The Airport: Where you may do anything as you please as long as it’s not related to terrorism, apparently.
Seriously, you know what happens in places where people have discreet sex? They leave needles, condoms, and gross stains behind. People hate walking into those stalls, janitors hate cleaning it up, and you gotta disinfect the hell out of it. Then some guy has to hurriedly rush his kid 200 yards to the other airport restroom to find some space without any flesh poundin’.
The second floor men’s bathroom in the Humanities building at UW-Madison got so bad that, for a while, the cops hung out there and posted signs telling people to just go have sex at home.
No. Conversely, do you think the people at the nearest singles bar should head to the airport and all bang each other in the bathroom?
Yet I am not sure what the public really expects a man to do who honestly considers his own secret desires immoral.
Let’s take an example where the public opinion has not (yet) swung around. Let’s say a Senator secretly has the hots for little children. What is he supposed to do when presented with a law against sex with children? Is he supposed to expose his desire or vote against the law because it goes against this sexual desire? If he does not and he supports the law, does that make him a hypocrite?
Seeing as how the senator isn’t accused of banging anyone in any bathrooms, I don’t see how that makes any sense.
Why do you think the senator held his hand out under the wall? So the cop could pass him his hotel key and directions? I would say that whatever he wanted put in his hand, it wasn’t something that could just as easily be slid across the floor.
Or maybe he just wanted an introductory handshake. Yeah, that’s it.
I feel sorry for the guy that he can’t be a man and admit he’s gay, but he went in that bathroom looking to be gay before he left it again. It’s pretty damn obvious. And pretty damn justifiably illegal, gay or straight.
I have no idea how bathroom sex works, but okay, if that’s how the protocols go for that, I’ll concede. I guess that makes me a very naive person to think that hooking up with some guy in a presumably busy airport bathroom doesn’t mean they’re going to drop their shorts right then and there. Maybe that’s what airport hotels are for? I don’t know! This is making me ill. Damn you, Matt!
edit: Ooh, looks like Idaho Values Alliance has an ironic warning, immediately underneath praise for Sen. Craig’s anti-abortion bill.
One of the tragic characteristics of the homosexual lifestyle is its emphasis on anonymous sex and multiple sexual partners. It is a little-acknowledged secret that many active homosexuals will have more than 1,000 sex partners over the course of a lifetime (the average among heterosexuals is seven – still six more than we were designed for). This sordid fact of homosexual life surfaced yesterday in an AP article yesterday that reports on the number of arrests police have made for indecent exposure and public sex acts in the restrooms at Atlanta’s airport, the busiest in the world. The increased restroom patrols, begun to apprehend luggage thieves, instead uncovered a rash of sex crimes. Airport restrooms have become so popular that men looking for anonymous sexual trysts with other men have advertised their airport availability on Craigslist [heh heh]. One such ad was from a man saying he was stuck at the airport for three hours and was looking for “discreet, quick action.”
This is turning out to be way more about bathroom sex then I wanted to know.
Er… not act on them? That seems like an easy one, to me.
Let’s take an example where the public opinion has not (yet) swung around. Let’s say a Senator secretly has the hots for little children. What is he supposed to do when presented with a law against sex with children?
You seem to be implying that it’s a given that he’s going to be caving in to his desire to have sex with children, and the only sticking point is whether he makes himself a hypocrite by passing a law about it. But he could also avoid making himself a hypocrite by just not having sex with children.
I have no idea how bathroom sex works, but okay, I guess that makes sense.
“Nobody who is straight knows or could imagine how bathroom sex works. And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why Senator Craig did so very, very obviously not do anything illegal, nor did he offer to.”
Not do them. Or be honest about them legislatively.
Yes, let us compare normal sexual choices like homosexuality which this wonderful specimen of a man has chosen to demonize as a matter of course in his career with horribly wrong acts like child molestation.
Either way, the ethical choice is the same. If he is a pedophile, he should either be public about it and crusade against pedophilia restrictions (where, likely he’ll be crushed out of office and/or imprisoned), or never act on them, not so much as one illegal picture off the internet. If he pulls a Senator Craig and he had constantly drummed up family values and anti child molestation acts, then he had better expect to crash and burn when outed.
To reiterate: the problem isn’t that Craig is gay. The problem is that he publicly legislates against them in the more homophobic of the two political parties in the US, and then goes and tries to commit an illegal and rather tawdry homosexual act in a goddamned airport bathroom.
Well, it kind of is. See Republican Senator David Vitter, outted for cheating on his wife with a prostitute. What is especially funny is that David replaced someone that was also outed for an adultery scandal… And David had this to say about it, before he personally was caught: ‘I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess’… While his wife said this: ‘I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he [Vitter] does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me’
Vitter is still a senator, and as far as been reported, his wife hasn’t maimed him.
It is for Craig because he’s made it that way. For himself. By crusading against gays as a part of the American War On People’s Personal Lives. Pandering to homophobic people is going to carry a big marginal cost if you choose to engage in secret but ridiculously indiscreet homosexual behavior.
I’m certain a publicly gay senator who represented a community ok with gay rights would merely be embarrassed as Vitter was in such a scenario, vs being run out of town as Craig should be.
I heard if you go to the Iwo Jima memorial in a car by yourself at night and flash your headlights anonymous gay guys will come over and do stuff to you.
I heard! Wait, officer! But I was only in there to get directions on how to get away from there.
Squirt.com? You’re fucking kidding me. Ah, internet, you provide endless fascinating grossness.
Also, bathroom stalls? Gross. Men’s bathroom? Double gross. I’ve only had sex in one bar bathroom, and it was the women’s, for cleanliness.
I’m all for Craig being exposed as a hypocrite. And I think Romney’s quick comments condemning Craig and trying to make political hay from this are incredibly disgusting.
But I do feel uncomfortable about the arrest. Do we really feel like it’s right to arrest someone for tapping their foot, even if it is a known (by some) sign that you’d like some man-action? Especially when I read that the cops go out of their way their to push it, to the point of putting their feet in another person’s stall to get a reaction.
Just from a legal and rights point of view, I’d think you’d need something more substantial than “he tapped his foot and I tapped my foot and his foot slid into my stall” as the basis for a conviction of any kind, unless you made foot tapping illegal. After all, as someone said, what if the intent of the person is to identity a willing partner and then tell them “not here in public, let’s go to my airport hotel room.” It may be unlikely but there should be some burden of proof.
Craig got his outing as he deserved, cool, but the overall arrest scheme they have going seems to be at least barely crossing a line of no proof.
On that note, let me introduce you to my Representative, Barney Frank, who has been openly gay since the '80s. He had a little scandal back in 1990 with a male prostitute. The House overwhelmingly voted to reprimand him. The district overwhelmingly re-elected him, by increasing margins every year.
Being gay is totally fine. Being a closeted gay is fine, too. Being a hatemongering hypocrite is not ok.
“Take a man stance and re-elect Craig this November”
The arrest report makes it pretty clear that Craig both initiated the contact, and that it went beyond toe-tapping.
That aside, though, if he wasn’t guilty of soliciting sex, he was free to avail himself of the justice system in place to clear his good name. Instead, he plead guilty, AND tried to intimidate the arresting officer by presenting his Senate business card. It’s hard to have much sympathy for him at this point.
Random aside: I have a friend who is a TV reporter, every couple of years they do a “package” where they go to a cruising site like squirt and find a few local hot spots and stake them out. They tape guys going in and out of the hot spots and try to do some “confrontational” interviews. Sort of Chris Hansen lite. Its a fine bit of useless sensationalism pretending to be hard news. It always gets great ratings. The best part (from a local news perspective) is that every affiliate in every city can do this exact same piece and still call it “local”.
I suspect you’ll see this “package” being opened again soon in the wake of Sen Craig’s capture.
I expect him to not run for Congress.