The Tearoom

Set in a Mansfield, Ohio public restroom in 1962, players aim to cruise for sex with men that arrive and leave a public restroom whilst avoiding attention from the police. The player is positioned at a fixed space at a public urinal and can look around to monitor arriving cars and incoming men, or exit the game. As men enter the restroom and use the urinal, players meet their eye contact when they are interested in the player to fill a meter bar reflecting the man's disposition, with the bar depleting when players fail to meet their gaze or stare when they are disinterested.^[1] A time limit is displayed representing the time for players to respond. When the bar is filled, the character reveals their 'weapon', which can be stimulated by the player's tongue in a simulation of oral sex by shaking the mouse cursor in target areas on the screen. After this is done several times, the character reaches a climax and leaves, giving players statistics about the type and caliber of weapon. The aim of the game is to collect all eight types of weapons revealed when successfully cruising them, with unlocked weapons being reviewable from within a toilet stall.^[2]

Players also must avoid being disrupted by police, who will arrive in a police car seen from a window outside the restroom. They must also avoid undercover police, who will induce the player into sex more quickly and be accompanied by a police car. If the player reaches the stage of getting an undercover policeman to reveal their weapon, more police will enter the restroom. When this occurs, the player's progress of collecting weapons resets to zero.^[1] 23% of the men the player interacts with in the game will be undercover police, a reference to a 2015 study by the UCLA which found that 23% of strangers that commit violence against LGBT people are police officers.^[1][3]

Yang was inspired to create The Tearoom as an interpretation and commentary upon historical practices of anonymous and public sex between men,^[3] influenced by the 1970 non-fiction book Tearoom Trade by Laud Humphreys. Humphreys' book was a sociological work examining the male subculture of anonymous sex with men in public bathrooms, described as "tearooms" in the United Kingdom or cottages in the United States, seeking to identify the behaviours and motivations of participants through observation.^[4] The publication is considered by academics to be a controversial but pivotal study as an early sociological investigation into homosexual behaviors and practices.^[5] Observing that Humphreys' approach to his study of imitated the features of game design, Yang integrated the interviews, diagrams and "rules" of tearoom behavior canvassed in Humphreys' study into the game.^[2] Yang was also heavily influenced by Tearoom, a 2007 documentary by William E Jones, featuring reconstructed surveillance footage taken from a police sting operation targeting men engaging in public sex in a restroom in Mansfield, Ohio in 1962.^[3][6]

Development of The Tearoom was Yang's most complex project to date, with the game taking 8 to 9 months of "on-and-off" work to complete.^[3] Yang, wanting to explore the "intersection of sex and politics",^[1] set the demographics of men and police encounter rates to real-world statistics, with the game's racial composition of men reflecting the majority white composition of census statistics for Mansfield, Ohio.^[3] In addition, following the decision by streaming services such as Twitch to prohibit the broadcasting of Yang's previous games, Yang substituted the genitals of the characters in The Tearoom with weapons as a commentary on the uneven toleration of violence in contrast to sexual content on online platforms.^[7][3]