, body language, and physical touch. Each have their place and context, and when they come together, they act as a kind of language which you speak wordlessly to express interest, establish boundaries, and if you play your cards right, fuck nasty-style. 

Visual Cues 

Visual cues are probably some of the more recognisable aspects of the language of cruising, if you know what to look for. Flagging is the most commonly-understood. Flagging involves wearing an accessory or article of clothing on your body to denote your sexual preferences. Carabiners and keyclips are a great example; if you wear your keys on your right, you’re a bottom. On your left, and you’re a top. 

This left-right distinction carries over into flagging with hankies, though with the added element of colour-coding. Whether it’s in your back pocket, tied to the belt loop of your jeans, or even around your neck if you’re a switch, the colour of hanky you wear can tell another dyke what kind of sex you’re looking for. 

There are some basic staples; red is fisting, yellow is piss, black is S/M, grey is bondage. We have our own LLD hanky code which you can refer to for our events. Simply put, if you’re wearing a red hanky on your right and someone you think looks hot is wearing a red hanky on their left, then you know you’re both looking for the same thing. 

It doesn’t have to be flagging, though! There are lots of other visual cues you can work off of when you’re cruising. It could be the graphic on a t-shirt, the collar around a neck, the paddle or whip hanging from a belt, the tattoos on an arm, the accent colour on someone’s fetishwear. This isn’t always a guarantee, nor is flagging, that there will be immediate and unquestionable chemistry, or that sex will happen. Visual cues are a piece of a larger puzzle. 

My Left, or Yours? 

Flagging is very dependent on the distinction between left and right. Some dykes might find telling left and right apart challenging. That’s okay! If you know you’re flagging on the side you want to be, there’s an easy in-the-moment way of telling how compatible someone else is to what you’re looking for. 

Imagine; you and your potential cruising encounter are face-to-face, and you’re flagging as a bottom with your keys. If you pressed your body up against theirs and your keys touched, then they’re a top. If your keys don’t touch, then they’re a bottom too. 

Body Language 

Once you’ve identified a potential cruising encounter using visual cues, you now need to initiate. Body language encompasses a wide range of things, so I’m going to talk to you about only a few examples to give you an idea of what’s possible. 

Before we even get to the active communication aspect of body language, there’s a halfway point where body language and visual cue are one in the same. Perhaps someone is leaning against the bar, back arched, ass stuck out, to show off what they’re flagging to anyone on the prowl? What if you see someone sat on a sofa, their arm stretched out across the back of the empty seat next to them, inviting someone to join? You can try all of these things yourself, too! Like the other straight-up visual cues, none of these things are a guarantee of a connection, and if you’re politely turned down or rejected, you should be respectful of that. 

What about using body language for active communication? Let’s start with what I lovingly refer to as The Cruising Stare. You start by making direct eye contact. If your gaze is met, then there are a couple of different things which you can do to make sure the eye contact is intentional and reciprocated. Break the eye contact for a moment, and then try to reestablish it. See if the other person does the same. You can also maintain that eye contact while performing a task that would be easier if you broke eye contact. Take a swig from your drink, roll a cigarette, pull out a pack of gum and put some in your mouth. That sort of thing. It’s a way of telling the other person, “It would be much easier for me to look away to do this, so you know for sure that I’m looking at you.” 

Once you’ve confirmed that the direct eye contact is mutual, you can use your potential cruising encounter’s attention to your advantage by asking questions with the direction of your gaze. Look them up and down, and return to direct eye contact. Maybe look at something on their person, like their hanky, or even their boots. Always look back at their eyes. This allows you to gauge their response, and opens an invitation for them to do the same thing. 

Some great facial gestures to accompany all of this eye contact can be smirks, smiles, eyebrow raises, winks, and nods. These can all mean different things, or they can be used in very similar ways, depending on the context. If someone looks down at the black hanky in your pocket and then back up to your eyes and smiles, you can throw a wink or an eyebrow raise back their way and see if they respond to it.

If you’re picking up vibes from an encounter this way, then you could even be so bold as to remove distance. If there’s a space next to them at the bar, then slide in and perch beside them. Lean next to them on the wall. You can even get really crazy with this and stand directly in front of them, if it feels appropriate in the moment, and only if you’re prepared to be turned down. 

Besides that, there are other broader gestures you can make; if everything has gone well for you so far, you can nod your head towards a different part of the cruising party; maybe at a bench, a St Andrew’s Cross, or a glory hole booth. Maybe you’re in the darkroom, and if you are, then it’s probably time for physical touch. 

Physical Touch 

If visual cues are identification, and body language is initiation, then physical touch becomes negotiation. It’s perfectly fine to, in the right context, go simply off of visual cues and body language into a verbal negotiation. But this isn’t the only way to negotiate boundaries. Particularly if you’re in a darkroom already, physical touch can be a much more polite, effective, and potentially very sexy way of having this conversation. 

The most common place to start is by gently brushing the side of someone’s arm. It’s light-touch and non-invasive enough (especially if you’ve already made it this far) that it acts as asking if physical touch is okay in the first place. You or your cruising encounter can easily reciprocate this by returning the same gesture, leaning into your touch, or by taking your hand and directing it to a more intimate area. Likewise, this is a good opportunity to politely decline if there’s been a misunderstanding of body language. You could gently push someone’s arm away, or hold up a hand in a “stop” position for this. If your light touch is welcomed, then consider exploring further contact. This can be firmer touch, or gradually moving your hand to more intimate and sensitive areas. 

A great next place to try is by placing a hand on someone’s thigh. This is more intimate than the side of someone’s arm, but it isn’t as extreme or presumptuous as grabbing someone’s junk. This gives your cruising encounter another opportunity to politely decline. This could be as straightforward as taking your hand and moving it off of their thigh and back to you. If this happens, even if there’s any doubt about the meaning of the gesture, then the best thing to do is disengage and move on. This way, you don’t unintentionally push someone’s boundaries; it also opens an opportunity for them to make more physical contact or regain your attention if there was a misunderstanding.

If you’re on the receiving end of some explorative physical touch that’s welcomed and reciprocated, you can do a few different things. Either you can join in with some of your own explorative touch, or you could communicate boundaries around where you do or do not like to be touched by directing your cruising encounters touch away or towards certain areas of your body. If they feel your tits and you like that, place a hand over theirs and encourage them to squeeze. If they reach for your genitals but you don’t like people interacting with them, then move their hand towards a part of your body that you do like to be felt up. 

When you’re in the moment and fucking nasty-style, you can still use forms of physical touch to reaffirm enthusiastic consent in-the-moment, and continually negotiate the boundaries that you have. A squeeze here or there when something feels good, pressing into a pleasurable sensation, pulling away from certain things, can all be really useful communication tools. It also pays to be mindful of these gestures yourself, to make sure both you and the person you’re fucking are both happy. 

Something I find really helpful is using tapping with my palm as a translation of the traffic light system. In the traffic light system, green means continue, yellow means slow down, and red means stop. These are verbal cues you can give during sex, but if you want to keep things non-verbal when you’re cruising, then you could use a single tap to mean green, a double tap to mean yellow, and a triple tap to mean red. It isn’t a guarantee that your cruising partner will know what this means, so if there’s any confusion, don’t feel bad about just saying so out loud. 

Can I Buy Them a Drink Afterwards? 

Congratulations, you’ve just gone cruising and successfully fucked! (If you haven’t, that’s absolutely fine, but let’s assume this is the case for argument’s sake). What do you do now? Do you buy them a drink? Do you go back to their place, or yours? Do you move in together and adopt three cats? 

These are the things you might expect to do after sharing this kind of intimacy with someone, but this isn’t necessarily the case. For lots of people, the appeal of cruising is that it’s relatively anonymous and one-off. Historically, this was how most cruising encounters went out of necessity. And for many who engage in it today, the fleeting nature of the experience is why they find it sexy.

If you’ve just had some really hot sex with another dyke in the darkroom and they don’t necessarily seem interested in saying hi afterwards or getting to know each other better, then that’s completely normal. It’s understandable if this makes you feel insecure, or worried that you might have done something wrong, especially if this isn’t a language you’re used to speaking! But nine times out of ten, you haven’t done anything wrong. (If something has gone wrong, then we’ll cover that in the next section.) 

This isn’t always the case either, though! Sometimes, cruising someone in the darkroom or elsewhere can lead to a longer-lasting connection. If your encounter felt particularly special, it’s always worth asking to get to know them better afterwards! A dear friend of mine cruised somebody in a darkroom once, and now they’re long-term partners who live together. You just need to make peace with the possibility that nothing further might come of it, and that’s okay. 

What Can Go Wrong? 

While cruising can and often does go well, things can go wrong for you sometimes. This can range anywhere from a simple rejection all the way up to a consent violation, whether it be intentional or otherwise. It’s important to be considerate of the possibility that something goes wrong in any kind of sexual experience, let alone cruising. 

How do I Deal With Rejection? 

Sometimes, you’re trying to cruise someone and they just aren’t interested. That’s absolutely fine! If you’re politely turned down, then just take it on the chin and move on. Rejection can be disheartening, especially if you’re already a few steps into the process. It’s not you, and it’s probably not anything that you’ve done wrong. 

We have to remember that the goal of cruising is a moment of intimacy and most likely sex, at that; even more than romantic or friendly interest, there are hundreds upon thousands of different reasons why somebody might not be interested in fucking at any given moment, let alone fucking you specifically. Also, nobody is entitled to sex, or your time, and that’s okay! 

If you are the one who needs to reject someone, don’t get caught up by feeling bad about turning someone down! You have preferences and boundaries, and that’s a good thing! The name of the game is consent, and you need to be enthusiastic about it for it to feel good.

What if There’s a Consent Violation? 

Okay, this is a big section for (hopefully) obvious reasons. Like all situations involving sex, consent violations can and do happen in cruising spaces. When consent is violated, unintentionally or otherwise, there are a lot of different approaches and philosophies to take when figuring out how to deal with it on a broader, community and society-wide level. This scale isn’t within the remit of this guide; I’m going to focus on telling you how to deal with consent violations in-the-moment in a cruising space, like the ones we’re running. 

What if someone continually pushes your boundaries, even if you’ve tried politely turning them down non-verbally? It doesn’t necessarily make it feel any less bad for you, but there’s a chance it’s down to a misunderstanding or miscommunication. 

A really important thing to remember is that, if at any time you need to communicate something directly and with urgency and non-verbal communication doesn’t seem to break through, just say it out-loud. Your safety and comfort takes a higher priority than adhering to the language of the space religiously. This is a point that’s broadly really crucial to remember, not just in this particular scenario, but at any point throughout the cruising process; If in doubt, just speak out-loud! 

Hopefully, straightforwardly saying something like, “Hey I’d like you to stop,” will lead to the other person recognising a miscommunication has happened, apologise, and move on. A lot of the time, this is what will happen. 

If the person continues to push your boundaries despite persistent verbal requests to stop, then physically disengage, remove yourself from the space, and find a welfare monitor, party organiser, or a member of staff of the venue and tell them what happened, and who the person is; either a name if you know, or a physical description. You can also point that person out if you feel able or comfortable enough to do so. If something like that happens, it needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible so it doesn’t happen to someone else. The best way of making sure that happens is by letting someone with authority in the space know. 

This same guideline applies if you’re already having sex with someone. If something happens during that you don’t like and non-verbal redirects aren’t working, then tell them out-loud. If repeated verbal attempts to communicate that aren’t being respected, then disengage physically if you can. If you cannot physically disengage, then try and signal to other people in that space that you need help.

That last point is obviously a very uncomfortable to think about, but this stuff is incredibly important to talk about and make clear, especially in a guide like this. Consent isn’t just sexy, it’s a minimum baseline for sex and intimacy. 

This is also all important to remember from the other perspective too. If you’re cruising someone, or having sex with somebody, and the other person speaks up to ask you to stop or that something isn’t okay, respect that, say sorry, and either stop doing whatever it is you’re doing or disengage. Something like this should go without saying, but I’ll say it here anyway. 

Is Consent Harder in Cruising Spaces? 

There’s this misconception that, in cruising spaces, there’s less of a priority placed on consent checks, or that consent is deprioritised more broadly. This could not be further from the truth. 

If you’re used to the FLINTA+ Play Party model, where you’re vetted into a group chat, are able to reach out to, get to know, and negotiate with potential play partners sometimes weeks in advance, then it could be easy for you to look at a cruising space, where a lot of the play is one-off, spontaneous, and anonymous, and worry about how you establish chemistry and negotiate consent in a situation like that. This is because cruising is a different language that you might not know how to speak, as this guide has hopefully made clear. 

Consent is as crucial in cruising spaces as it is in other play spaces, it’s just a different kind of play space with a different way of communicating and negotiating consent. In fact, you could go further and say that consent violations are just as possible in play party spaces as they are in cruising spaces. 

Some people even dislike the FLINTA+ Play Party model because they think it risks leading to an overestimated sense of security when it comes to consent and boundaries. I’m not here to tell you anything either way, but instead just to stress that all these ways of running play spaces and engaging in play with other people are equally valid and equally considerate of these things. 

What if I’m New to This? 

This is a lot of information to take in! Especially if you have no experience with cruising whatsoever. That’s okay; after all, cruising like this is speaking a different language, and I wouldn’t expect anyone to read a guide on how to speak Spanish

and immediately be able to get away with having full conversations with native speakers. 

To be explicitly clear, while some of the events that LLD runs are cruising parties, this doesn’t mean that you have to cruise at them, or that you can’t talk to people and verbally negotiate play instead. If you’re too nervous about fucking it up, you don’t have to cruise. Nobody is going to think you’re less cool for not cruising. In fact, I think that you are much cooler for not cruising if you don’t feel confident in trying! 

There are even ways in which you can experiment with elements of cruising without jumping into the deep end. It’s already been implied in this guide, but you can pick parts of the non-verbal cruising language that feel manageable; maybe you use visual cues and try out something like The Cruising Stare to try and gauge interest, but you initiate by just saying hi and having a conversation. Maybe you even get as far as going to the darkroom, and instead of negotiating boundaries with physical touch, you talk to the other person about what you do and do not want. Safety and comfort are more important than being orthodox about cruising. 

You can even try practicing with a friend, lover, or partner! If you’re curious about how the experience feels and there’s someone you already have established chemistry with, try out some of the different steps of non-verbal cruising in a controlled and more predictable context. It can still be really fun and sexy! I’ve personally had a lot of fun teaching people I already have sex with how to speak the language of cruising at events where play is allowed. 

Sex is supposed to be fun, and in a modern-day context where cruising isn’t a necessity because of societal and legal limitations, it becomes another tool in one’s arsenal to facilitate fun and interesting sexual experiences. The most important thing is that you try your best to make sure you and anyone else involved is having fun. 

There you have it. I hope this has been a helpful and comprehensive guide. I’m sure there will be many iterations of it to come, as my thoughts on cruising and how best to understand and engage in it are broad and ever-changing with every experience that I have. For now, go out there, fuck nasty-style, and stay safe!