Gay cruising in Australia

Although little is known about beats in the early colonial and Federation periods, it is known that specific areas in larger cities, such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have recorded histories of use for this purpose through the 20th century to the present.

Presently, beats are actively used by men who have sex with men (MSM). Due to the casual nature and anonymity of most of the encounters, beats have been identified as areas of high risk for the transmission of HIV, syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections.

Laud Humphrey's Tearoom Trade, published in 1970, was a sociological analysis and observance between the social space public "restrooms" (as toilets are euphemistically known in the US) offer for anonymous sex and the men, either closeted, gay, or straight, who sought to fulfill sexual desires that their wives, religion, or social lives could not. The study, which was met with praise on one side due to its innovation and criticism on the other due to having outed "straight" men and risked their privacy, brought to light the multidimensionality of public restrooms and the intricacy and complexity of homosexual sex amongst self-identifying straight men.

An underground toilet block located at the northern end of Taylor Square, Sydney, that was opened to the public in 1883, was "a popular beat in the heart of gay Sydney for decades until its closure" in 1998.

In 2024 the underground toilet block became a part of Qtopia Sydney, a museum that has an extensive collection of objects related to queer culture in Sydney and the toilet block will now provide exhibition space for the museum. Upon opening in 2024 the toilet block hosted "adults-only exhibitions exploring Sydney's gay beat, sauna and cruising culture of the 1980s and 90s."

Just off of Yarra Bend Road in Melbourne there is a public toilet block that is a popular gay cruising location and in 2012 it was commented that "As a dutiful dog walker I have been an observer of the beat for a long time...In all the years I’ve been walking by, I have only seen this car park empty once...for the cruisers, at least those daytime subjects of my curiosity, are not chatty folk. Their language is a subtle one of glances and head-turns, I’ve never seen them converse. They pull into the car park, sometimes sit for a while, sometimes move straight to the toilets; there are always one or two lonely souls wandering the grass. The men size each other up continuously, hyper-alert to each new arrival. Some stay only briefly, others settle in for the afternoon. Cars come and go, all kinds of cars, muscle cars, tradesmen’s vans, family station wagons. The men are all kinds, too, young, old, business-suited, tracksuited...The busiest times are lunch and after dark, the narrow road becomes jammed."

Engaging in sexual activity in a public place is against the law in all states and territories in Australia. Police have been criticised for excessive patrolling of known beats, and the defence of entrapment is commonly used by those caught when charged. After George Michael was arrested for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public toilet in Los Angeles in 1998 he commented on the Late Show with David Letterman that "the police are not allowed to do something illegal in order to make you do something illegal, you know, it was definite entrapment." Michael commented further that "actually the police report said that he was simulating urination [...] if you tried to simulate urination doing that with your hand you'd get wee all over the shop is all I can say."

People using beats are also more likely to be subject to homophobic hate crimes and other general crimes than gay men who do not use beats, prompting some to welcome the police presence (Moore 1995). In Sydney and Melbourne at least, gay beats have attracted some attention from some sections of the media. This has led to a police presence at those identified. There was a NSW Parliamentary inquiry that reviewed such hate crimes (public submissions closed 7 November 2018).