Cruising (by Alex Espinoza)

This is a memoir attempting to disguise itself as a scholarly text. Which is fine! Just good to know going into it.  

Espinoza touches on the history of cruising, recounts his own cruising experiences and summarizes other sources, sometimes in a very choppy way.  Often I was hoping he'd dig deeper on a topic, whether that be the actual mechanics of cruising, the history of the cruising subculture at various points, or the points he's trying to argue.  (The idea that cruising is egalitarian, for example.)  He interviews a few men (presented as "countless" men), which you gather was more about trading cruising war stories than any sort of research. He mentions Squirt.org a lot of times. He mentions "connecting emotionally" a lot of times but doesn't explain exactly how using a glory hole means you are "connecting emotionally."

Anyway there is a lot of interesting stuff here about a fascinating subculture, but mostly it is clear that Espinoza really really loves cruising, and a bit more distance, originality, and depth would have served this book well.