Now that the jokes and catcalls and cries for his resignation have calmed down a bit (although, as an Irving fan, I am upset that no one has pointed out how much Craig looks like John Lithgow’s Roberta Muldoon in the film version of Garp), it is pretty clear that there is an emerging consensus on Larry Craig coalescing across the blogosphere, namely that what Craig has been charged with amounts to not much. Captain Ed:
What Craig did was monumentally stupid and deservedly should shut down his career in the Senate, but all it comprised (in itself) was an offer of consensual sex, and there is nothing inherently illegal in an offer of consensual sex. Anyone signaled in such a manner could just as well tell the signaller to get lost, just as they could in a bar or nightclub. No one was harmed, and no crime was committed, even though many view the behavior as distasteful and out of place. As long as no sexual act takes place in the public area, I’d say no crime takes place. That’s why I think David Vitter should be seen as at least as culpable as Craig, and possibly more so.
The Editors at Slate:
Jacob Weisberg: Shouldn’t we stick up for the poor guy? I can’t believe it’s a crime to tap your foot on the bathroom to signal that you want to hook up, as opposed to actually having sex in the bathroom.
By the way, isn’t this what they got the LBJ aide Walter Jenkins on? Though I think it was in flagrante in that case.
***David Plotz: Having just read the arrest report, I am unimpressed. Craig didn’t disturb anyone, made very subtle signs and only touched the guy in response to a positive signal from the cop. If they want to stop disturbing and disorderly conduct, they need to find more disorder than this.
I understand why they want to stop a bathroom from becoming a den of blowjobs, but this seems pathetic. Also—there is little deterrent effect in doing this generally. It is an airport, so by definition it caters to people in transit, who aren’t going to know that it has become a police target.
Look, I wouldn’t want to bring my 4-year-old son into the airport bathroom and stumble across two people having sex, gay or straight. It’s tough enough getting in and out of the john without him touching every dirty surface or contributing to the mess with an errant aim. But sex didn’t happen here. Even the propositioning is murky at best. And short of a proposition involving sex for money, what is illegal about inquiring about sex? Tactless, maybe. But criminal?
And so on and so on. If this many different sources from different political persuasions can all agree on this, it is hard to think that anything other than Josh Marshall’s assessment is true (Again with the Catch-22 references):
Given what’s described, it seems quite possible that, with a good lawyer, Craig could have beaten the rap.
But had he tried, it would have become public and it would have been pretty clear — clear enough to doom him politically — that Craig is gay and that he gets sex in public restrooms. (If someone put their shoe under a bathroom divider and rubbed it against your shoe, you’d get the message I think.) Remember, there’d already been lots of unconfirmed reports in the past. Because of that, Craig couldn’t fight the charge even though he might well have been acquitted. But once he pled guilty, it really wasn’t a he said/he said, as his press spokesman said yesterday. Craig had said under oath that he was guilty of the charge.
One way or another, once he was arrested, the apparent facts, even if you think they aren’t ones for which you should be criminally culpable, were ones that were not compatible with his continuing in public office — given his politics and the state he represents. All he could do was plead out and hope against hope that no one ever noticed.
This is not to belittle the apparently widespread problem of bathroom cruising in certain locations, nor is it to excuse Craig for what may be the worst press conference in history (in which he basically said ‘I am not gay, I am stupid, and it is just a coincidence that after years of rumors about me cruising for sex in bathrooms I just so happened to get caught doing just that- what a coincidence! I blame the Idaho Statesman!’), but it sure does seem to me, at least, that Craig really did very little to nothing wrong.
And again, I am as guilty as everyone else for having fun at the Senator’s expense (and couldn’t even control myself in the beginning of this post), but despite Craig’s voting record, I can’t help but feel sad for him and his family. Going through life where you have to fulfill your deepest urges in quick, anonymous, and meaningless sex acts in public bathrooms so you can hide who you really are from everyone you love is not something I would want anyone to have to go through. I wish Craig’s voting record and political positions were such that he was not helping to damn other people to the same sort of fate.
*** Update ***
Apparently the calls to resign are not tapering off, but increasing.
KCinDC
I’m no expert on the code, but according to the cop and the context, it wasn’t just an offer of consensual sex. It was an offer of consensual sex in a public restroom. Where else was the sex going to take place?
Can’t they find out through the same grapevine where they heard it was a cruising spot in the first place?
Gus
Yeah, any feeling of pity I might have for the guy is mitigated by his hypocrisy. I really don’t think what he did in that bathroom is any big deal from a legal or moral perspective. It’s the vote for the anti-gay marriage amendment that I find appalling.
chopper
exactly. it isn’t just consensual sex, its sex in a public place. its like prostitution; you add the exchange of money and it becomes more than just consensual sex. that extra detail makes all the difference.
Richard Bottoms
Sympathy. Hmmmm.
Nope, fuck him.
Snarky Shark
Wishing does not make it so. These hypocrites enable dark-age type repression on a fairly consistent basis, and serve as anchors to any attempt to exist on a higher plain.
It’s time to take the moral scolds to task.
The only intolerance we should have is toward intolerance.
Punchy
I say we make a reality show where Mark Foley, Craig, and Haggard all have to live in the same house in downtown San Fransico, and are required to date only women. The one who can last the longest without wide-stancing in Pac-Bell Park wins.
b-psycho
I don’t even wanna think about what kind of disease he’s exposed himself to trolling those bathrooms.
Instead, I’d rather play tag. It’s safer.
Wilfred
That’s the ‘crime’ here. He’s a fucking hypocrite and as such should be held up to public ridicule, the traditional way to discourage hypocrisy in a public official. One problem we have is that we have to accept hypocrisy as if it were just some sort of internal contradiction that we all suffer from instead of the ethical failure it actually is. That’s how we wind up with Bush, Rove, Cheney, etc.
Jake
First of all, assuming he isn’t just a pervert, he doesn’t have to do anything of the damn sort. In that regard Craig would be like some caucasian dude who said he really loved an african-american woman but because of what people might say, he couldn’t be seen with her in public. Strange that you suggest that as a gay man, Craig hides his inner-most self from “everyone he loves.” So, he loves everyone except gay men. But he’ll fuck ’em in a toilet.
However, if Craig were just some schmuck saying “We can’t be seen together,” that alone would be a sign that he really wasn’t in love, but Widestance didn’t stop there. He tried to insist that other people continue to live in the shadows, afraid of losing their jobs, worried that if they died a life partner wouldn’t get shit because their family could easily contest a will, all so he could hang on to a powerful position.
He’s a hateful person and he is getting exactly what he deserves: A hysterical response from his former allies because he might have queer cooties.
Did he do anything “wrong”? According to his pals on the Republican Vice Brigade he certainly did. Gay, straight or bi, Craig helped forge the rules, he can take the damn punishment.
maf54
Can we have some boys from the Castro over for pizza parties, at least?
cleek
don’t forget Bob Allen (FL public bathroom)!
myiq2xu
Listen, I try for hygiene reasons to avoid using public restrooms anyway, but when circumstances require me to do my business in one, the last thing I want while I’m sitting there with my pants down grunting out a turdblossom is the guy in the next stall playing footsie with me.
I damn sure don’t want to have to turn oround and start puking in the same toilet, which I would be doing if I heard some guy slobbing another guy’s knob next door.
If that happened while I was escorting one of my grandsons to the potty, I’d be telling him “Wait outside with Grandma, Grampa is gonna be bashing gays.
Steve
The “emerging consensus” is wrong.
The clearer crime here is the one Craig plea-bargained his way out of, the act of peeping into a private restroom stall to see if the person inside might be interested in something.
The subsequent toe-tapping and such is evidence that Craig had the requisite intent when he peeped into the stall and wasn’t, for example, simply glancing through the crack to see if the stall was occupied.
I agree that if there hadn’t been any peeping, a charge based solely on the signaling from one stall to the next might have been kind of flimsy, since there’s no evidence Craig contemplated an actual sex act right there in the public restroom (although he surely did).
But it’s not at all uncommon, in a plea bargain, that they agree to dismiss the crime you actually committed in favor of a lesser offense where the evidence might not be as solid.
I’m not saying it was the worst crime in the world, but I kind of appreciate it if when I use a public restroom, I don’t have people peeping through the cracks to see if I might be interested in something or if I’m just an ordinary restroom patron. So I hardly see it as a ridiculous law.
Justin
Listen, I try for hygiene reasons to avoid using public restrooms anyway, but when circumstances require me to do my business in one, the last thing I want while I’m sitting there with my pants down grunting out a turdblossom is the guy in the next stall playing footsie with me.
Exactly.
Zifnab
He who liveth by the gay hypocritical bathroom sex, shalt die by it.
I mean, I’m in general agreement that trying to hook up with someone, gay or straight, is perfectly fine. Likewise, having sex in a public bathroom is not fine. (I mean, if you think that’s creepy, I found a few condoms in my college dorm elevator – that’s disturbing in its daringness and in its brevity all at once).
What has always been wrong with the Craig story is his political stance. If this was Barney Frank caught in a public restroom trying to pick up a blowjob dude, the story would be rather sad and pathetic. But its not Barney Frank, because Barney Frank never went to Congress on the platform of villifying homosexuality across the nation.
How anyone can feel sorry for a man who spent his career trying to wreck the lives of outed gay people while he dabbles in it himself is totally beyond me. It’s like feeling sorry for the Mafia Don who gets a gangland execution or the serial rapest who gets thrown in an unpleasantly tough prison system.
Do I feel strongly against rape and murder? Yes. Do I extend my pity to repeat offenders who get turn-about, fairly played? Not really.
John
Add me to the “it’s not the (attempt to have) sex, it’s the hypocrisy” club. Mr. Craig has been a vocal critic of homosexuality, and his own website featured an article speaking out against gays cruising for sex in public places such as… airport restrooms.
I’m a Liberal Democrat and I absolutely agree with the bloggers you quoted – what Mr. Craig did in that airport restroom isn’t, in itself, that big a deal. But this isn’t about Mr. Craig being gay, or about where he tries to get his kicks. It’s about yet another holier-than-thou-family-values-sanctity-of-marriage guy being exposed as a complete fraud. For years he’s been happy to tell me how I should live my life, yet he’s unwilling to live his own life by the rules he imposes on me.
That should piss you off regardless of the (D) or (R) after your name.
srv
Ted is still in his multi-pastor guided restoration process. But he did ask for money for a friend in Phoenix (who just happens to be a registered sex offender).
Cyrus
Unfortunately, and disturbingly, you neglect the possibility that they won’t leave the house.
Paul L.
[Channeling Jessica Valenti and the other ladies of Feministing or Amanda Marcotte and the other ladies of Pandagon]
Someone used the the great injustice against a poor black woman who was sexually assaulted by a few white boy to defend Larry Craig.
The evil rich white men who assaulted Saint Crystal and their hired gun lawyers brought up no DNA evidence linking the
accused Lacrosse playersrapists, ever-changing stories from the accuser that seemed to address flaws in her testimony reported in the media and used falsified eyewitness and video evidence of the accused being nowhere near the scene of the crime when the rape occurred.These are the only facts important to the case:
A) Women never lie about rape!!!!!!!!1!!
B) A lacrosse player (not one of the accused) wrote a email about killing strippers.
C) A racial slur came from a lacrosse player (not one of the accused).
It does not matter that the player was responding to the second dancer for her innocent retort of “little [expletive] white boy”.
D) No one knows what really happened.
The hired gun lawyers swiftboated, demonized and persecuted Mike Nifong (who “fumbled the ball.” and “was too eager to get a speedy case and make a name for himself.”) Disbarring him with lies about his statements to the media and so called the withheld “DNA evidence”!
After that the
accused Lacrosse playersrapists who were not proven innocent in a court of law sent the hired gun lawyers to shakedown Duke University for 10 million. Now they attempting to shakedown the City of Durham.They stole from a progressive university which was guaranteeing the academic freedom for the group of 88 and are now attempting to steal from a progressive community using frivolous lawsuits.
Pb
I think this is a good point, but I’d like to know how far it goes. For instance, what if the scenario is a bit different… you still have two adults, but in this case, they’re chatting online from remote locations, and one of the adults is actually a law enforcement officer posing as a teenager:
What’s the crime there? You have two adults, chatting on the internet. No sexual acts take place. And unlike the first scenario, they aren’t necessarily anywhere near each other. I’d submit that if you think that, in this latter example, there was a crime, then it might require some revising of the reasoning in the former example.
The Other Steve
i’ve chanced my mind. K Lo was right. We should do profiling.
I’m going to advice the Minneapolis police to follow Republican Congressmen into bathrooms, to make sure they aren’t going in for gay sex.
This will be a great concern next year with the convention in town.
gex
Yeah. Poor Craig. We should all be good Christians and feel and behave sympathetically towards him, just like he has felt and behaved sympathetically towards gays all these years.
Oh wait.
The Other Steve
Leave it to Paul L. to claim Craig is innocent, even after he plead guilty.
Jake
Foley would, all those other guys are too old.
I’d add Glenn Murphy to the mix. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/LOCAL/708270410
(damn link thingy)
He could talk about how much it hurts his feelings that his house mates lock their bedroom doors at night.
Jinchi
That logic doesn’t make any sense to me. Confessing is proof that Craig is gay and that he gets sex in public restrooms. Defending himself against the accusation isn’t.
rachel
And you manage to say that without shovelling in all that irrelevant Nifong/Duke Lacrosse Team garbage.
AnonE.Mouse
I didn’t know the RNC was in Minneapolis next year.That would explain alot-Craig was part of the advance team.
TR
Was Sen. Vitter there as well, to check out the female professional talent? Probably not necessary, as it seems most Family Values Republicans swing the other way.
Sstarr
It’s nice to see that conservative bloggers have finally come around to my opinion about Bill Clinton’s activities before and during his time in office!
Krista
Exactly. My pity is reserved for the people who feel like they have to hide who they really are BECAUSE of the attitudes and political positions of people like Craig.
David
So the story is “accurate, but fake”.
Yeah, he copped to the event; but since it wasn’t REALLY a crime, why should we care?
F
I’m glad to see John has this wonderful depth of empathy, I’m just disappointed that it is seems to be limited to white men.
I have absolutely no sympathy for Senator Craig, whatever his hang-ups are on his personnel life, when he decided to use his professional position to deny others the ability to live their life they wanted to he lost any hope of sympathy from me.
John, save a little of empathy for people who deserve it, people who did not choose the public life but had it thrust upon them in a horrible fashion (Cindy Sheenan, Rutgers Women Basketball team), but I know thats a difficult thing for you to do seeing as they aren’t white men.
F
Doubting Thomas
Would Capt. Ed and the editors at Slate be saying the same thing if it was Barney Frank? Hell, no!
And bravo to PB for this:
Amen! Dateline’s expose’s are all based on conversations between two consenting adults on-line where one of the adults is impersonating a minor. No sex ever occurs, but do you think Capt. Ed would be posting “hey wait a minute, no crime was committed here”? No, he’d be saying that the intent was to have sex with a minor. Larry Craig’s intent was to have sex in a public place. No difference as far as I can see.
Dave
I’ve tried to feel sorry for him, but really his actions in the Senate have directly contributed to him having to cruise bathrooms for sex.
Being that his career is over, if he wanted to do something positive, he’d come out, write a book about his experiences and maybe help some others in his position realize that being gay isn’t a big deal.
louisms
Don’t feel sorry for Craig because he has to cruise public bathrooms for sex. That’s the kind of sex life he apparently likes. Given his voting record, he’s obviously an old-school gay, happy to live in a world where his orientation is a shameful thing, where the exercise of those shameful urges is relegated to dark corners and smelly toilet stalls.
I agree that what he was pled guilty to wasn’t much of a crime. But, given that he himself has demonized gays for so long, the destruction of his political career seems appropriate punishment, not for the “crime”, but for his inexcusable hypocrisy. I’m not generally a supporter of outing, but I do think every gay and bi pol why builds his career on gay-bashing ought to be exposed.
Halffasthero
The Senator signed a guilty plea which by Minnesota law, they will not allow to be signed if he believed himself to be innocent. It is written, plain as day, into the very plea that he signed according to the Star/Trib. He cannot claim he did not know what he was signing. Any attempt to clear himself would be made even more futile given his occupation. Joe or Jane Off-the-street can claim ignorance and be judged by a reasonable standard but he cannot. His very job function is to review bills and vote them into law. He would be judged by a professional standard.
Bottom line, he can claim what he likes but he can’t clear himself. He can certainly try, but the verdict will be inevitable.
myiq2xu
Larry Craig is not gay.
But his penis is.
ThymeZone
Oh gosh, after all this, it might turn out that the whole idea of the Sex Police is just a goofy, anti-libertarian, useless idea concocted by scolds and control freaks?
Gosh, whoda thunk it. And whoda thunk that this simple libertarian notion, which to me is basic to liberty itself, would be claimed as a prize by the Punditoblogsphere?
Why the FUCK haven’t these laws, and the nonsensical ideas behind them, and the phony “values” arguments that go with them, been thrown out and rejected by sensible people everywhere, a long time ago? Are we still living in the fucking 19th century here?
Leave Craig alone, for crissakes. Leave us all alone. Craig should go, not because he tapped his foot for a gay sexual encounter, but because he thinks its okay to be a US Senator and try to tell the rest of us how to live our sex lives. Get rid of all these clowns.
myiq2xu
Fixed
myiq2xu
Craig shoulda got a lawyer cuz if he could have beat it himself he never would have been in this mess in the first place.
Tractarian
Wow, F, could you possibly have chosen two worse examples of people who “had public life thrust upon them”? Sheehan and the Rutgers players were victims of unfortunate events (I would argue that losing a son is far worse than being insulted by a senile old shock-jock), but both chose – yes, chose – to enter the public sphere with their outrage. (I know that was way OT but I couldn’t let it slide.)
That said, what most disturbs me about the Craig affair is that a sitting Senator feels he can get in front of a microphone and spew the most obvious, blatant lies. Does anyone – I mean anyone, even from the depths of Right Blogostan – really believe this guy? I mean, at least when Clinton lied he had a semantic argument to make. Craig pled guilty. And if you’ve ever given or heard a plea colloquy, you know that the law requires the pleader to swear under oath to numerous things – including that they are satisfied with their legal representation.
The only sympathy I have here is for the people of Idaho, including Craig’s family. They thought they were getting a reliable Bible-thumping conservative, and instead they got a complete slimeball, and a perjurer to boot.
Halffasthero
I think that is how you meant to word it. Not saying I agree or disagree but this is your point, correct?
Jake
Because senseless bastards keep re-electing schmucks like Craig.
gex
So how many of these people give a hoot about all the other men who have been arrested in that bathroom for their wide stances, but aren’t connected enough to get the blogosphere defending them for their “non-crime”?
Keep in mind that this cop didn’t know that Craig was a Senator when this happened. This is the same standard that every other guy is being held to.
KCinDC
Maybe he figured people wouldn’t notice, since Our Leader can get in front of a microphone and spew things as ridiculous as
myiq2xu
Perhaps Larry the Lecher isn’t gay, he just has a shoe/foot fetish.
What kind of shoes was the officer wearing? Spike heel stiletto pumps?
How big were the officer’s feet? Maybe Creepy Craig has been praying to God to help him resist teh gay butt was overcum by lust when he saw a pair of size 14’s in the stall next to him.
myiq2xu
Is Larry from Butte County, Idaho? I hear there’s a local sports team called the Pirates.
The Butte Pirates.
Jake
You know what they say: Big shoes…big feet! [/Peewee Herman]
Helena Montana
I think one of his biggest problems is that there is a huge ick factor here. Imagine being in the bathroom, minding your own business, so to speak, and having some creep peeping at you through the crack between the stalls–then waggling his fingers at you under the partition and playing footsie with you. Ick! Ick! Ick!
Tractarian
By the way, John,
is technically wrong. There is no longer any “charge”. There is a conviction.
Also, I think you need to take a closer look at what Craig did, before you say he did “little to nothing wrong”. It may at first seem unconscionable to arrest someone for merely tapping their foot, but it must be taken in context.
To make an analogy, if I were to walk up to a person on the street and give them a $20 bill, that normally wouldn’t be a crime. But if I happened to be in Washington Square Park and the person on the street was wearing dreadlocks, what I did might very well be a crime. It would depend on all the evidence.
Obviously Craig wasn’t confident that the evidence would exonerate him, otherwise he wouldn’t have entered the plea.
If you want to argue that sex in public bathrooms should be legalized (and therefore soliciting such sex would not be a crime), then that’s another issue. But I don’t hear anyone making that argument.
Punchy
Is that how our justice system works? Guilty until proven innocent, eh? I had NO idea!
RandyH
John-
I do feel sorry for his family and his staff because they are the real victims here… having to deal with the fallout of a closet-case bathroom-sex addict who is totally in denial and realizing that they are all a part of his web of lies. I do not really feel so sorry for Larry Craig though. Unfortunately he has painted himself into a corner and he’s trapped there, but it was his own doing. He needs to get some help or he may become a danger to himself or others. Who knows what he’ll do if this doesn’t blow over – and given that he’s from Idaho, it won’t. If he can get that help and learn to accept himself for who and what he really is, then I might feel some sympathy for what he’s been through.
But I’m impressed with the learning I’ve witnessed in you and other straight guys this week. I was surprised at how little some people actually knew about the plight of the closeted gay male and how harmful it is when society insists that they be that way. Now maybe when they’re confronted with an obviously queer child, they might understand the importance of just letting them develop into what they are meant to be and not shame them into repressing their feelings and ultimately becoming something like Larry Craig when they grow up. So maybe some good will come of this.
Wayne Besen is a gay blogger and his column today about this whole situation is very good. I encourage all to read it. I couldn’t say it any better myself.
ThymeZone
No, I meant that the assholes have no business telling anyone how to live their lives, and I don’t care what his sex life is about, or what his preferences are, or what he thinks his “values” are. Leave us alone, period.
If he wants to spend all his days in mens’ rooms having consensual sex with other men, good for him, I really don’t give a crap one way or the other. If he wants to be celibate, good for him. Just LEAVE US ALONE.
myiq2xu
Uh, wasn’t the “microphone” supposed to do the spewing?
Shouldn’t that be “spitting” Senator?
Mark
you’re going to wish you had patented that idea.
Punchy
Oh boy….this thread will NOT end well…
ThymeZone
WideTrack(r) has always been a winner.
Mark
how on earth can you have a “wide stance” with your pants around your ankles? what’s his waist size, 65?
myiq2xu
Why do all y’all back east want to keep sending your butt-loving brethren out here to Big Smoggy?
We got enough problems with corrupt GOP (Pombo, Doolittle, Cunningham) and lunatics like Melanie Morgan.
F
Tractarian thanks for the update, everyone from now on if you are attacked, slandered or in anyway insulted publicly, do not express your “outrage” publicly, please do it privately. And I guess its too bad about those women and their “unfortunate events” huh. I mean its not like they were students or housewives, they must have been hypocritical politicians or religious leaders deserving of the insults and slander.
Just so we’re clear, these women didn’t choose to go public out of some political or religious reason, they defended themselves when they were attacked. And I truly believe all of these women would trade their notoriety for the relative anonymity of preparing for the next basketball season and the return of a son safely home.
And as far as my point regarding John’s statement of sympathy; Senator Craig is a member of a party that attacks minorities (gays, women, african americans, latinos) repeatedly for political gain and when caught doing something he considers morally wrong we should have sympathy for him. I think not.
F
PK
No he cannot have sex in men’s room all day long! That is not what the damned place is for! Common sense should tell most people how to behave in public places. But laws have to be made for the dumb schmucks, who without these so called intrusive laws would say “Gee I can get a blow job in a public rest room, its not against the law”.
Some assholes have to be told how to live their lives!
tde
So if he didn’t actually do anything illegal, I guess you believe that the cop should have waited until he had his cock in Craig’s mouth before arresting him?
Brachiator
Uh, no. It’s not just that Craig was charged with a crime. It is that he entered a guilty plea and now seeks to magically undo his own actions and the subsequent consequences. But no matter how you slice it, he has been hoist by his own petard. If he wasn’t stuck in the closet, he could easily pursue an open, intimate and private relationship with another gay man. But since he insists on riding the hypocrisy express, his only outlet leaves him open to getting popped by the cops.
But even here, I am slightly more tolerant of people having sex in the bathrooms of bars and clubs, where there is already a sexually charged atmosphere. But just as we allow prostitution arrests of street hookers because open sexual solicitation is obnoxious and often disruptive behavior when done in a public place, I don’t have a problem with the kind of police sting that caught Craig in its noose. Also, it seems pretty clear that Craig was not just attempting a hook-up that would lead to him and another man going to a hotel room to have a tryst. Based on the officer’s past experience, and previous complaints, it is clear that people were completing sex acts in the restroom.
If people truly feel that this was no big deal, then shouldn’t all laws prohibiting public sex acts between consenting adults be repealed? Just as some women (far more reasonably and non-sexually) have sued successfully to be able to pull out their breasts to feed their infants in a restaurant, shouldn’t couples be free to take off their clothes and get busy wherever the mood strikes them?
And Craig is doubly damned since his voting record and past statements demonstrate that he is perfectly fine with the idea that other gay men be prosecuted for the very activities that he is seeking a pass for.
Oh yeah, and if what Craig copped to does not amount to much, why is he spending more time protesting that he is not really gay, instead of sponsoring legislation to repeal or modify solicitation laws?
Dave in ME
Wait, sympathy for this closeted moron? He has been “accidentally” falling onto penises with his mouth for over 20 years and when he gets caught about the have another “accident” we should feel bad for him?
Hmmmmm.
No.
LITBMueller
Right…so, when a pedophile chats with a 13 yr. old on the ‘Net, and they agree to meet up to watch a movie and play with the man’s penis…that’s just consexual sex. Or how about when a John inquires from a hooker how much a BJ will cost him, yet there was no sex? No harm, no foul? Just a consensual business deal?
The inherently illegal part is trying to get sex in a public restroom! Its open to the public, and people should not be exposed to this kind of shit there.
If Sen. Widestance saw a cute guy in the bathroom, and wanted to just pick him up for some consensual sex at the Minneapolis Hyatt, then he would have just waited until the guy was washing his hands, gone up to him, and said, “Hey, nice ass…” or something. Not invaded a person’s privacy by peeking through a crack in the stalls, and all the other “blow me in my stall” signals.
Or they could have beat the living shit out of the Sen. for a unwanted sexual advance and invasion of privacy! That’s why such behavior is (a) not tolerated in a public restroom and (b) is illegal. Its not just about the act, but the actions of others that may result from the just the act. If Captain Ed would have said to the Sen. in such a situation, “Um, no thank you, sir,” then he’s a better man than me…
Again: no. getting picked up is common in a bar (and often expected, but probably at the actual bar, not while taking a dump). This was a public restroom! The majority of people don’t want to be disturbed while dropping a dookie with requests for blow jobs. Hence…the law!
Maybe this time. But, if the Sen. had gotten his face mangled by a pissed off traveler, then what?
Unless you’re the Clenis.
Dave
Remember when the GOP used to believe in sensible ideals like that? Ahh…them was the days.
ThymeZone
Cannot agree. First, six decades of being around men’s room has left me ….. without a single sighting of a single sex act or solicitation. From coast to coast, in every setting you can imagine, never seen it. How big a fucking problem is this that an undercover cop has nothing better to do that sit in the crapper waiting for someone to tap his foot? WE PAY POLICE TO DO THIS SHIT? WHY?
Second, public nudity is something that we probably need a law against. Seems to be that nudity handles this situation. There is no need to expland the law’s grasp not just to the penis, but to what we DO with the penis once we grab it. If I pull it out and pee, law not broken. But if he pulls it out and then he takes it, law broken? Why? Where’s the line here? Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question, aimed at exposing the real danger to society, namely, the goddammed Sex Police and their stupid moralizing. I count them as more dangerous than two guys getting it on in a stall.
Let me put it this way: I’ve never seen two guys getting it on in a stall, but I sure as hell have see the useless Sex Police doing their stupid schtick at my expense. Is there a problem? Yeah, get rid of the Sex Police, and leave us alone.
Punchy
I’m loving all the lingo that’s come of this:
“Me and my buddy were in this bar, and this Foot-Tapper pulled the most blantant and uncomfortable Craig on my friend. Up at the bar, this F.T. wide-stanced him, and before my friend realized the mack job, Mr. Tap was one minute into the stall maneuver, staring at him thru a thin opening between club patrons. Luckily my friend was able to slide past him without a shoe-shuffle-samba and copped some lame excuse about liking vaginas”
Tsulagi
I’m all for Senator WideStance staying in (on?) his Senate seat. Hell, even donate metal taps for his loafers in case some of the objects of his affection are hard of hearing. Senators like Tubes Stevens can’t hear shit. Plus more importantly, think of the comedy value as he’s up for reelection next year.
Speaking of comedy value, RedState did not disappoint. They were all over WideStance. This RS poster tried to use a little Brokeback Bathroom humor even involving MC Mitt, but you can probably guess how well that was received in their stalls.
Another post was far more typical; Craig must go! You would think it might be because WideStance had violated OPSEC enabling their secret tapping code to be publicized, but no, Craig has to go before people start thinking family values Republicans in the base are a joke and hypocrites.
Start? Start?! Notice to brilliant RedStaters and rest of The Base: You boarded a massive short bus leaving the station long ago. In case you haven’t looked out the windows during the ride, along the way you had one of your congressmen holding up a vote on defense appropriations so he could IM teenage boys. With Austin Powers-esque IMs like “Do I make you a little horny?”
And possibly you didn’t feel the jump to lightspeed when one of your family values holy men who talked to Bush weekly really stepped up to the plate. Clinton has his “I did not have sex with that woman,” but I’m thinking it’ll be awhile before someone tops Haggard’s twofer: “No, I did not snort that meth I bought, nor was my ass banged by the gay top I paid for.” That’s a classic, RedStaters. While it would seem impossible, I know you’re good for more. Enjoy the ride.
Steve
After six decades, one would think you’d try a laxative.
myiq2xu
Because some unsuspecting breeder went into the airport men’s room to take a dump and had to vomit instead when he discovered 2 pair of feet in the next stall and heard the sounds of gay lovers cumming and going.
Or some kid came out of the bathroom and asked his mommy why 2 men were using the same stall.
Bruce Moomaw
The problem, with both Craig AND Vitter, is their damnable hypocrisy. Had they not based their entire political careers on bashing harmless gays just for being gays (aas well as calling down the torments of Hell on nonmarital sex in general), I’d say live and let live with Craig, and even Vitter’s hooker habit would at least look slightly less revolting. (Notice how relatively little complaint the GOP has about HIM, by the way?) But of course they didn’t — they have been enthusiastic collaborators in the vicious persecution of a bunch of totally harmless people — and now they’ve been hoist by their own petards. Too bad.
This, by the way, is why I remain enthusiastically in favor of outing any legislator who votes for any legislation discriminating against homosexuals — a point on which I got into quite a nasty fight last year with kevin Drum and mark Kleiman, both of which seem to have a curious belief in unilateral political disarmament on this one issue. If what they’re advocating and help further is applied to other people, it should be applied to them. (The same reasoning would have applied to any black who somehow managed to pass as a white and worked to support white-racist legislation in the days of the Old South.)
Face
I disagree. I have no problems with naked men or women, if that’s their schtick. And don’t even get me started “it hurts the kids!” crap. Kids know and see more at an early age than any parent could dream. Good parenting always trumps more laws in my book.
AkaDad
I just want to make it clear, that in no way do I have a guilty conscience when I say, I’m not gay and I love my wife. I swear.
Dave
Because the puritans of the country demand it.
Andrew
You’re dead wrong. Down here in the south, people sweat. A lot. And the last thing you want to do is to sit down in a puddle of naked ass sweat that they left on a bench or bus seat.
PK
Thyme Zone,
You wrote that you had no problems if he had consensual sex all day long in public rest rooms.
Well most people will object to it.
You have not see a sex act in a public rest room.
Neither have I for that matter. I have no way of knowing how often it happens. I have not personally seen or experienced (thankfully) many types of criminal activities. But I have no doubt that they occur.
In this case the cops seem to be justified in staking out the bathroom, as they caught a US senator no less looking to have a good time in a stall. Craig pled guilty and despite what he says now. I have no doubt he was planning on having sex in the bathroom.
I don’t care if he is a hypocrite or gay or whatever! This is the kind of Dumbass the laws are made for!
Sure we can get rid of these laws, if enough people can just agree that it is O.K. to have sex all day long in public toilets.
Tom
“Or they could have beat the living shit out of the Sen. for a unwanted sexual advance and invasion of privacy!”
Hmm. If women treated the breedtards this way, would there be any straight guys left alive?
Punchy
Nah. Would never happen. Lies….
Jake
I do, but my objections are aesthetic.
Tim
I can just imagine the amount of overtime the city of Minneapolis will be paying for its vice squad when the Repugs are in town for their convention next summer.
Zifnab
Yeah, except since its Tucker Carlson telling this story, he probably just said something vulgar under his breath and then apologized for it while covering his face.
TC is a giant blowhard, and I’m sure he’s had this homo-erotic fantasy of beating a gay man often enough. But I don’t think anyone should take it more seriously than its worth.
The fact that he’s talking about it on air suggests, to me at least, that it never happened. Otherwise, he’d be in deep shit if his victim actually tried to step forward.
Jake
WARNING – Disconnect your Irony-o-meters:
From the Idaho Values Alliance letter that calls on Craig to step down:
Christ on a wooden round-about, the IVA is spoof-proof.
Dreggas
First as to the Original Topic:
Nope he can find my sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphillis.
As to public nudity:
nudity laws are, and always will be part of the puritanical prudishness of this country. No wonder kids grow up ashamed of their bodies and become adults even more ashamed, stupidity like that makes them feel ashamed. I understand a parents desire to protect their child but protecting them from what really is nature is doing them far more harm than good. I know it probably sounds creepy or something but one of our biggest hangups in this country are our bodies.
myiq2xu
How many were trying to hook-up with Lavatory Larry?
jenniebee
Don’t they get whiplash from doing those massive 180’s so fast?
My dad was a National Park Ranger for thirty years, most of that time in law enforcement. He was the “bait” for a lot of stakeouts just like these. I can tell you from having listened to him talk about his job that, as great as it might sound to spend your work time hanging out in public places where closeted gay men go to find sex (actually, it meant that Dad spent one memorable summer reading novels on the beach and getting paid to do it… sweet!) this is not a duty that cops jump at the chance to do. This sort of stakeout doesn’t generally get set up until reports come in that a spot is becoming popular. And yes, the arrest comes prior to actual sucking or boffing or what have you. This is not an illegal gun deal, where Sippowitz can’t make the collar until he sees money change hands. We don’t tell cops that, to make the bust, they have to have at least unzipped, and it would be best if they catch the perp with lube.
So for the ‘he only asked for sex, he didn’t actually have it’ angle that Captain Ed is going for here, I have to wonder at what point in the progression of proposition through consummation Ed thinks the line should be drawn. Should the cop have put his package in Craig’s hand and waited to see if Craig said “ewww?”
myiq2xu
Fixed
Halffasthero
I cannot answer to where you have been “coast to coast” but the Airport police were there – according to their report – because of complaints by travellers. The airport is their jurisdiction. In any case, Minneapolis has a high population of gay people – 2nd in percentage only to San Francisco I am told. People here (including the police) are, therefore, generally unfazed about gay people as a result. They were very likely not on any witch hunt but simply addressing an issue that (they say) was getting out of control.
TR
If Craig does run for re-election, maybe his opponents can redo the Harold Ford ad from the last campaign. Instead of a blonde bimbo saying “Call me!” at the end, it could be a burly dude in a men’s room stall.
myiq2xu
I quit being shocked after the 3rd or 4th COPS episode with cross-dressing truckers.
Captain Magic
seems to me that just about everyone has missed the fact that when Craig says he’s not gay that he means it-now the fact that he doesn’t come out and admit that he’s BI, on the other hand….
Punchy
How is this decided? Is it pure row-sham-bow, or does the force have a “Hot-off”, and decide who’s the most ass-ilicious One-Time on the clock? Is it the guy with the strongest Gaydar, or the rookie with the 18″ pipes and 6-pack?
ThymeZone
Of course you do. You just said so …. not very friggin often.
I don’t believe it’s a big problem. I’ve been approached in a men’s room. The response is “Not interested, leave me alone please.” I don’t need a cop to protect me.
Men in men’s rooms need cops to protect them from gay advances? Okay, it is Minneapolis, I guess that does make a kind of sense.
TR
Larry got married shortly after the 1982 scandal. I guess we should expect him to grab a second wife pretty quickly now. It worked the first time, right?
Dreggas
More like a foot in a bathroom stall tapping out “call me” in morse code.
Dreggas
It was all part of the “crisis kit” for closeted GOP personnel, step one get a beard.
Bob
So far the man’s “crime” has not been discussed at all. I think it is this:
When asked for his ID, Craig handed the arresting officer his US Senate business card and said “What do you think about that?”
In controlspeak: “I dare you to arrest a United States Senator”, with that little “you little security boy” sneer thrown in for good measure. As if that would end the whole matter immediately and have the kid on his knees after all.
His press conference explanation is priceless: It’s someone else’s fault that I did this.
“Craig said yesterday that he pleaded guilty because his hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman of Boise, had been conducting an eight-month investigation into his sexual orientation. He said he hoped that quietly resolving the case — without telling any of his family members, friends, staffers or colleagues — would settle the matter without bringing it to light for what he called the newspaper’s ‘witch hunt.’ ”
It’s this “I’m a Senator, don’t they realize that? You’d think a newspaper has better things to do with their time…” attitude that goes a long way towards getting him where he is today.
HyperIon
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
This is where you end up when you claim that you are morally superior to other people. The video of Craig chastising Bill Clinton is another “pride goeth before a fall” moment.
For me the best part is the various repub heads that are exploding now. The chickens are coming home to roost.
OT but i saw Mayor Bloomberg last night on CSPAN talking about poverty. what an articulate guy. no rhetoric, just expression of ideas. he seemed so genuine…
myiq2xu
Once you learn to fake sincerity, the rest is easy.
ThymeZone
So said Tony Montana.
Personally, I think it’s “First you get the money, then you get the endorsement of the Christians, then you get the power.” But, that’s just me.
ImJohnGalt
LITBMueller:
myiq2xu:
Look, perhaps this is going to win me the silver pussy award, but what the fuck? I’m happily married, pretty much a 0 on the Kinsey scale, but I’ve been propositioned by gay males before, and my first reaction has never been – “oh yeah, time to put a hurt on this stupid faggot.”
Say a woman came up and propositioned you – if you weren’t attracted to her, would you want to stomp her face? Well then, mebbe you should check your neanderthal reaction to being propositioned by a guy.
As long as your (grand)kid isn’t being propositioned, at which point the person is a paedo, not necessarily (hell, not even *likely*) gay, the most obvious course of action would be to get someone in authority [like, hey! the police!] to come investigate.
But, whatever. Just didn’t want to see this go unmentioned.
Dreggas
Yeah I agree with this. I mean unless the guy came up and grabbed your crotch or something then I could see pushing him away or something.
Of course this does raise the question, if a gay guy jumps on your back do you let him stay or beat him off?
Seriously, no need to go all psycho and beat the person up. I mean sheesh.
jenniebee
The Park Service didn’t really have that kind of talent pool to draw on, that I saw. I did wonder from time to time if their stings were actually having any impact outside of the “I Heart History Majors” and “fetish for aging hippies” demographics. And mostly, the guys who did the propositioning, everybody from the Park seemed to just feel really sorry for them. Dad said that the come-ons were mostly from just these really lonely people, men would approach and just start talking about their wives and kids and they loved them, but… just a lot of lost, lonely middle aged guys who couldn’t bear the thought of being seen going in to a gay bar.
Nobody relished making these arrests, but what are you going to do? Look the other way while public sex becomes more common and more brazen, so that anybody who was hoping just to use the bathroom and not to get a live sex show while doing it is out of luck?
When it comes to public spaces, sex is a lot like religion: your peccadillos are none of my business, but I have a right to insist that it be kept out of the public square. Even Mrs. Pat understood that.
Cain
I would treat it like any other gay convention. I expect a lot of foot tapping going on and I suspect there’ll be no banjo anywhere close.
cain
ThymeZone
What the hell are you talking about? Public sex?
I have lived a very nonsheltered life. Not completely sure I have ever seen public sex, but if I did, it wasn’t in a rest room. More likely under a blanket at the park.
There’s no “public sex” problem.
jenniebee
This is probably because you are a 0 on the Kinsey scale. Apparently, the closer you are to being bi, the more likely you are to have strongly homophobic reactions. Kind of a “get thee behind my brass knuckles, Satan” approach to temptation.
Cain
I have to stop reading balloon-juice during work hours. People keep wondering why I keep snickering throughout the day. You people are terrible.
cain
yet another jeff
What ImJohnGalt said. Been saying that since high school. If someone of the same gender hits on you and you’re not interested, you should treat the situation the same as if someone of the opposite gender hits on you and you’re not intersted. If you go psycho on them, that is NOT a rational response.
As Joe Bob Briggs would say, “I’m surprised I have to explain this.”
Dreggas
Due to where and how I was raised, until I came to terms with the fact I was bi, I was just as quick to call someone a fag or use derogatory remarks as the next person. Hell even around friends we’d call each other fags.
I was talking to my best friend in HS not long ago and he told me about our one friend in HS who he had just found out was gay. He felt like total shit for giving him hell all those years (and for doing the same to me but I had long since forgiven him). What was more amusing is he was one of the first people I came out to, his only remark was “You bastard, I’m 20 and still a virgin and you’re getting it from both”.
Tsulagi
When his butt was about to be drafted, Cheney got married which also by sheer coincidence got him a deferment. WideStance and Cheney, family values and national defense melded together. They’re Republican like that.
Dreggas
well at least wide stance didn’t shoot someone in the face…double entendre completely intentional…
Jake
Ah yes, the Gay Panic defense. Perfected by the sub-humans that stomped Matt Sheppard to death.
Here’s the thing. People are aware that there are sociopathically insecure types roaming the planet who will freak out, pull a gun, a knife, grab their buddies and maim or kill some guy for the unforgivable crime of expressing an interest. If someone does mistakenly express an interest, congrats, it’s because you didn’t look like a total head case.
Or, they’re bigger than you and will smack you down if you start acting like an ass.
To be safe, I suggest you scuttle around like a cockroach on hot plate when you are any place that might contain at least one gay, single male.
Dreggas
Having been propositioned by several gay men it actually tends to be amusing not to mention a bit flattering I mean shit someone, regardless of plumbing, expressed and interest in you. That doesn’t mean you have to let them pursue it.
For example. I was at L.A. Pride doing ID checks for the Erotic City section. This gay latino who I swear looked like he was a cholo comes up and says “Hey chulo, how you doin”. This of course proceded to me saying I was checking ID (I am picky and no, cholo ain’t my type) and he grabs my hand playfully and pulls it against him and asks if I want to “Check his ID”. I politely pulled my hand back and smiled and shook my head. Of course he continued to try and flirt the rest of the afternoon.
How did I view this? As HYSTERICAL just the whole “hey chulo how you doin” was funny as all hell.
Jake
What comedy writers do for cash, the GOP does for free.
Ow. My sides.
Bruce Moomaw
Of course, there’s another reason why the GOP is raining fire and brimstone on Craig while remaining as silent as a cathedral about Vitter — namely, that a Democrat would be appointed to replace Vitter while a Republican will be appointed to replace Craig.
Nor are the Dems guiltless of this sort of thing. Remember the enthusiasm with which they got Packwood thrown out of the Senate — for offenses virtually identical to those with which Paula Jones later charged Clinton — because they knew that under Oregon law there would be an immediate special election to succeed him which the Dems might (and did) win? It’s all nothing but a Game — and (unless this coutry ever makes the very unlikely move of allowing instant-runoff elections that would allow political centrists to get elected and break the polarized stranglehold of both parties on our political system) it’s a Game that will of course go on forever.
Redhand
One wonders if he’d survive as an openly gay Senator. Cf. Barney Frank’s “mistakes in my personal life” defense, i.e. his lengthy relationship with a male hooker who ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Frank’s apartment. Then again, Idaho isn’t Mass. and Craig’s probably toast for his “I’m not gay” pro “family values” hypocrisy.
Punchy
I moved to SoFla and nearly freaked at all the gay men hitting on me….mostly due to the sheer quantity. After ~3 months, and several trips to Key West, acclimation set in and it became a badge of honor. Now I just find it amusing.
myiq2xu
I didn’t say anything about being propositioned, I was talking about having my grandson exposed to two men having sex in a public restroom.
Reading is a life-skill.
jenniebee
With all due respect, Thymezone, anecdote is not the same as datum. You haven’t seen anything like this. Neither have I, personally. I’ve also never seen a rape or a murder, but there are places in my city where they happen daily, and they are a problem. I’ve never heard of a department having a dedicated public-sex-proposition-bait unit (that would be an interesting career track…), but when complaints start coming in about people being observed having sex in a public place, that generally means that the word has gotten around about that spot and that it has gotten popular enough that people are no longer being discreet about having sex there. At which point, it is a problem.
Tractarian
C’mon, there’s got to be another option.
ThymeZone
Uh, you are comparing rape to two guys having consensual sex?
Sorry, conversation over. That’s just absurd.
Dreggas
If you went camping and woke with a condom in your backside would you tell anyone?
hehehehe
Seriously that joke is one of my favorites, gets people every time.
Bruce Moomaw
I see Jonathan Zasloff over at Mark Kleiman’s site agrees with me:
“John McCain says that Larry Craig should resign from the Senate because he pled guilty to a misdemeanor.
“Now, of course, David Vitter is also guilty of a misdemeanor, in this case, soliciting prostitution. But you see, Vitter didn’t plead guilty, so that’s completely different.
“The fact that Vitter’s crime involved heterosexual sex, and that his state has a Democratic governor has absolutely nothing to do with it. If he had pled guilty, then he’s out; if he merely admits to guilt, than it’s okay. This is what is known as a ‘moral values’ issue. Got that?”
As I say, it’s all just a Game — and the only thing more dangerous than hypocrisy in high places is when the people in the High Places are so confident of their power that they don’t even feel any really serious need to cover up what they’re actually doing. We seem to have reached that stage all over the government now, assuming we weren’t there from the beginning.
Pb
I don’t know, how old are they, and what state are they in? :(
magisterludi
Public bathrooms have been a fave spot for strange tail for decades. When I lived in Nashville, Centennial Park was close by. The restrooms were always heavily cruised in the evenings and the police popped guys there all time. One fellow turned out to be my good friend’s father, a small town minister.
Destroyed his marriage and his relationship with his kids.
HyperIon
no, she’s giving examples of things she has not personally witnessed but knows occur. it is you who are being absurd.
your contention is that because YOU have never seen it, it must not happen. that is just STOOPID.
t. jasper parnell
First, I don’t think there was a comparision between the two events (as in consensual sex is like rape) but rather an analogy that cast doubt on the efficacy of your insistance that having shat in many a stall and never foot tap seen is proof that foottaps don’t occur on a regular basis in as much as both rape and murder regularly do and yet I too have never seen either nor yhet a tapped foot.
Second, I it seems to me that the issue is the public nature of the sex. I do not care what adult has sex with what other adult; however, I confess to be less than sanguine at the possibility that I might view it absent, of course, some desire on my part to do so. Surely, one has a “right” not only to protection for physical violence but also protection from, let’s call it, aesthetic violence. (Not to suggest that they are the same but rather that protection for each is a not unreasonable.
Third, accoring to J. Tobin, video and transcript here, Craig, if he was innocent of cottaging is guitly of perjury, in that he swore to a judge that he did what the cop said he did.
Fourth, Craig made a big deal of the Clinton/Lewinsky contremps (N.B. I do not think that Clinton should of been impeached but it was sordid.) It would seem that he is hoist by his petard, no?
Fourth, I too feel badly for Craig and his family, assuming the story is true.
ThymeZone
My contention is that nobody is seeing it, and it’s not a big problem.
And I’m right. It is not a big problem. There is no big gay sex in public problem. If there were, we’d know about it, people you know would know about it, you’d be seeing it, I’d be seeing it. What’s more, even if two gay men hook up in a restroom, the fact is, unless they are having the sex right in front of other people, which they are not going to do unless they are exhibitionists, nobody gives a shit. And to the largest extent, it is nobody’s business.
Last but not least, no men out there are threatened or injured by gay solicitations in men’s rooms. I have been solicited probably a hundred times in my life, because I used to be a nice looking slender guy with creamy skin and long blonde hair. And I am here to tell you …. no injury whatever. No big deal, don’t give a rat’s ass, and anybody who says they are injured by it is lying through their teeth. Anybody who claims this is a big problem, I flat ass don’t believe them. It’s bigotry against gays, nothing more. It’s just another excuse for the useless Sex Police to have power.
But please, keep up the phony ass rant. It goes nicely with this whole topic and the atmosphere of complete bullshit around it.
grumpy realist
Looks like the Republican Party is scampering away from Senator Craig as quickly as they can….
As other commentators have pointed out, Craig pled guilty. Sort of hard to get around that. Considering that part of the plea bargain was “you don’t get to go back later and claim you were innocent”, I don’t think the judge is all that happy with this either.
Heh. Pass the popcorn again and sit down with a cool long drink of Schadenfreude and appreciation of Karma.
Jake
What if it were a man and a woman? (Seen it.) I assume that also would require a mighty beat down of justice. What if you’re staying in a motel and someone forgets to close the drapes? (Also seen.) Do you kick the door down, roll in and start beating to protect your grandson or complain to the manager?
I’m also wondering what you’d say to the police and ultimately a judge. Assuming both guys didn’t stomp you into the floor and tell the cops you attacked them.
Here’s an alternate idea, ‘cos I’d hate to see you get hurt: You stick your head in the can before you let the boy in. If you see two guys humping or one guy shooting up or a bunch of guys dealing drugs or any of the other things that can happen in a public john, get him the hell out of there.
ThymeZone
What sex would that be? Are you going to claim that exhibitionism is now a big problem in this country? That gay men are smoking the bone out there in full view of restroom patrons across our nation? Where? When?
Where is this problem and who is being injured by it?
Cut the crap, man.
t. jasper parnell
Thyme Zone go here and or first go sparklepony.com and scroll down. Now only is it common but there is a site where one could discover that that particular bathroom once a “hot spot” was not a stinger.
t. jasper parnell
Here are some comments lifted from sparkleponyh
ThymeZone
Aside from the fact that your link doesnt work, I cant even decipher your sentence.
t. jasper parnell
The problem would be for those who do not wish to see the naked heavy buttocks and breast of men and men or men and women or women and women making beasts with more than one back. I am allowed, I think, to watch p0rn when and where I wish not when and where some two or more individuals with bad senses of boundries want me to watch their own particular movie,no?
myiq2xu
I don’t know where you live but I’m glad I live somewhere else.
ThymeZone
Wow, a gay encounter in a men’s room.
A breathless account.
Scary!
I just hope this guy is not a scoutmaster, that’s all I can say.
Why don’t you start a campaing in your town to hire 100 more sex police officers? I’m sure you can use them.
t. jasper parnell
Sorry for the error cruisingforsex.com cut and paste.
ThymeZone
Holy shit, man, that is some scary stuff. Naked buttocks.
Clearly, the terrorists have won.
ThymeZone
You mean, “ashamed,” don’t you?
Tsk.
t. jasper parnell
I have not advocated hiring sex police; these “facts” are in response to your insistance (your usual radical subjectivity) that not having seen it yourself it cannot exist. It does. Should it be allowed? Me I am all for sexual freedom but I am not sure I can “let it all hang out” as the kids say to the extent that you seem willing to allow.
Ideally, it would be nice if no one needed to furtively seek sex but I am not sure the answer to that is to publicize sex acts.
t. jasper parnell
I am not, you great waste of protoplasm, of anything. Furthermore, hurling accusations of shame, which would seem to be designed to cover for your own inability to admit an error is not an argument, but you knew that didn’t you?
t. jasper parnell
I am not ashamed, you great waste of protoplasm, of anything. Furthermore, hurling accusations of shame, which would seem to be designed to cover for your own inability to admit an error is not an argument, but you knew that didn’t you?
ThymeZone
So, who is seeing it? Where’s the big problem?
How come we aren’t hearing more about it?
Does Fox News know about it?
ThymeZone
Profound, man. You should be writing books.
myiq2xu
Y’all need to lighten up in here.
Q: How do you play gay poker?
A: Queens are wild and straights count for nothing.
t. jasper parnell
Have you anything of substance? You ectomorph, you.
t. jasper parnell
Ha ha, until Tucker Carlson and his pal beat you up.
Jake
Amen.
Got your defense for the bathroom ass & batt ready yet?
myiq2xu
myiq2xu
yawn
Longhairedweirdo
Well… I’m not sure which of his actions got him in trouble. I thought I heard (yes, I admit up front I’m speaking in ignorance) that he was peeking through the crack in the stall door at the cop, and then got in the next stall, and that’s when the solicitation started. Now, the cruising signals shouldn’t be illegal, but if he was eying another guy who was sitting on the toilet, *that* should be worthy of a slap on the wrist (and more, if it’s not a first offense).
But I do agree… he’s not exactly Satan Incarnate. However, as a man who’s trying to make life hard for gay folks, it is proper for his actions to bring him some grief.
Zifnab
Fixed.
Dreggas
ok now that’s just freaking funny.
Dreggas
Now it’s fixed.
ThymeZone
No, sorry, no Penthouse clips of tales of naked buttocks and rampant gay sex in public restrooms for ya.
Thank God for those Sex Police keeping America strong and free, man. Know what I mean?
Nikki
From that cruisingforsex.com site, apparently, over 20 people got busted in that restroom in June and they were still arresting people in July. From jacking off in the urinals to hot action beneath the stall walls, it was a hotbed of gay activity.
Dreggas
reading the whole thing with regard to the “reach unders” and then reading about craig reaching under the stall and “groping around” it’s pretty clear he was expecting to find something to hold onto.
t. jasper parnell
Thyme Zone,
you are a silly human being. Profoundly silly. You insist on misreading everyone and when caught cast aspertions on others characters. Personally, I think you are Darrel.
For example, when did I suggest that I think that “sex police” keep America strong and free”?
To repeat, you misread an analogy and then, arguing from anecdote, suggested that there was no cottaging. Shown to be wrong on both counts you engaged in ad hominin attacks. Darrel the Barrel to a tee.
Grow up.
ThymeZone
At last, the full horror of hot gay sex and the terrible damage being done in crappers across the land is exposed, so that we can see the long, hard truth.
t. jasper parnell
And yes, I cannot spell.
ThymeZone
Nope. Didn’t misread it. Meant exactly what I said, and I was right. Gay solicitation is not in any way, shape or form comparable to rape, and the comparison made by jenniebie was stupid and inapt. I stand by my assertion.
t. jasper parnell
The truth is that you were factually incorrect. No what? More insults? Or a real discussion?
Craig created the legal context, or sought to, in which being gay was illegal.
He was wrong to do so.
Public sex is, I would argue, a violation of my right to be let alone (I feel the same way about graffitos, not because it is ugly but because I will look at art when I want).
YOu think what exactly? There ought be no checks on behavior that forces folks to see that which they do not wish to?
There are times, wardrobe malfunction for examples, when accidents occur, but seriously you and your beloved man/woman making the beast with two backs in the restroom at an airport or bar or whathaveyou?
I don’t drink in your bedroom don’t make love in my bar.
t. jasper parnell
You may have meant what you said but you misunderstood the point being made, the actions where not meant to be identical or compreable but rather the rate at which they were viewed undercut your asertion. Get it? I have never seen, for example, a lottery winner this does not mean that lottery winners do not exist.
myiq2xu
Jeebus, y’all take all the fun outta making fun of people.
t. jasper parnell
Isn’t the plural of y’all all y’all?
myiq2xu
All y’all should check out the “Little Britain” video at C&L
:lol:
ThymeZone
Nope, didn’t misunderstand at all. Rejected it and kicked it aside. It was stupid and inapt.
t. jasper parnell
This is it for me, but you did misunderstand it ThymeZone/Darrel as any number of folks pointed out. Yoru refusal to address the issue, outside repeating that nopt I wasn’t wrong uh uh, is just silly. Nobody gets to be right all the time. Repeating that I am so right withtout addressing the substance of the argument(s) arrayed against your position isn’t proof its just silly. Darrel/ThymeZone are stop bother for so long in the first place. The shame is JC has grown and you have shrunk. Silly little manchild.
ThymeZone
Yes, but we know certain things. We know that there are only a handful of winners, and that they have no particular impact on society because there are so few of them.
What information do you have that there are enough gay sex fiends in public restrooms to be actually causing any significant injury or problem? I have none, and if you knew where I am and what I do, you’d think twice about challenging my base of information. Let’s just say, it’s pretty solid.
In know that in LA County recently, all sex crimes combined barely made 1% of the arrests. Thats all of them, including lewd behavior.
The infamous Craig pled guilty to disurbing the peace. ARe you going to claim that a national wave of disturbing the peace is destroying America?
The comparison of this stuff to rape, a serious and truly evil crime, is just stupid, whether it’s to comapre visibility or for any other reason.
Sure there are lottery winners. And like gay sex fiends, they are few and far between and nobody is really affected by them much. Get it?
t. jasper parnell
Okay I lied, one last comment. Yep well jest take your work for based on what? Claims unsugstantiated? Well, my pal, if you knew who I was etc you would dare raise your voice against me. Brilliant argument and so packed with fact. What’s next? YOur gut feeling about the next election?
ThymeZone
If you have information that naked buttocks public gay sex is a big serious problem, let’s see it.
Where is it? Who’s being injured?
t. jasper parnell
Actually, you hobbledhoy, had you read what I wrote you would understand that is sex in public not gay sex to which I objecte. See you misunderstod, thrice great misunderstander. You cannot reframe the debate in way that supports your preexisting prejudices, or at least so I would argue. You have to adress what was asserted.
Who is being injured? The poor slob subjected to the public sex of those who will have public sex.
You suggest that this is a rare occurence. Well, percentagewiselyspeaking so is home invasion, nonetheless it is outlawed. Get it? It is not the number of occurences that make something a crime it is the understanding that these things are crimes.
And, by the way, nice job of ignoring the thurst of the argument; to wit to woe and quid pro quo that you got the analogy wrong, ectomorph.
ThymeZone
Where are these injuries, and why should I be concerned about them?
t. jasper parnell
I said:
You said:
Stick the point, hobbledyhoy, or should I say Darrel?
t. jasper parnell
yes, indeedy, fool on the hill, your concerns are all that matter. Great wayto run a country. Take the most fact chalenged amongst us and make their views of reality the standard by with all actions are judged. Did you look into Putins’s eyes and see his soul too?
Man, and protoplasm is so hard to come by.
ThymeZone
Sorry, not an apt comparison. Home invasion is a deadly crime, and even so, is not a scourge that threatens America.
Solicitation in a mens room is not a deadly crime and it is not a scourge that threatens America, although it might threaten the delicate men of Minneapolis.
Yes, joking about the Twin Cities, but in any case, the thing is not about protecting America. It’s about the Sex Police wanting to justify their existence.
Tapping a foot is not exhibitionist naked buttocks in public sex. Why a man should even be arrested for it is beyond me. Sure, it is pleasing to see something like this happen to a hypocrite like this guy, but that doesn’t change the larger fact that they really should just leave us alone. We can take care of the mens rooms of America without the help of the Republican Army of God.
Redhand
t. jasper parnell, trust me on this one, and fuggetabout debating ThymeZone. He’s utterly incapable of seeing any point of view but his own, on any subject under the sun. Trying to argue with him makes Sisyphus look smart; it’s a complete waste of time.
ThymeZone
Well, if my concerns are of no interest to you, then you should be talking to somebody else.
t. jasper parnell
So you are a big fan of vigilante justice, eh? Brilliant plan, Tucker C.
ThymeZone
So your answer is?
How many naked buttocks gay sex in public crimes are being committed, by whom, and with injury to whom? Where?
Not many, and certainly not enough to warrant Sex Police activity. But, I can be convinced with facts. Can you point me to them?
t. jasper parnell
True enough, it is the (intentional?) misreadings and misrepresentations that get my goat.
ThymeZone
Excuse me? Solicitation of sex between adults requires justice? In whose warped view of the world?
For what reason? Based on what facts?
If you are solicited for sex, you say no. What do you think happens next, the Gay jumps on you and shoves his cock into your naked buttocks?
t. jasper parnell
Did you go to cruisingforsex.com? did you read the various reports on sparklepony?
Do you not understand that it occurs?
What is it you want? A list of ten thousand offended? When does what is clearly a public wrong become actionable by the public? If you go back and read the run up to the Craig arrest there were complaints lodged by citizens about sex in the bathroom. You see? citizens offended turned to their police. So your claim is what now? Public sex is okauy and ought not to be a crime because manyl men like yourself and Tucker C can kick the crap out of the fags? Much better solution.
My self, as I made clear earlier and you mocked with your usual hamhanded idiocy, would prefer a situation in which consensual adult sex was not criminalized, which — one would hope — would lead to a decrease in furtive sex in public places. Now you found this silly, please explain why.
t. jasper parnell
Look Darrelly you said the above. How do you understand “take care of”; is it impossible for you to be above board in your argumentation? Is it true thatyour are GWB’s dumber brother?
myiq2xu
Methinks ThymeAlone aka Daryll (and his other brother Daryll) has a real fascination with nekkid buttocks.
Jackie
Since his reputation has been in question for several years, I’m not assuming this is his first time. It’s the first time he was caught. I sincerely hope his wife is tested for AIDS and STDs IMMEDIATELY.
As others have pointed out; the man plead guilty. ‘Nuff said. If his constituents want him to retire, then he should. They voted him into office as a “straight, anti-gay, anti-same sex family values” senator. If they feel duped, Idahoians have the right to ask him to step down.
Me, I could care less which way his boat floats. But public restrooms (ick!) and pleading guilty, are beyond what goes on behind private doors.
ThymeZone
Any facts whatever that will shed light on the size and true nature of the naked gay sex in public problem in this country.
Arrests, convictions, databases with case reports, you name it. Anything other than your apparently drunken rants and some anecdote that looks like it came out of an 1974 copy of Penthouse Magazine.
Start with LA County. All sex crimes combined make up around one percent of arrests, I think you will find. What percentage of these is made up of your naked-butt gay sex in public? Where are the cases of exhibitionist displays of gay sex in this country?
Defend the existence of the sex police and explain why putting up with them is worth the degradation of liberty in return for some minuscule amount of safety from a menace that probably doesn’t even exist.
Or, just continue to post barely literate horseshit and call it an argument.
Whatever.
PK
Thymezone
Your entire argument seems to be that 1)Sex in bathrooms is either not happening, or is not big enough of a problem to justify laws against it
2)There is nothing wrong with consensual sex between adults in bathrooms. They can have sex all day long in public restrooms (your words).
If no one can prove that sexual activity is a problem in bathrooms, you can’t prove the opposite either! Just saying that you have not experienced it means squat.
No one is objecting to adult consensual sex, they are objecting to the PUBLIC RESTROOM bit. If you are seriously arguing that as long it happening in another stall out of site then it is OK, there really is no arguing with you.
Most people would find sexual activity in public restrooms objectionable, yes that includes even soliciting for sex.
Most people with common sense can figure out that this was not overzealous sex police activity!
ThymeZone
Really? So, how often is this happening? What are the arrest statistics? Who is being injured by this activity? Where are the records?
Do you actually have any facts? What is the actual incidence of public (exhibitionist) gay sex in public restrooms? Where, when?
ThymeZone
All completely wrong. My argument is that there is no widespread problem here justifying the existence of sex police lurking in bathrooms. Not a single fact has been presented here to the contrary.
My reference to sex all day was to Craig, and I said that I dont care what he does, and I dont. I am not interested in other peoples’ sex lives. I see no evidence that the man is or has has ever performed exhibitionist sex in public or that anyone is doing this. Again, no facts have been presented to the contrary.
back to you.
Psycheout
I was in an airport restroom and a guy tapped his foot reached under the stall door. I asked who he was and what he was doing. He said his name was ppGaz and he was looking for some hot action. So I lit a match and dropped it into his hand.
Is “ppGaz” a gay signal or something?
PK
ThymeZone,
You Clearly did not understand my post. Arguing with you is a pointless exercise.
ThymeZone
Sure I did.
Brachiator
How is this relevant to this thread? Larry Craig has given a number of whining interviews. He has never challenged the validity of “sex police” laws. Rather, he doth protest too much that he is not gay and does not cruise, even though he apparently knows the secret handshake.
This is an interesting point. Why is it, then, that so far not a single Republican Congressman, nor any of the presidential candidates, has made this a campaign issue? Why is it that none of them has called for the abolition of the “sex police” in the name of liberty? Why is it that currently you cannot even find a Republican office holder or very many conservative pundits who will even state categorically that Craig should remain in office?
Here in California, Tom McClintock is the most consistently libertarian member of the state legislature. There is not a single bill, speech, or issues point on his web site that seeks a repeal of “sex police” laws.
I suppose that you could go to a men’s room somewhere and stage a sympathy protest in support of Craig, or in support of the abolition of the sex police. Heck, you could even argue, as some libertarians have, that since his dogs were his property, Michael Vick had the right to kill, torture, or even have sex with them, because anything less would be a degradation of his liberty.
Go ahead. Make the argument. It might even be very literate horseshit. And twice as irrelevant.
ImJohnGalt
I can read fine, thanks. Your quote:
While my “propositioning” comment was directed at LITBMueller’s comment, I found it equally abhorrent (and of the same violent stripe) that your reaction to your grandson possibly *hearing* “a guy slobbing another guy’s knob” (and presumably, understanding what was going on?) somehow merited you kicking ass and taking names [how manly of you! Gives me the vapors just thinking about it. Are you wearing a tight swimsuit while you’re kicking their teeth in?]
myiq2xu
Yo Thyme:
If you really want to know the “hard” numbers, I suggest you do the research.
Spend all of your available time hanging out in public men’s rooms, and keep statistics of what you see and hear.
If you hurry, you can make it down to the local park to log in a few hours tonight.
Have fun and be sure to write.
myiq2xu
In your dreams
ThymeZone
I am sorry for your unhappy experience.
I feel your pain.
Punchy
I’m just thanking the Lord that watching NFL football or cheering for the Cubs is not some universal gay pickup maneuver, otherwise I’d be screwed.
TenguPhule
In the view of the 28% who molest gay children in public restrooms while railing that the world needs less porn and more lynching of fags because Gahd wants the brown to burn because praise Jebus them uppity colored folk are invading from Mexico-Cuba-stan to hump the white women who go missing in Britanny’s poop stained underwear while the evil liberal mindcontrol network stabs the troops who are all Georgie Bushwanker’s spittin images and praise the Lordy its time to bomb Iran into the days of Eden because the Global Conspiracy against creationism is Global Warming Terrorism hoax.
The Other Steve
I am McLovin.
jenniebee
Nice goal-post shift, TZ. First, there isn’t a problem because you’ve never seen it happen. Now it isn’t a problem because you don’t think it’s a big deal if you do see it happen.
If you want to start a campaign to repeal public lewdness laws, more power to you. I don’t think you’re going to get much traction on the effort, but everybody needs a hobby, I guess.
And PS – of course I wasn’t saying that sex in public = rape. zo. mi. gawd. But I should have realized that rape is something volatile enough that readers would potentially jump to that wholly incorrect conclusion.
Really, these laws and the enforcement of them are just like any other laws governing private use of public areas. Littering is not allowed on public streets, the Ten Commandments have no place in courthouse squares, fliers advertising your band’s next gig are ok on telephone poles, but not pasted to the side of the capitol building, the free parking spaces downtown have a one hour time limit, and please no live sex shows in public bathrooms. This isn’t anti-gay, this is a protection of public space.
On another note, having read some of the above comments, I’m now developing a business plan for a chain of bathhouses to be located in airports. Anybody want to invest?
Halffasthero
You are on a serious rant over this. I see your concern with police having nothing better to do but get in people’s face about private acts, however, in this case, it started with complaints by travellers not by police farming the stalls. Also, it was not private. I don’t know the statistics involved in how often that happens but in this case, it is beside the point. There were complaints, they acted. In Minneaplis, people can have parties and carous in their own back yards but when it gets out of control, the police come. Same idea. It hardly qualifies as an act of the thought police. the reason this got ugly was because he was caught in the act of something against his party and his platform. Beyond that, nobody here would have cared.
Punchy
I cannot believe that Jennie-B just linked littering with copies of the Ten Commandments and a rock band’s parking spaces to Polish people on telephones.
I understand exactly what you said, and they’re clearly not the same.
jenniebee
Of course, the sparsity of arrests is also evidence that there is no special unit of Sex Police patrolling Lovers’ Lanes and whatnot. It is also evidence that the system is working and that people who are engaging in this sort of activity are doing so discreetly and unobtrusively, which is, after all, the real goal here (the police really and truly don’t care if this is going on, they only care that they don’t have people calling in to complain about it). You seem to think that the presence of a single plainclothes police officer in an area about which complaints had been received is the equivalent of a task force. It isn’t. It’s a temporary allocation of personnel in response to specific complaints.
Of course, it would be tremendously funny if the Craig arrest was really the result of an officer being assigned a dismal job just to try to drive him off the force, a la Officer Mancuso in Confederacy of Dunces.
Zifnab
TZ, it’s simple. If we repealed laws banning public nudity or indecent exposure or hanky-panky in the restroom, we would be constantly at risk of getting raped. Constantly.
Every step into a public restroom would be a journey into a dark and terrible place where strange men would lurk, waiting to defile us. Packs of gay men would roam the streets, fornicating and forcing others to fornicate with them. It would be absolute anarchy. Without dress-code laws and potty-cops, the America States of America would descend into chaos, no better than old fallen Rome – an empire that was historically recorded to have fallen because of just this sort of sexual perversion.
That’s why no politician will stand up against the sex police. Sex police are the thin paper veil that separates us from wild beasts.
So you’re either with the Republican Sex Nazis or you are with the rapists. Take your pick.
Tax Analyst
The Republicans could solve a lot of their problems if all their closeted-gay Congressional members got together and formed a group where they could address and satisfy their mutual needs. No more hanging out around airport shitter’s drooling over anonymous travellers, uh-uh. They could call it the “Republican Christian Congressional Cocksucking Caucus” or RCCCC.
I’m imagining some very lengthy sessions because right now it seems like the whole party is just full of cocksuckers.
Hey, maybe this arrangement would take their minds off fucking with the rest of us all the time.
Dreggas
I’ve been following the back and forth on this and WRT the bath houses. Don’t charge admission or it’s pandering.
Those who say there aren’t “sex police” think again. There are and they’re called the Vice squad. You don’t hear much about them unless it’s an election year and some politician needs to score points with the prudes.
Here in So Cal the vice squads are real well known in the underground scenes especially the D/s and Leather scenes. Why? Because they tend to like to infiltrate private clubs and bars in order to try and catch people doing something in private that is “against the law”. They will and have raided private clubs and back in the day were real well known for raiding gay bars and busting men for kissing.
Now in this case there was a specific problem of public sex occurring in a public restroom within an airport and the police set a sting in this specific case. In this case it WAS a problem. Nationally it’s not although the nutjobs currently running the show would have you believe otherwise.
Personally I don’t support most of the blue laws because they are used and abused by those seeking to get in good with people like Craig. From raids at Adult conventions to raids on private businesses for somehow violating some stupid puritanical law that says showing a mans penis is oh my GAWD wrong.
This is not a defense of Craig, quite honestly being me I am laughing my ass off and thinking Karma is a bitch. The reality however is that laws like these will and have been used for malicious purposes to target adults engaged in consensual activities not in public places. Sad thing is there are just as many nutjobs on the left who want to “protect the children” but want government to do so rather than taking the responsibility themselves, this is why we have the stupid V-chip and why the music and gaming industries put ended up “voluntarily” putting warning labels on their products.
Dreggas
Daisy Chains for Jesus?
Tax Analyst
Talk about being “tightly connected”. If I were easily disturbed I would call this a disturbing image. All I can do is laugh, but it’s through a grimace since these ass-hats are still part of our law-making process, and THAT has seriously sucked the lifeblood out of our nation’s Constitution. And THAT matters to me a lot more than whether or not these assholes suck either off or not.
Dreggas
very interesting article on this entire matter in the WaPo today.
Dreggas
Agreed.
The Other Steve
Oh come now, we all know of the direct link of polish people on telephones and punk rock bands.
It’s a Known Fact(tm).
jenniebee
Punchy – it’s different degrees of intrusion, and different reasons for the intrusion, but it’s still all about the line between what is permissible in shared space vs. what is protected in private space. A large part of our social contract is the negotiation between what is common enough to all our needs and interests to be part of our public space, and what is best kept as an individual choice – the things we can’t agree on enough to allow the public to intrude upon them or to allow them to intrude upon the public.
The difficulty with something like the Ten Commandments isn’t that religion is something that is deeply private – even the casual observer of religious practice will discover that it is almost universally a communal activity – it’s that the demographics have changed so that the religious beliefs that used to be nearly universal within our national community are no longer common enough to be admitted to the public sphere. The conflict is not about whether a nation can both respect liberty and have a national religious identity, even a heterogenous one – witness the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Brits, the Scots, the Israelis, India, basically all of Central and South America… all have strong national religious characters – rather, it is about the dilution of our national religious identity and the removal of religion from the public sphere because we can no longer agree on the subject in sufficient numbers to let it stay part of our national identity. It is no accident that the same people who are against immigration are spouting off about how devoutly protestant the founding fathers were. They aren’t really fighting to “save” you; they’re fighting to preserve their sense of what it means to be an American, because to them, America means a Calvinist, English speaking country. They haven’t absorbed the idea of being American that most liberals have: the idea of being a haven for all people, governed by the people to preserve the public good, with even-handed and impartial meting of justice, and equality of opportunity for all.
Honestly, in all seriousness, sometimes I think there are a lot of problems in this country that could be, if not solved, at least tamped down by a really good traveling Frank Capra film festival. TCM tries to do its part, but I wonder, is it really enough?
AnonE.Mouse
ThymeZone,like many of the guys here,I’ve been propositioned a few times,said no thanks,and then laughed about it with my wife or girlfriend of the time.
However,any guy who describes himself as a “nice looking slender guy with creamy skin and long blonde hair” AND has received “probably a hundred” passes from other men is sending out some powerful signal,whether intended or not.
rachel
AnonE.Mouse, what do you mean? I have big tits. Does that mean I’m sending a signal that any Tom, Dick or Harry could touch them?
DougJ
But as pointless exercises go, it’s one of the best.
AnonE.Mouse
No Rachel,what I mean is most men wouldn’t be quite so descriptive in their representation of their appearance nor have most men been propositioned by other men so many times,unless they’re deliberately placing themselves in that situation.Maybe you should have your husband accompany you here so you won’t miss so much.
But can I touch your tits,anyway?