Have you ever wanted to suck on a gun in a public bathroom?

Have you ever wanted to suck on a gun in a public bathroom? Well thanks to The Tearoom, a public bathroom simulator. Now you can!

Welcome to Ohio 1962, the police have set up a two way mirror in a public bathroom. The intention is to catch homosexuals in the act and use the footage as evidence in court. The Tearoom is a historical (free) public bathroom simulator set in these strange times.

The aim of the game is to cruise the bathroom, use your skills to attract the gentleman next to you… and well… make his gun happy. All within a time limit and without attracting the cops. There are a range of different weapons and 8 trophies to collect.

Although at first glance this may appear to be a game for vicarious living. It is in fact influenced by Laud Humphreys’ epic Tearoom Trade (1970), a 180 page social study of men that have anonymous sex with other men in public bathrooms. The use of guns  in place of the… obvious…  is a decision made partly due to the difficulty in presenting this particular act from a first person perspective in an erotic fashion. Who would be interested in having one of those pushing in and out of their screen, no doubt clipping.

Robert Yang is known for his boundary-pushing games with a homosexual slant, and commented on the decision, stating “to appease this oppressive conservative gamer-surveillance complex, I have swapped out any pesky penises in my game for the only thing that the game industry will never moderate nor ban – guns. Now, there’s nothing wrong with guys appreciating other guys’ guns, right?”

As a true journalist, I downloaded and had a quick play of the game for the purposes of this story. I can tell you the graphics are indeed quite good, and the use of weapons is fairly effective.  The soundtrack sounds perfectly 60’s and the game has a nice bible belt feel to it. How accurate the experience is as a simulator, I couldn’t say. (I bet some of the team probably could – Ed)

The game and his artistic statement can be downloaded here.