NCJ Number
111790
Journal
Journal of the Sociology of Law Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (May 1988) Pages: 163-183
Date Published
1988
Length
21 pages
Annotation
Between 1981 and 1983, Toronto police carried out raids of the city's homosexual steambaths.
Abstract
While to homosexuals, the steambath is a social form of activity aimed at producing sexual encounters, and while gays would describe themselves as engaging in erotic activities at the baths, they would not consider themselves to be engaged in indecent acts. An analysis of police documentation of a raid shows how the social organization of policing is a textually mediated work process that transforms a scene of sexual pleasure into the site of a crime. The sexual activities of bath patrons are transformed into indecent acts, and the bath attendant becomes the accused as a function of the social organization of policing. The textually mediated social relations between police and gays are part of a ruling apparatus that seeks to ensure heterosexuality and ensure that people's sexual activities take place in private, familial settings. Through a process of inscription, the process of policing is organized by texts as a documentary code of action in which the central mechanism organizing the policing of gays is the Criminal Code. Consequently, changes in police-gay relations will not result from liaison committees or psychological screening of police applicants, but from changes in the law. 2 figures, 12 notes, and 20 references.