Scruffy, as always, gives good, practical advice. I, too, remember the past in Atlanta, when cruising in and around Piedmont Park was wonderful. Every effort of the police to break it up just moved it to some other location. Those were the days when the county solicitor had shut down all the bookstores in Atlanta as public nuisances (well, they were connected with organized crime, that was definitely established). But that kind of cruising has pretty much dried up, at least as far as I can tell now. Atlanta has a reputation for being gay-friendly, but it doesn't extend to cruising or to private consensual activity in the bookstores. There is a lot of harassment.
Having reminisced and bemoaned the current situation, here are my additional thoughts:
First, know the laws where you are cruising. Public sex is always going to be illegal. In Georgia where I live, "public" is defined as any place outside your own home and can even include your own home if you can be observed from outside of it (such as standing naked at a window). In Georgia, the sodomy laws have been declared unconstitutional, but it still remains illegal to solicit sodomy. So it's ok to suck someone, but not ok to ask them if you can suck them. Ostensibly, the courts decided to keep the "solicitation" law to combat prostitution (not that prostitution is not already illegal) but it is primarily used in police stings of gay/bi men who are looking for sex. So be aware of technicalities in the law like that.
Secondly, protect yourself. One of the things that I always do - I have a friend to whom I'm out. When I go to meet someone, or go with someone to his place, I always call my friend and leave a message on his voice mail telling him where I am and when I went there. Now that won't protect me, but usually when I get inside, I tell the dude that I made the call from my car -- so he's aware that someone knows where I am and who I'm with, just in case he has any ideas of violence.
Finally, to combat the police sting, a guy who met me once did this. We were talking, thinking about hooking up, and suddenly he leaned over and said, "kiss me!" So I did, and we made it a passionate kiss. He then smiled and said, "If you'll kiss a man like that, you're no cop."
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