Report for training on MSM cruising and knowing the clients better (29th April, 2012)

Venue: PT foundation

Time: 2:30-5:00pm

Number of attendance: 5 volunteers, 2 trainers (Ivan and Prithvi) and one intern (Inhye Park).

The seminar for volunteers in PTF about cruising was interesting and helpful me to understand difficulties that could happen when volunteers conduct their survey during the outreach session. Most volunteers knew about cruising except one. At first, the volunteers shared sites (cruising spots) for finding potential partner based on their experience. Some of volunteers had problem to talk about the names directly because they were a little embarrassed and shy. But those feelings are the reasons why the clients found it hard to talk easily, so sharing difficulties were really helpful for their outreach work. Some of the cruising sites as expressed by the volunteers were conferences, airport, bus stop, book stores, saunas, swimming pools, internet bar, parks, public toilets, university campus, using internet apps etc. Then, the volunteers talked and shared their experiences about definition of cruising, techniques of finding partners, precautions, useful tips, being rejected, and rejecting.

Cruising is when a person (MSM in this context) looks for a potential partner for physical relationship, non-physical relationship or both. The techniques of finding partners were quite interesting to me since I had no idea about MSM. The processes of finding partner written in Singapore cruising information introduce four steps; The Man Scan (working on your gaydar), Brush Pass (making body contact), Double Take (make eye contact and re confirming it) and finally making the kill (final move on the person). But all volunteers thought it happened naturally and automatically. Some of them used mimicking body languages which was really interesting and informative for me. The volunteers thought that some precautions were really important. Some of the precautions and useful tips were; Self-hygiene/ regular shower, Watch out for cuts and sores, Mint (not brushing or mouth wash), don’t do things in an open space (parks), avoid too much cash, bring ID, always have condoms, lubes and most important thing was “take it slow (physical and mental)”. Talking about being rejected and rejecting was quite sensitive issues. We discussed issues regarding feelings, emotions and empathy which are universal, and hence there is an importance for being polite when rejecting and not taking it too personally when rejected.

The most important thing in this seminar was that volunteers are just helpers not problem solvers. Thus the idea of judging others based on personal morality should be the last thing one should be doing (drugs, sexual acts etc.). Finally, we ended it with a role play where people had to enact certain situations in the cruising spots as clients and volunteers. This gave scope for improving their inter/intra personal skills and ask for further clarifications on betterment of their performance.

All the volunteers were very happy and liked this seminar and felt that they had learnt something useful from this session. One of the things they had mentioned as not very satisfactory was about not being provided with handout materials. None the less, it was an amazing experience for all and the activities were quite fun. It was a forum for sharing and learning where everyone got their space to communicate their views and feelings without being neglected by others. I look forward to attend more such workshops and enhance my knowledge about MSM.

Inhyepark

EP from AIESEC EWHA, Korea.