Cottaging conservatives, my, my. I wonder what positions Senator Craig has taken on gay issues.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:18 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Well, if nothing else the limit of the judicial function as arrests approach Congress equals 201...

Posted August 28, 2007 8:26 PM by Mike Bakula

Isn’t there some theoretical limit on the number of times highly-placed conservative Republicans can be caught out this way?

Certainly. The theoretical limit is equal to the number of Republican Congresspeople still in office. The practical limit is equal to the number of gay Republican Congresspeople who cruise for sex. Of course there are other kinds of embarrassing sex scandals they can be caught out in, so the practical limit may not be as small as it might seem.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:33 PM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

But... but... These are the "Family Values" people!

Posted August 28, 2007 8:36 PM by Dan

Could we show a little compassion here?

Posted August 28, 2007 8:39 PM by Michael Weholt

I can't tell if #5 is seriously intended or not, but pleas for compassion to someone who is (a) a closeted X and (b) a vocal opponent of X rights seem misplaced, at least for compassion related to that someone being outed as an X himself.

I state this generally, though lately X has always been equal to "gay".

It's not merely the great galloping hypocrisy, nor simple "lol teh ghey"; it's that it's an almost textbook example of chickens coming home to roost.

Is it sad that we live in a world where he'd be reduced to this kind of thing? Sure. But he bears a significant part of the responsibility for that world to begin with.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:46 PM by McMartin

I was fumbling toward saying something like this, but Susie Bright said it better:

The GOP Narcissists aren't the exception to the rule— they ARE the rule. They personify the very sexuality they campaign against. If they vote against gays, we know they're queer. If they're hopped up about "child porn," we can guess their internet habits. If they hold up monogamous marriage as a Christian ideal, we know they're adulterous, blasphemous fools.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:50 PM by Bob Oldendorf

Rationally, I totally understand that what I'm seeing is selection bias. (i.e., the radically homophobic public officials who are actually heterosexual and have utterly ordinary sex lives are never in this sort of circumstance. So, they can't be caught in it.)

However, it's times like this when it feels like, yes, everyone who takes the anti-gay rights position, whether it be for political advantage or deep, inner conviction, is, in fact, a traitor to his brethren.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:54 PM by JC

McMartin @ 6 - you really need to click the link in #5.

Posted August 28, 2007 8:55 PM by Dawno

Oops, it's just occured to me that what I wrote can be easily interpreted as minimizing the issue. I don't mean that at all. Even if it really is selection bias, there are still an amazingly large number of radically homophobic Christians engaged in rather hypocritical sex acts. (Not to mention, anonymous sex in a public bathroom can not be one of the safer things one can do.)

Posted August 28, 2007 9:02 PM by JC

Bob @ 7: Y'see, they know that what they're doing is wrong, so they want good strong laws and lots of social stigma attached to those activities to give themselves a bit more incentive to stop.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:05 PM by Joel Polowin

JC #8: I've come to believe that one reason this is so common is that some of these men at least are fully convinced that they actually are straight. Since they "know" they're straight, and yet find sex with other men almost (or entirely) irresistible, they assume that the same is true for all other straight men. That explains the otherwise incomprehensible theories that gay people recruit children, and that gays need to be stigmatized or everyone would be gay, and that it just takes one same-sex encounter to "turn" someone gay.

Of course, for some people that's giving too much credit. Some of them know what they are and are just fine persecuting their brothers, just so long as the rules don't apply to them.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:11 PM by Todd Larason

Bruce #3: I hope the limit is once each.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:13 PM by Seth Breidbart

Dawno @ 9: I did click before posting. It's just that I've been on the Internet so long that my satire detectors have burned out entirely.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:16 PM by McMartin

Great. First, we keep being reminded how the GOP has sent America down the toilet. Now, we have to think of toilets as a place where Republicans have sex. At long last, Madame, have you no shame?

Posted August 28, 2007 9:19 PM by Serge

Just as the little b is convinced that Fredo is a good, talented, honest man brought down by a politicized D.C. flinging mud at him.

The spouse has a song he wrote inspired by Pastor Ted that he will be singing during his set in San Francisco's "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" festival in October. (At least at the moment it's on the set list.) It begins:

"I'm guilty,
of Sexual immorality
Won't you please,
Punish me?"

There's so many now, this one song for Pastor Ted will have to stand in for them all.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:23 PM by Constance

Wow. Vandalism. Smells like Gay Panic to me.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:26 PM by Michael Weholt

The sooner deleted, the better.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:28 PM by John Houghton sees monotonous spam above...

Deleted whilst I and Michael typed. Youse guys are good!

Posted August 28, 2007 9:29 PM by John Houghton

Isn’t there some theoretical limit on the number of times highly-placed conservative Republicans can be caught out this way?

Certainly. The theoretical limit is equal to the number of Republican Congresspeople still in office.

This assumes that departing Republicans caught in gay sex scandals are not replaced by other Republicans who are then caught in gay sex scandals. This is a very dubious assumption. I do not see even the number of Republicans as a theoretical limit, as there is no reason to assume that any of these guys are gone permanently and the Republican base would vote for a serial molester of underage barnyard animals before it would vote for "liberals."

I also see that no one here is really considering the erotic appeal of the forbidden. Closeted Republicans want their kinks to be illegal or at the least, very, very frowned upon, because otherwise, it would not appeal to them.

Posted August 28, 2007 9:30 PM by James Killus

So ... are Republicans suddenly starting to solicit gay sex in restrooms, or have they been soliciting gay sex in restrooms all along but no one reported it?

Posted August 28, 2007 9:33 PM by James D. Macdonald

Craig has been quite vocally anti-gay-rights.

There are two things that annoy the hell out of me here:

(1) Craig has been much more vocal about denying that he's gay than about denying illegal activity. Which one is he actually charged with? THAT'S RIGHT, ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. Because being gay is NOT ILLEGAL. So I should think that would be the more important part of clearing his name.

(2) Various press outfits have been using terms like "accusations of homosexuality." When was the last time anyone was "accused" of heterosexuality?

And I think Todd Larason has it dead-on. (I wouldn't be surprised if it's related to the well-documented psychological phenomenon among anti-abortion-rights conservative women of "My abortion is okay and necessary, but yours makes you an immoral slut." Regardless of one's attitude towards homosexuality or abortion, those are pretty hypocritical attitudes.)

Posted August 28, 2007 9:35 PM by Mel

Republican Gay Sex, oh the shame of it all!
(No, silly, not the Gay part, the Republican part).

Posted August 28, 2007 9:39 PM by John Houghton

What I don't get is how they think soliciting strangers in public toilets is going to be more discreet than picking up rent boys or using an expensive escort service. Or, you know, just having an affair with someone who's actually interested and really doesn't want any publicity himself?

Posted August 28, 2007 9:41 PM by Another Damned Medievalist

#20 James Killus: ...I also see that no one here is really considering the erotic appeal of the forbidden. Closeted Republicans want their kinks to be illegal or at the least, very, very frowned upon, because otherwise, it would not appeal to them.

Could be that, but I think it's a power thing. I'm the Man and I can write my own rules. That part comes out especially when you get to the preposterous denials and/or explanations to dismiss their behavior when they get caught. Politicians pretty much by definition are defined by their attraction to power. Which isn't bad in itself, of course, assuming the politician is prepared to assume all the responsibilities that come with power.

But I think for a lot of politicians it's about the power part, not the responsibility part. If a guy was into responsibility, he'd cop to what he did when he got caught at it. More or less like Barney Frank.

He got caught. He said he was an idiot. He said he was a homo. So, you know, he takes responsibility for his stupid behavior. The voters in his constituency said (and have said for years), yeah, okay, you were stupid, you're a homo, but you represent me well and so you got my vote.

It's the denials and the bullshit "explanations" that scare me about these guys. What more indication do we need that these guys are completely into power and totally out of control?

Posted August 28, 2007 9:43 PM by Michael Weholt

Of course they're going to cut him loose. Unlike Sen. Vitter's state, Sen. Craig's state has a Republican governor.

It's funny that so few of the stories about his wife and children and grandchildren mention that he married his wife and adopted her children after his first round of denying he was gay in the early eighties...

Posted August 28, 2007 10:29 PM by julia

Jim @ 21: I'll never forget the edifying spectacle of Barney Frank calling the press and announcing that if the attempt to pinkwash Tom Foley didn't end Right. That. Minute. he was going to start naming gay Republican names.

It stopped right. that. minute. This was back in Newt days. It was the only ginned up faux-scandal the bombthrowers abandoned (damn, I love me some Barney Frank, parenthetically)

And yes, the press knows.

Posted August 28, 2007 10:37 PM by julia

Outside of the irony and hilarity of it all, this should shine a bright light on anti-gay harassment by cops.

First a cop who probably lied about being in a public park to check on burglaries leads on a man who then makes the mistake of offering him money, and now, Craig, deserving of a karmic kick in the ass as he is, gets busted for little more than some "wink wink nudge nudge". What he did is less aggressive and offensive than what het couples do in bars.

The point I hope you all pick up on is that homophobia among police (as well as republican congresscritters) is an institutional problem, and by ignoring it, it's not going to get better, it'll get worse.

We need to stop police from singling out gay men for cruising busts. That's the lesson, folks.

Oh, and to avoid the mistake John Scalzi made about me, I'll be real clear here. I'm not on Craig's 'side'. I'm against homophobic police, no matter who they bust.

Which is not to say don't laugh. I mean, this really is damn funny. But please, understand that what Craig and Allen wen through as gay men is something that out gay men go through too - the police are actively out to get them.

Police harassment caused the Stonewall Riots. It's going on today. Everyone is a potential target if cops think you're gay.

Posted August 28, 2007 10:40 PM by Josh Jasper

Josh, I definitely believe there's a lot of homophobia in the way police officers conduct cruising busts, but at the same time I think I'm a lot happier if nobody ogles me through the crack in a restroom stall, gay or straight.

I'm pretty okay with Craig getting nailed for this. Maybe it's "less aggressive" than what people do in bars, but if I'm in a bar I'm expecting people to hit on me. The same isn't true if I'm sitting in a stall with my pants around my ankles.

Posted August 28, 2007 10:51 PM by Nat

We need to stop police from singling out gay men for cruising busts.

Kind of ironic that such a harsh police atmosphere only flourishes when, say, United States Senators are fighting hard to oppress gays.

Oh, an interesting addendum is that while Craig made the rather implausible claim that he made all this unfair pleading-to without a lawyer, he apparently later claimed to have a lawyer when he contacted the police department.

Posted August 28, 2007 11:07 PM by mythago

I'm starting to understand why the "family values" conservatives don't like gays -- their gays are idiots.

Let's forget about the moral issues here. There's a glaring practical problem: If you're a public figure and you're cruising for sex in men's bathrooms, you're taking comically stupid risks.

Unless, of course, what you really want is to get caught...

Posted August 28, 2007 11:30 PM by A.J.

"We need to stop police from singling out gay men for cruising busts. That's the lesson, folks."

Hey! Guess what! Even in a 100% gay-friendly America in which nobody felt compelled to live in the closet being gay bore no stigma two things would be true: 1) A subset of gay men would be trying to hook up in public places 2) Nobody would want to be stepping over used nasty rubbers at the airport bathroom.

And don't even try claiming that there is no gay subculture of cruising and engaging in sex in public or that the only people who do so are closet cases.

If I'm sitting in a bathroom stall at a rest stop, at 3am, using it as intended, and the only other person around is trying to get in the stall with me, that's frigging *menacing* is what that is, not harmless cruising by some poorly-adjusted closet case.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:07 AM by Jon H

Maybe he was just canvassing for votes.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:10 AM by Earl Cooley III

Todd Larason #12: Oh. My god. Epiphany. Seriously, it all makes sense now. I never thought of it that way. Thank you!

Posted August 29, 2007 12:26 AM by ethan

Personally, I'm waiting for photos to surface of LaHaye and Jenkins, in flagrante.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:28 AM by Jon H

#33:

"Hi, I've been screwing you in congress for many years, and now, I'm here to do it in person."

Posted August 29, 2007 12:34 AM by albatross

#35: I'm waiting for security camera shots of Ralph Reed, naked, in a petting zoo, after hours.

"It's the hair that gave it away, wasn't it Vern? I known I seen it before, on that gentleman that buys season tickets every year."

Posted August 29, 2007 12:35 AM by Stefan Jones

#17, 18, 19 above: the (now deleted) vandalism was posted from....

dns 69.202.87.204
nslookup 69.202.87.204
Canonical name: cpe-69-202-87-204.twcny.res.rr.com
Addresses:
69.202.87.204

Posted August 29, 2007 12:39 AM by James D. Macdonald

If Craig had been smart, he'd have stuck to The Handkerchief Code.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:50 AM by Bruce Arthurs

A. J. @ 31, Another Damned Medievalist @ 24

There are some people, gay and straight, for whom sex is inextricably bound up with danger and risk. They can't not pick the riskiest behavior, from one point of view or another. If they don't have political power to bet against being outed in a (at least to their constituents) scandalous situation, some of them will risk being beat up by gay bashers (who may or may not be cops), or being exposed to HIV.

It's sad really, because this is very self-destructive behavior, and it often puts others, their ostensible "loved ones" at risk as well. But it's hard to feel sympathy for them when they're so hypocritical about it. And notice that even that can be a part of the game they're playing, because if they keep their own behavior unacceptable to society, they've kept the danger up high where they need it to be.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:20 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Bob, #7: Reading thru that essay, I found a link to this down near the bottom. She's calling it a "love triangle gone bad", which is a bit of a stretch from the linked article itself; OTOH, if any of the people involved had been female, I don't think there'd be any doubt at all that there was a sexual aspect to it, so I'm inclined to agree with her.

Posted August 29, 2007 2:03 AM by Lee

It's such a squalid situation.

Can't the guy afford to go to a hotel?

Posted August 29, 2007 4:16 AM by Dave Bell

Glenn Greenwald has a very thorough blog entry up detailing how right-wing commentators all said Craig's sex life was nobody's business last October, and how the very same commentators now think it's shocking and appalling and he must resign.

Posted August 29, 2007 5:04 AM by Niall McAuley

No, not really. Why else would they all be so obsessed with it? It's sad but true. Most people couldn't bring themselves to care quite so much about gay people living normal, easily accepted lives unless they were disturbed by the idea on a very deep level.

There was a study* a while back that measured men's physical reaction to male-male pornography. The homophobes (who identified as completely straight and said they'd had no same sex encounters) reacted much more dramatically than straight men who felt no need to punish homosexuals.

* apologies for not looking up a scholarly link, but here Is a random article on it with names etc

Posted August 29, 2007 5:49 AM by Shani

#28 Josh Jasper: Police harassment caused the Stonewall Riots. It's going on today. Everyone is a potential target if cops think you're gay.

The riot at the Stonewall started when the patrons of that bar got fed up with the regular police raids. They were in there minding their own damn business and the cops, pretty much on a tedious schedule, kept busting the joint.

They key point here being, they were minding their own business.

I am a tireless advocate for gay rights. There is, in fact, harassment of gays by the police and by many others and it needs addressing, but the right to have sex in public or to hit on people in restrooms isn't a full citizenship matter. It's a matter of interfering with other people who are trying to mind their own business while doing their business. It is, apart from anything it might be called, inconsiderate in the extreme.

Maybe it would be a better world if our society was, in fact, run more along the lines of bonobo society, but that just isn't the way we do things at the moment.

Pointing out examples of genuine police-state harassment is useful -- for example, the Georgia State Police arresting two gay men in their own home -- but using for your example vice squads staking out public restrooms... well, as I say, that makes the thing into a civil rights struggle between the humanites and the bonoboites. I just don't see the usefulness of it.

Posted August 29, 2007 6:49 AM by Michael Weholt

#45, from Michael Weholt, The riot at the Stonewall started when the patrons of that bar got fed up with the regular police raids.

There are regular police raids at parks, and at mens rooms which are used by gay men who can't come out.

Are you folks creeped out by that? You want police to bust the men for doing that? Then explain to me why you're not asking for police to bust ham handed pick up artists in bars, clubs, and on the streets who're much, much worse and much creepier.

This *IS* a double standard.

the police harrasment not as brutal as Stonewall was, and it's not an attack on a known gay venue, but the double standard is there staring you in the face. Gay men get busted for something straight people get away with. Somehow hitting on a guy in a bathroom is worthy of arrest, but a man doing the same thing to a woman in a bar gets a pass from the cops.

The thing is, most straight men I know of are creeped our by being hit on by gay men in any venue. But making an experience where you're creeped out worthy of an arrest, and not applying that same standard to what women go through bears examining, not defensiveness.

Please stop with the "some of my best friends are gay" defensiveness and actually listen to queer people when we tell you what homophobia and a targeted campaign of police harassment looks like. If you're not willing to do that, you're only a defender of gay rights when it's convenient, and when you get to define the situation.

Posted August 29, 2007 7:34 AM by Josh Jasper

#46 Josh Jasper: There are regular police raids at parks, and at mens rooms which are used by gay men who can't come out.... Are you folks creeped out by that? You want police to bust the men for doing that? Then explain to me why you're not asking for police to bust ham handed pick up artists in bars, clubs, and on the streets who're much, much worse and much creepier.

Your view requires the equivalency in function of bars and public toilets. I don't see it. I don't think most folks see it. If you can establish that equivalency in everybody's minds, you might make some progress on this point here, I guess.

Posted August 29, 2007 7:50 AM by Michael Weholt

Sorry, Josh, but I'm with Michael Weholt on this. If someone makes of either gender makes a pass at you in a social setting you can accept or refuse it as you see fit. I don't consider when I'm sat in a cubicle taking a dump to be a social setting. The one time someone tried this I told him to f*ck off. He did. Very quickly. In such a situation I consider his actions harrassment, frankly.

Posted August 29, 2007 7:58 AM by Rob Hansen

Josh Jasper #46: I'm with Michael Weholt and Rob Hansen on this. Being hit on in a bar (and this is not an exclusively heterosexual matter) is a very different thing from your privacy being violated when you're engaged in a necessary natural act.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:11 AM by Fragano Ledgister

I believe that the cops routinely bust men who offer money-for-sex to female undercover officers in public parks, and don't hesitate to bust men who enter women's restrooms.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:16 AM by James D. Macdonald

#50 James D. Macdonald: I believe that the cops... don't hesitate to bust men who enter women's restrooms.

Okay, we need a little clarification here. I'm presuming you don't mean to equate a gay man entering a men's restroom with a straight man entering a women's restroom. Jeez, I hope not. Otherwise there are going to be a lot of law-abiding gay men bouncing from one foot to the other in public places, bending forward slightly, holding their hoo-haws and turning bright red in the face.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:24 AM by Michael Weholt

Not even just the stereotypical park bathroom late at night, Josh. An airport bathroom. So if my 5-year-old godson is being taken to his grandparents' house, this is where he has to perform bodily functions. His parents don't take him to singles bars at night. If they're flying, you damn betcha they take him to the bathrooms at MSP. I don't think it's unreasonable for his folks not to want to have to answer questions about what those men are doing and what that noise is and what's that on the floor and so on. You can absolutely decry homophobia among police without having to defend sex in the airport bathrooms to get there.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:40 AM by Mris

Just curious, but what was it about my comment at #39 that got it tagged for moderation before posting?

Posted August 29, 2007 8:50 AM by Bruce Arthurs

I can understand arresting a straight man in a women's restroom better than any man in the men's room, but I can't think of any non-obvious reasons for a guy to be in there-- men's room is broken, escorting a daughter or someone else who needs assistance, things like that.

I can sort of see the equivalency between parks and bathrooms if the men have no other social/sexual venue*, but the case is weakened by the fact that this particular man seems to have been pretty bad at it. If everyone present is there for the same reason, fine. If the bathroom-sex-people can differentiate between potential hookups and people who do not want to be bothered, less fine, but not as bad as accosting someone who is completely uninterested.
Making eye contact with the guy at the sink as you walk in and both of you understanding the signals? Okay, there are sexual trends/subcultures I don't really understand, but it's not skeezy in a 'this is how you hook up'** way. Looking in the stalls, which may contain people who are not participating*, and going on from there? Not so much.

Some of the general freakedness may also be because most people I know think of bathrooms, even stalls, as private. Under most circumstances, you don't talk to others. It's a place you can't be bothered. The collision of my private mental bathroom space with 'just like a bar'-- which is definitely public and social-- is not terribly pretty.

*this is the wrong phrase, but I don't know the right one.
**I'm still a bit icked by the public setting and sanitation, but that's not the primary issue.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:51 AM by Diatryma

Okay, let's say "men entering a women's restroom for the purpose of getting a date."

Posted August 29, 2007 8:52 AM by James D. Macdonald

Mris, you nailed another thing I couldn't figure out how to bring up. Many thanks.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:53 AM by Diatryma

#53: The URL includes members.aol.com, which is a string that appears in an unGhodly amount of comment-spam.

Posted August 29, 2007 8:57 AM by James D. Macdonald

I realize that there's a certain "won't someone please think of the chiiiiildren" tone to bringing up the 5-year-old. But as limited as the choice in where to get sexual contact may be for some gay people, the choice in where to deposit bodily wastes at the airport is still more limited -- and, I would venture to say, more urgent.

Posted August 29, 2007 9:41 AM by Mris

#25: Michael Weholt:

Actually, Republicans (well, with the exception of Lincoln) were all straight until J. Edgar Hoover. He seduced Roy Cohn, Roy Cohn seduced John Foster Dulles, and it went on from there. The Gay Republican Domino Effect really set the tone for the fifties--McCarthy was egged on by the leadership so that nobody would pay attention to all the hot gay Republican sex that was going on in bathrooms all over Washington. William F. Buckley (come on! Is there anyone more fey than WFB?) brought it to a younger generation in the sixties. For a while there, John Birch Society meetings made parties at Allen Ginsberg's place look like Presbyterian potlucks.

Posted August 29, 2007 9:43 AM by salvador dalai llama

Joel @11 and James @20: The Daily Show had some pretty amusing commentary on the "lure of the forbidden" angle here, vis-a-vis the Bob Allen incident.

"It makes the fruit forbidden, which is that much hotter. And we all know what they say about hot fruit."

Posted August 29, 2007 9:48 AM by Karin

#58 Mris: ...But as limited as the choice in where to get sexual contact may be for some gay people...

Actually, these days, I don't buy the "limited choice" thing. Craigslist is everywhere. So is www.gay.com. Not to mention the proliferation of sites with more, um, focused tastes such as www.alt.com. If the desire is for completely anonymous sex, there are plenty of guys on CL looking for that very thing.

The internet is the best thing to happen to gay sex since Plato. Nobody actually has to go to parks or restrooms or other public places to solicit sex these days. Hell, if you are hot under the scrotum and can't hold it long enough to get back home to your keyboard, there are plenty of internet cafes you can use to arrange something quickly. I've seen it done.

No, it isn't limited availability. It's a preference. Or a compulsion. Or a pathology. Or something. I'm not prepared or trained to say what it is exactly, but I know it isn't lack of availability.

Posted August 29, 2007 10:01 AM by Michael Weholt

Karin #60: It's good over ice cream?

Posted August 29, 2007 10:03 AM by Earl Cooley III

Dave Bell #42: It was a stopover to change planes. He probably didn't have time for a hotel.

As far as I'm concerned, his real offense was showing the cop who had arrested him his Senate business card and saying, "What do you say to that?"

Posted August 29, 2007 10:36 AM by theophylact

There was a time when gay men could only meet in sleazy circumstances, when being "out" was suicide. Even gay bars were illegal, which is why the raids that led to the Stonewall Riots (yes, three days' worth) happened.

If it's impossible to meet for sex without breaking the law, then the law is unjust, and busting people for it is unjust.

But those days are long gone, and may they never return. Today gay people can meet in a significant fraction of the places and ways straight people can. (There are lots of de facto restrictions; if a straight guy asks a female coworker out once, is turned down, and does not ask again, he's OK. If a gay guy asks a male coworker out once and is turned down it could end his career, depending on the company. This is even in the NYC area.)

Having sex in public restrooms is a thing only gay men do. It is and IMO should be illegal, but the issue of oppression is comparatively subtle now. If the police respond to complaints (as they were in Craig's case), that's one thing. If they devote vice resources to nabbing gay men at the expense of keeping what used to be called "mashers" out of the parks, that's another.

Jim, the problem with your examples at 50 and 55 is...well, "the law forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges." Straight men don't go into women's restrooms to get dates. Non-smokers are forbidden to smoke on airplanes, but that doesn't bother them.

Now, I think sex in a public restroom (especially in an airport, FCOL) ought to be illegal, as should smoking on airplanes. But that doesn't mean that devoting resources to that crime can't be homophobic; it just means that the issues are relatively subtle.

Posted August 29, 2007 10:48 AM by Xopher

If the police respond to complaints (as they were in Craig's case), that's one thing. If they devote vice resources to nabbing gay men at the expense of keeping what used to be called "mashers" out of the parks, that's another.

And whether they respond to (and make it clear that they will respond to) complaints about sexual harassment or activity by heterosexuals in public places.

Michael et al are acting as if the question is "Is it OK for gay men to have sex in public restrooms, and for police to bust them if they do?" That's not the question. It's "Why are the cops setting up sting operations targeted at gay men?"

Because, as Shining-Armor Clad Defenders of Gays all know, there is a very long history of vice-squad operations targeted at gays because they are gay, not because they uniquely are leaving condoms lying around in public spaces or harassing children.

And speaking of harassment, any moderately-attractive women could tell you that harassment (up to and including the physical) happens to women in public places all the time.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:02 AM by mythago

mythago 65: I agree entirely.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:05 AM by Xopher

> Having sex in public restrooms is a thing only gay men do.

I'm not convinced that's entirely true. Having sex in public restrooms with random strangers they have just met there, rather than sneaking in with their existing partner, perhaps, but the "thrill of risking being caught" thing can be there for straight couples too. Unless straights just make up stories about it.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:09 AM by Alan Braggins

#65

Yep. See, for example:

http://hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/

http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/

http://www.streetharassmentproject.org/

and so on...

Posted August 29, 2007 11:12 AM by Sarah S

#65 mythago: Michael et al are acting as if the question is "Is it OK for gay men to have sex in public restrooms, and for police to bust them if they do?" That's not the question. It's "Why are the cops setting up sting operations targeted at gay men?"

Michael et al are acting as if the question is "Is it OK for gay men to have sex in public restrooms..." because Josh made that the question.

Look, I believe Josh has a perfectly valid and valuable point underneath all the anger and hostility and baloney, a point that I actually agree with completely.

Straight men should learn to cope with gay men hitting on them in the same way that women have learned to cope with straight men hitting on them. Or, alternatively, if it is a crime per se for gay men to hit on other men, it should be a crime per se for straight men to hit on women.

The second alternative, making it a crime per se for men to hit on women, seems a bit much to ask of a species that relies on sexual reproduction for its survival. That does not mean that there shouldn't be limits on behavior. Harassment, above and beyond playfully hitting on somebody, is harassment and there should be measures against it.

Let me say it again. I completely agree that police harass gay men for hitting on men. I agree that it is unjust. I believe that it comes from a societal flaw that causes straight men to be freaked out by gay men hitting on them. It is wrong.

I will wager one whole American dollar that all the "et als" you refer to in here agree with me on all of that.

In fact, the question in this discussion is precisely what you said it wasn't. Is it okay for gay men to hit on other men in public restrooms? The answer of Michael et al is "no". There is a time and place for everything, and being hit on while trying to take a dump in peace is the wrong time and place. Is it okay for gay men to hit on men in other places where, under similar circumstances, straight men hit on women? I'll wager that the answer of Michael et al in here is, "yes, of course". Or, at least that it should be okay, even if because of flaws in our culture it isn't yet.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:32 AM by Michael Weholt

I'm saying this as a gay man, but Craig was completely out of line in this situation, regardless of whatever homophobia the police may show. Most people just go to the restroom to expel waste in private, and the privacy is critical rather than optional.

I've used the bathroom in a public building before and washed my hands after and found, on top of the trash, a used condom. I don't care if the people who put it there were gay or straight or bi. I don't want to see it there. Sex is not what the bathroom is for.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:46 AM by HG

I'm sorry, he was *having sex*? See, I missed that part.

I think it was because he wasn't. But in your mind, Xopher, you turned what I was saying into an excuse for gay men having public sex in bathrooms, or in parks.

The last 3 times I saw people having sex in central park they were straight couples. And yet the police squads with the sting operations failed to stop them. Because they weren't there.

And it's funny how no female police offices I've ever heard of go trolling parks looking to sucker men into making offers of public sex. No, that happens only to gay men. And yet straight couples have sex in public parks all the damn time.

And Mris found it necessary to mention children, because any time gay men are discussed, someone inevitably brings out children as something they put in danger.

All Craig possibly did was make a minor pass at someone. Nothing more.

Michael, if I wasn't angry about this, I'd be numb.

Posted August 29, 2007 11:52 AM by Josh Jasper

#71 Josh Jasper: Michael, if I wasn't angry about this, I'd be numb.

Anger is good. Numb is bad. You should be angry. A lot more people should be angry. I'm just thinking it could help matters if you assume more people are starting out on your side than you might, at first, think, is all, and maybe framing your arguments with that assumption in mind, is all.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:00 PM by Michael Weholt

it's funny how no female police offices I've ever heard of go trolling parks looking to sucker men into making offers of public sex.

I've heard of this happening, although usually they're trolling on street corners, since that seems to be a more common location for such business transactions.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:03 PM by P J Evans

Josh, we all know that Craig was trying to have sex with that police officer in that airport toilet.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:04 PM by Niall McAuley

Josh, 71: And it's funny how no female police offices I've ever heard of go trolling parks looking to sucker men into making offers of public sex

Because straight hookers stand on street corners, so female police officers doing vice stings stand on street corners too. Female police officers who go trolling in parks are looking for rapists.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:05 PM by TexAnne

The Grey Lady's coverage of this is hilarious. They start out talking about the recent string of political scandals, sexual and otherwise, and how funny (demoralising, if you're naive/self-righteous enough to be Republican) it is that they've all come from one side of the aisle. They decide, for the sake of due diligence, to mention Rep. Billy Jefferson, a Democrat from LS (the gentleman with bricks of cash in his freezer), leading the paragraph off with this gem of dry biting wit:

"Republicans, of course, do not have an exclusive hold on scandal."

That "of course" is genius.

Crazy homophobic conspiracy theories aside (#59), I really think this is more than just a perception bias at work here. Yes, maybe there is something about these politicians that leads them to risk-hungry sexual behavior. But more than that, I think they are just fairly inept, both at seeking sexual partners and at weaving bumbling denials afterwards. Is there some strain of conservative politics right now that tends to promote folks that are ham-fisted boy-men with hard-ons for danger? I don't know, I just know that neither are traits I want to see in leaders of the nation.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:11 PM by Gursky

So many Republican sex scandles,I just cant keep them straight.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:14 PM by dermott mcsorley

While it's true that "think of the children" is often a marker of a dishonest argument appealing to emotion rather than reason, sometimes it means just what it says.

I bring my three-year-old daughter into the mens toilets rather than bring my adult self into the ladies. I don't want to bring her into somewhere gay men are having sex. I'm not suggesting that the gay men having sex in toilets are going to attack us, or want to have sex with her, or that she will be in any danger.

I wouldn't take her into a place where anyone is having sex, and I really do have to bring her into airport toilets.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:14 PM by Niall McAuley

it's funny how no female police offices I've ever heard of go trolling parks looking to sucker men into making offers of public sex.

You might try Googling on police + prostitution + sting

The last time a guy hit on me was in the DVD section of the Borders Bookstore in Concord, NH. I was by myself, wearing my leather motorcycle jacket. I had copy of The Birdcage and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in my hand and was looking for A Chorus Line when a nice young man struck up a conversation. I said "No thanks," and that was that.

Look, I'll make you a deal: I won't take a dump on the bar if you won't hit on me in the toilet. Fair enough?

Posted August 29, 2007 12:21 PM by James D. Macdonald

Josh Jasper:

Here are the distinctions I see in the Craog case.

1: There were complaints. I can tell you, from a personal POV, if some guy was staring at me sitting on the toilet in a public place, I'd complain. I not much of a shrinking violet. When I was younger, and prettier/softer looking, I got lots of male attention. Being straight it was educational, but it wasn't horrible. Sometimes it was even flattering.

But not in the toilet. The setting is wrong.

2: Do cops target gays? Yes. Is that wrong? Yes. Does that wrongness make this case, ipso facto wrong? No.

3: Do cops fail to look for straight men? No, and this is where I am treading thin ice. I think your failure to see the female vice cops who go cruising for johns might be a bit of confirmation bias. For all the reasons given above, that's not the sort of thing which is going to take place in toilets (at least not at the point of solicitation; I have no problem believing there are men who ask prostitutes to duck into a stall to take care of the business.

Those are issues which relate to the legality of selling sex. Putting aside the question of the value of legalising prostitution, public toilets aren't the place to have sex, either professional or personal.

Would I be happier if Karsnia had waited for a more overt act, but having been hit on, I can believe he knew what was going on. Since the charge which was dropped was for the peering, there might be some aggrandising of the charge (going for the sexual one, instead of the more sustainable one) which relates to the social "ick" factor is a problem.

Then again, IIRC, the one he copped to was the lesser offence.

Should anyone who wants to be allowed to arrange the consensual pleasure of their choice? Absolutely.

Should people be allowed to make advances on people in places they are vulnerable? Should they be allowed to make me put up with them engaging in those consensual acts (of a nature our culture deems private) where I have to interact/take notice?

No.

Should the inequities which exist in the present enforcement of those issues be addressed? Yes.

(Maia just called, I have to pick her up... I had other things I thought I wanted to say, they will have to wait).

Posted August 29, 2007 12:25 PM by Terry Karney

Josh wrote: "I'm sorry, he was *having sex*? See, I missed that part."

Don't play stupid, it's not becoming. Or believable.

If Craig was trying to ask the guy out, he could have done so, not surreptitiously gawked at the guy and played footsie from the stall next door.

If he wanted to pick up a date, why use the bathroom, and not, say, an airport bar?

I would submit that people don't generally look for attractive and interesting dates by peeping through a crack while those people are on the toilet poopin'.

The fact is he was seeking anonymous sex in a bathroom stall.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:29 PM by Jon H

#79 James D. Macdonald You might try Googling on police + prostitution + sting

I said public sex, not prostitution.

When was the last time you heard of undercover female cops going up to men in parks, and asking if they'd like to have sex, not exchange sex for money.

Have you ever heard of that? I've never heard of that. But in this case, Craig was busted by officers looking for nothing more than a gay man trying to arrange a hookup. Allen was busted for solicitation, but the officer was obviously looking to bust a queer. He strung Allen along, and probably would have just busted him for lewd conduct. The solicitation was a bonus because Allen was an idiot.

#74 Niall McAuley -

We all know no such thing. In the Allen case, Allen specifically suggested that the bathroom was too public.

God, the homophobia in here is getting cloying.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:33 PM by Josh Jasper

Josh, what part of "sex does not belong in public toilets" is homophobic?

Posted August 29, 2007 12:39 PM by TexAnne

#69, Michael: Straight men should learn to cope with gay men hitting on them in the same way that women have learned to cope with straight men hitting on them. Or, alternatively, if it is a crime per se for gay men to hit on other men, it should be a crime per se for straight men to hit on women.

Could I possibly put forward as a third option -- that maybe men could stop hitting on people so much? Instead of everyone else having to learn to cope with it?

They don't call it "hitting on" because it's something you look forward to experiencing every morning when you wake up.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:40 PM by Leah Bobet

Josh, I know it and you know it, and yelling about the violence inherent in the system won't change that.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:43 PM by Niall McAuley

Michael 69: I agree with this too.

Josh 71: I didn't mean to mischaracterize what you said. But "making a minor pass at someone" would be saying "Hey, wanna go to my room?" I think he should be allowed to do that.

He peered into someone else's toilet stall, and gave other signs indicative of wanting sex not later, but right there in a public place, and a confined one at that.

Now I compulsively tap my feet. One time, when I was young and naïve, I was in a public restroom in Boston (at NorEasCon II, I think it was), and my tapping gave the wrong impression to the guy in the next stall. When he stuck his head under the wall, the shocked expression on my face made him withdraw quickly. I was a little freaked out, but that ended the incident.

There are cops who would have done what I did on purpose and arrested the other guy. There MIGHT be cops who would have arrested me for tapping my feet, but absent the peering and touching feet and sticking the hand under I doubt it.

You're right about most of the rest of what you say. Sex in Central Park should either be OK for all, or for none, and enforcement should be evenhanded.

Posted August 29, 2007 12:49 PM by Xopher

Johh: Perhaps your equating the Allen case (First a cop who probably lied about being in a public park to check on burglaries leads on a man who then makes the mistake of offering him money [#28] I'm not even going to address the number of times I've been, "lead on" without offering the woman money to let me performm a sexual act on her, but I think you characterisation of the Allen case a trifle... focused) to the Craig case might have something to do with the confusions of being hit on for sex in public (which is what happened here) and paying for it.

Because, as you keep stressing, Craig didn't offer to have sex in public (though the oficer thought it's what he wanted, and such a desire is what he pled to), which means the parallel (of men offering to have sex; right here, that you are pointing to isn't likely to happen in the women's room.

No, the guy who goes in there to hit on someone is going to get arrested, and if he's trying to get sex, the charge is more likely to be assault, rather than indecency.

Therein lies my thought that what Craig did was wrong. A public toilet is not a place where I presume a social context where hitting on people to be appropriate. Staring at me while I'm using the facilities borders on assault, in a way which doesn't occur when I go to a bar.

A bar has a social context which is, at least slightly, sexualised. If someone hits on me while I'm in one, that's part, and parcel, of what goes on in bars.

It's not part and parcel of what goes on in toilets.

Having been followed into one, by someone who wanted to convince me that I wanted to spend some "quality time" with him, I can tell you, I felt uncomfortable, and vaguely threatened, in way which I've never felt in bars, even when someone was more phsycially forward than I wanted.

Why? Because that's what happens in sexualised social settings. People flirt, they hit on each other. Sometimes they go too far.

But none of those things invade any sense of, integral, privacy.

(p.s. Maia is fine, her bike went flat and she needed the car, all is now well; though my errands will take a bit longer)

Posted August 29, 2007 1:00 PM by Terry Karney

"Josh, what part of "sex does not belong in public toilets" is homophobic?"

Josh seems to think anonymous public sex in toilets is inherently part and parcel of being gay, as opposed to being a kink favored by a subset.

I don't think he's doing gay people any favors on that score.

It's a bit like the people saying criticism of Michael Vick's dog torture is racist.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:01 PM by Jon H

Am I the only gay man here who feels threatened and intimidated when someone hits on me in a public restroom? (Or at least I recall that I did. Hasn't happened to me in years, for some reason.)

Am I the only gay man here whose primary thought when someone peers into the stall in which I am defecating is "mugger" not "oh, boy, sex"? And whose second thought is that I'm about to get bashed?

I do not think so. If so, though, how many of you are below average height and have a manner that is, shall we say, anything but aggressive?

Part of the reason sexual solicitations in restrooms have to be stopped is that they're intimidating, at least to a person of my stature and general Pooh-Bear demeanor. If you want to "make a pass" at me, do it where I'm not enclosed in a steel box with my ankles hobbled. Better still, do it where I can easily escape from you if I'm not interested in your pass.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:03 PM by Xopher

Terry wrote: "Why? Because that's what happens in sexualised social settings. People flirt, they hit on each other. Sometimes they go too far."

Also, there's more freedom of movement in a bar, and less isolation, than there is in a bathroom stall, or even a bathroom overall.

It's entirely natural to feel safer in a larger, populated room. It's not just you vs. the miscreant. (Obviously this could go wrong in situations where everyone else is on the side of the miscreant, but those are probably quite rare.)

Posted August 29, 2007 1:10 PM by Jon H

Josh,

The problem is not that gay men get busted for cruising in bathrooms. This is asinine behavior, and the cops are right to be busting people for it, whatever their personal motives.

The problem is that the punishment for this behavior is unreasonably harsh. It should be a simple fine, not anything you have to go to court for.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:11 PM by A.J.

I'm not freaked out about peering into the stall. The cop made that sound scarier than it surely was.

What in all likelihood actually happened as Craig walked past the stall glancing out the corner of his eye as he passed, just like any guy who's looking for an empty stall. You can't see much that way, but you can tell if a stall is occupied.

And I expect that if you walk just a tiny bit slower, and pay just a tiny bit more attention, you can tell the difference between a guy sitting there reading a newspaper and a guy who's watching the door closely, offering eye contact to anyone who passes.

It's not very likely that some straight who's just there to void his bowels is going to pass the eye contact test, nor in fact even notice that there was a test, but even if he does, the remaining stages of the protocol (foot tapping, hand waving, etc.) will filter out anyone who isn't looking to get picked up.

My points here are:

- Any guy who's wailing about how he wouldn't want a stranger staring into his stall or playing footsie with him is overreacting. No such thing would have happened to him. All he'd have suffered would have been the sight of a well-dressed man walking by his stall looking for an empty, no different than what happens during any visit to a public washroom. Maybe a lot of approaches aren't as smooth as Craig's.

- Craig was definitely looking for sex.

- Craig was almost certainly looking for sex On The Premises, but good luck proving that to a jury. They showed the badge before they got him to do anything that proved this beyond a reasonable doubt. Craig could quite plausibly claim that he was looking there for a partner to fool around with elsewhere.

- Which brings us to why this is so nasty: The sting relies upon the natural reluctance of a closet case to offer a plausible and effective defense of "I wasn't gonna do him THERE." Instead, our victim is stuck denying that he was cruising for sex at all, which he has to say if he isn't prepared to come out, but which won't fool anyone who doesn't want to be fooled and in no way constitutes a plausible defense.

I'm sympathetic to the goal of preventing people from having sex in airport lavs. Place a guard outside--that'd stop it. Or use plainclothes officers to patrol the washrooms and catch people in the act.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:12 PM by Laertes

Josh Jasper #82: God, the homophobia in here is getting cloying..

Oh, stop it. Stop it right now. I was sympathetic to a few of your points (let me stress that "a few"), but sympathy is gone.

Stop accusing friends of being enemies. Yelling at people who agree with you for not agreeing completely in all cases, no matter how ridiculous, is a stupid waste of time. Notice that none of the gay men responding seem to be taking to your "if gay men do it, it must be right" argument--I suppose to you this means we're all self-loathing messes.

Your "view all by" goes back to 2005. You've been here longer than me, certainly long enough to know better. That was a ridiculous accusation, one that shouldn't be pulled out the instant things aren't going 100% your way.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:14 PM by ethan

Josh #82: God, the homophobia in here is getting cloying.

If you can find a more reasonable, open minded group that engages in civil discourse on any imaginable topic, I'd like to meet them. Seriously. Maybe Jake's Place if you can find it.

I've been absorbing your point of view and giving it the due consideration I give to just about any poster here, but I'd have an easier time if you went a little lighter on the shrill and heavier on the thought provoking discourse.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:18 PM by Lance Weber

Laertes wrote: "Craig could quite plausibly claim that he was looking there for a partner to fool around with elsewhere."

He apparently had a connecting flight to catch, which makes this rather unlikely.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:22 PM by Jon H

Is it time to take a deep breath?

Posted August 29, 2007 1:28 PM by Serge

#96 Serge: Is it time to take a deep breath?

I think so, yes.

It's discouraging to see a bunch of people who probably agree with each other on this question at a rate of about 95% sliding into a bit of a feeding frenzy.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:32 PM by Michael Weholt

Maybe Jake's Place Mary's Place.

500 demerits off my SF geek rating.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:34 PM by Lance Weber

#95: Hrm. Good point. I hadn't thought of that. That sort of changes everything. I still think that his technique, as described, was pretty considerate in that it'd be unlikely to be noticed by anyone who didn't want to play, but it does become absolutely clear that he was cruising for an on-the-spot hookup, and so some kind of "public lewdness" or disorderly conduct charge seems appropriate even though the badge came out so early.

Well, good. Feeling sympathy for Craig was ruining my enjoyment of this scandal. I take my schadenfreude neat, thanks.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:35 PM by Laertes

Josh, your reaction to the 'think of the children' argument is why I didn't bring it up-- but it's unwarranted. We're using 'child' as the best example of 'person who is not interested in public sex', 'person to whom it is inappropriate to suggest public sex' and 'person who should not be exposed to public sex'. Kids are present in airport bathrooms, because bathrooms are not for sex.
Your points may be okay in general, but not in this specific case. If this is the best example you have of police homophobia, you've already lost the argument. Just because the police may have an additional motive doesn't mean his actions were not wrong.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:38 PM by Diatryma

Laertes: Unless we are to assume, out of hand, the cop is lying, this wasn't a couple of peering in to see if the stall was empty (which I must say, in almost all of the toilets I've been in,; is usually pretty obvious. Most have doors which are balanced to be open, unless locked. Feet are usually visible without the need to peek).

A police officer who arrested him June 11 said Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes

Two minutes. I'm not short, but I am slight (though of a less Pooh-bear disposition than Xopher) and someone staring into my stall for two minutes is going to have me nervous; mostly because I think I'm being cased for a mugging, but still nervous.

As to your comment that, "no such thing would have happened" that's an assertion which flies in the face of anectdote (Xopher's, and mine; though I went into less detail). This is a case where I have empirical evidence which is contra your claim.

I have had people enter my stall. They got short shrift, but it did happen, and so telling me it "won't" happen, just becuase the guy looking to see if I am turning the place into a tea-room is going to be clued in to my not doing that will be so smooth/swift as to avoid my notice, well it ain't so.

Granted, I am a lot more aware of my surroundings than most (to the point of that some might call it a cultivated paranoia) and am willing to write off most such things as people who have less situational awareness, or figure out that I am there to use the toilet, not have a fling, but that subtlety doesn't make it right.

Further, people who are looking for sex in a public toilet are wrong, no matter how subtle they are. Think I'm cute... fine. Make a pass at me in the bar, I'll turn you down as politely as the pass deserves.

Make an offer in the john, and the level of polite goes way down. Press the issue and I might call a cop.

I find it amusing (though not surprising) that the issues of Craig's hypocrisy (and stupidity of defense) have been lost. We are arguing the merits of letting people make passes at people in a public john.

Posted August 29, 2007 1:39 PM by Terry Karney

I'm not uncomfortable with going after him for looking through the crack in the door. It's seizing an intimacy the person hasn't offered, and that's not right no matter who's been doing it to who.

I am a little uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of the people who are really disturbed by what happened seem to be particularly disturbed by the waggling hand and foot business, which is not all that much more bald than plenty of approaches I've seen coming from men to women.

Crude, yes. Vulgar, yes. To be spurned, certainly.

Something that should be prosecuted under a criminal charge which basically says that you squicked somebody?

Be a different world if that's how it worked.

I'm also a little uncomfortable with the "had to be there" factor playing into this, because it at least leaves open the question of how much the target's availability to the approach is voluntary. I probably don't *have* to walk past construction sites...

Posted August 29, 2007 1:45 PM by julia

#86 Xopher He peered into someone else's toilet stall, and gave other signs indicative of wanting sex not later, but right there in a public place, and a confined one at that.

This is interesting, because in a similar scenario, when actual conversation started, Rep. Allen did *not* suggest sex in a toilet stall. Craig, on the other hand, didn't even get a chance to start conversation before he was busted.

What psychic sense leads everyone to conclude that Craig was different than Allen?

He might well have been asking for public sex, but it's certainly not proven, and we've got an example of a second gay closeted republican busted in similar circumstances who did not offer sex in a bathroom stall.

So it's not inevitable that he was asking for sex in the bathroom. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't.

Posted August 29, 2007 2:03 PM by Josh Jasper

Josh, if I understand correctly, after all the peering and foot-tapping and foot-touching, he extended his hand under the partition. I've never been into bathroom sex, but from what I read from people who are, that's an offer of a handjob.

If you're going to discuss these things, you have to be aware of the language of gestures and signs in which they are conducted.

And also, doesn't the fact that he pled to a lesser charge imply that he knew he was actually guilty of something? You don't believe his absurd denials now, do you?

Posted August 29, 2007 2:22 PM by Xopher

"He might well have been asking for public sex, but it's certainly not proven, and we've got an example of a second gay closeted republican busted in similar circumstances who did not offer sex in a bathroom stall."

No, Allen offered sex and a Jackson, so it didn't really matter where it was supposed to take place.

Posted August 29, 2007 2:24 PM by Jon H

#101: Two minutes. I'm not short, but I am slight (though of a less Pooh-bear disposition than Xopher) and someone staring into my stall for two minutes is going to have me nervous; mostly because I think I'm being cased for a mugging, but still nervous.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. I'm not asserting that the cop is lying. I'm suggesting that the peering would have been extremely brief--not even noticeable--had the officer not offered and maintained eye contact. The story the officer tells is entirely consistent with my theory, unless he's claimed (and this is possible) that he didn't make eye contact with Craig, or gave Craig a hostile look, or waved him off, or similar. I'll bet good money that the cop looked him right in the eye, immediately, and smiled for that whole two minutes.

As to your comment that, "no such thing would have happened" that's an assertion which flies in the face of anectdote

Another clarity error on my part. When I wrote that "no such thing would have happened" I meant to refer specifically to this case at hand. From all available reports, Craig performed an elaborate protocol, obviously designed to sort out willing sex partners from unaware bystanders without causing anyone any undue embarassment, shame, or loss of face. On that basis, I argue that had I or anyone here been in that stall, we'd never have noticed Craig's approach. That's what I was fumbling toward when, in that same post, I wrote "maybe a lot of approaches aren't as smooth as Craig's."

The oaf who follows you into the washroom, breathing down your neck, offering to spend some "quality time" deserves the beating he's very likely to get. But whatever Craig's sins, and by every indication they are legion, making clumsy and aggressive passes at unreceptive washroom patrons doesn't seem to be among them.

Posted August 29, 2007 2:48 PM by Laertes

"But whatever Craig's sins, and by every indication they are legion, making clumsy and aggressive passes at unreceptive washroom patrons doesn't seem to be among them."

Perhaps. But if the airport bathroom gets a reputation as being a good place for anonymous sex, it'll get more such traffic, and the likelihood rises of getting more aggressive oafs and fewer delicate operators like Craig.

Posted August 29, 2007 2:53 PM by Jon H

Laertes, I think you have a point about the eye contact. On the other hand, I'd think that cops tend to be a little more observant of what's going on around them in a public place, which might easily lead to eye contact. At that point, all the hand-twitching on Craig's part was a misinterpretation of the cop's continued eye contact--although you've got to wonder how desperate poor Craig was not to notice the cop's facial reaction (I'm guessing the cop wasn't looking too enthusiastic; maybe he just couldn't figure out what on earth the guy in the next stall was doing--I mean, was he out of toilet paper or what?).

Still, the story's funny because it was a Republican senator. Anyone else and it would just be sad.

Posted August 29, 2007 3:06 PM by KCShaw

Like Josh, I find the tenor of many comments here disturbing. What disturbs me here is a lack of empathy for a certain group of men who have sex with men, and a lack of sensitivity for the ways in which homophobia has created gay sexual subcultures.

I'm writing as a gay man who thinks that sex in public restrooms is gross and who'd prefer that it didn't go on. But tearooms are not precisely about gay life. Many men who have sex under such circumstances don't identify as gay. In the past, public toilets were one of the few places men could meet other men for sex. Obviously things are enormously better today, but still many men are riddled with shame. Going on Craigslist, or to a bar, or to a bathhouse, is *admitting* that they want sex with men. That's too hard for them. Tearooms evolved in a homophobic society, fulfilling a powerful need for a substantial minority of men, and they continue to do so. They're a part of straight-homophobic culture as much as they are of gay culture. Sure, some gay men find partners in tearooms too, but that doesn't change their origin. As long as our culture makes young people ashamed of same-sex desires, we're all responsible.

So what's so bad about tearooms? Yes, it's pretty disgusting to think of having sex in a restroom. It's also gross to think of coming upon people having sex. And it's not nice--or intimidating--to be solicited when you're not interested. But the whole culture of tearoom sex (read *Tearoom Trade*--it's old but very good) is dedicated to ensuring that non-participants will never notice it. Of course there guys who misjudge. They solicit straight guys (slightly built or not) or have sex in view of a five-year-old. But overall I'd bet it's pretty rare. And even judging per capita, is the conduct of straight men any better?

Policing public restrooms, conducting sting operations is an old and very homophobic police activity. The majority of the commentators here seem to assume that the officer in question was quietly sitting in the cubicle and only acted when Sen. Craig's actions got too overt. But his whole reason for being there was to arrest guys attempting to have sex. He was *trying* to be solicited. I'd bet he was giving a lot of signals of interest. Getting stared at for two minutes sounds bad, but I rather imagine that the cop was not showing disinterest. These sting operations aren't a case of simple patrolling; they're often about entrapment.

So why are tearooms such a big problem? Many of the reasons given here are hypotheticals--the risk children might see sexual activity or that non-participants might be solicited. Do those justify sting operations rather than patrols in response to specific complaints? Don't you suppose homophobia is part of the justification? Clearly it was in the past. Does the existence of the internet really change things so much? As a gay man--one who does not and has never had sex in tearooms--I can assure you that it hasn't.

None of this is meant as a defense of Sen. Craig. He's a homophobic asshole, and his having sex with men doesn't change the fact. I enjoy his being outed in embarrassing circumstances. But I don't think the police should have been in that restroom. And I'm very sad so many people on the left disagree.

Posted August 29, 2007 3:17 PM by Yusifu

The reports that I heard included the information that the congresscreature had his bag placed at the front of the stall in a manner designed to prevent people from looking down under the stall from the front to see if there were e.g. a pair of legs (or two pairs of legs...) in the stall.

The police were doing the sting due to complaints about sex-in-the-men's-room that the people who use the aiport wanted stopped. An airport public latrine is not a private residence or private room, etc.

The congresscreature were he an "ordinary" gay male, could post a personal ad in a paper, come out on Making Light informing the public he were a gay male seeking partners, etc. That's not what he pled guilty to, however. He pled guilty to socially unacceptable criminal behavior....

Early this year my house was broken into, and the copper piping ripped out by the criminals. Now if I had contracted with someone to go into my house and remove the pipes, that would not have been a crime.... they were present in my house without my permission committing acts of destruction--which would not be acts of destruction and would not be illegal, a plumber been replumbing my house under contract from me.

My point there, is that the same actions, in the same place, are legal or not legal depending on the context.

The context of the congresscreature is that he is a right wing screed Republican, hostile to same gender partnership rights, hostile to "liberal" social views, and part of the rightwing theocracy gang pushing state intolerant Kheristianity. He has a public guise of heterosexual socially narrow-minded bigotry and intolerance, and there he was, caught in a sting for stereotypical male-male cruising behavior for anonymous sex, the sort that helped spread HIV all over the USA.

The word "hypocrite" isn't strong enough. He appears to be not only a public, but perhaps also a private liar, unable/unwilling to admit to himself that he is NOT a salt-of-the-earth heterosexual of the sort that he extols as the only "natural" and appropriate lifestyle/personality. I suspect that he may have his view of himself through a massively distorted filter which shows him to himself as he wants the public to see him, with the same-gender sexuality piece of himself compartmentalized off into a corner which shows up in denialable circumstance as "massage the bad data points out of the data set" exceptions, which he can prete