Posted on 09/05/2007 1:20:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The ignominious fall of Senator Larry Craig casts new light on the importance of the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning open homosexuals from military service.
If preventing public sex in airport men’s rooms is important enough to justify the deployment of undercover cops, isn’t it similarly significant to avoid, at all costs, sexual encounters in military latrines?
Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities?
Of course, advocates for gays in the military will insist that any such indulgence would involve a violation of the rules, with offenders facing stiff, severe consequences. But the impact of gay GI’s on bathroom atmospherics doesn’t just stem from the real chance of actual sex acts in the latrine, it involves whole sexualization of one of the most frequented and important conveniences on any base.
If openly gay males do nothing to compromise restroom integrity and security, why not invite female soldiers into men’s bathrooms, or open the door of women’s facilities to males? Surely, the same rules that would, theoretically, prevent gay men from hassling other men in the head would prevent hetero males from harassing women (or vice verse). Just as a gay male in the military would receive punishment for bathroom misbehavior, so to a straight guy could be busted for making improper overtures to women in the ladies room – but that wouldn’t make him any more welcome in a female facility.
The problem isn’t just the chance of molestation, it’s the radical change of mood and sensibility if you know you may be checked out as a sex object at a very private moment (of urination or defecation) when most normal people prefer to avoid any and all thoughts of physical intimacy. A bathroom becomes a vastly more uncomfortable and even menacing place if it’s used for sexual encounters, whether those connections involve gay or straight sexuality.
In a column in Sunday’s New York Times, Laura MacDonald insists that toilet sex never involves one-sided, unwanted attentions. According to the research she cites (based on “a groundbreaking dissertation” of a doctoral candidate at Washington University nearly 30 years ago) “a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered. The initiator does not want to be beaten up or arrested or chased by teenagers, so he engages in safeguards to ensure that any physical advance will be reciprocated.”
Certainly in the case of Larry Craig, the arresting officer did nothing to discourage the Senator’s attentions until the very moment of the arrest and almost certainly invited his advances. The near unanimous revulsion regarding the incident (from Republican and Democrat, gay and straight alike) therefore has nothing to do with sexual assault or attempted rape, or any notion of the mild-mannered, bespectacled 62-year-old legislator somehow forcing himself on the burly, buff and much younger cop.
The disgust for the three term Senate toe-tapper arises instead from the very association of men’s rooms and amorous meet-ups, of toilet stalls and sex acts. We have a common and compelling interest in keeping such places free of erotic tension and that’s why we dispatch police officers to patrol public rest stations—even though they’re hardly needed to prevent outright assaults.
And if regular users of airport or public park facilities have a right to escape suggestive glances or inviting gestures that can poison an already fetid atmosphere, how much more so do young recruits (many of them eighteen or nineteen years old) the same right to avoid similar attentions (or even suspicions) from their fellow soldiers in the intimate quarters necessitated by military service? It’s no wonder that despite some fifteen years of relentless propaganda, most high ranking members of the armed services remain unconvinced that we should alter regulations to allow participation of open homosexuals.
The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men’s rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military.
“(T)he very association of men’s rooms and amorous meet-ups, of toilet stalls and sex acts”, which many have called the homosexual male sex act’s “yuck” factor.
Yes. Most barracks or dorms in the service have either several bathrooms per floor or one bathroom for 2-3 individuals. People of upper rank have their own lavatory or live in a house (as do most all married servicemembers of all ranks here in the States). Overseas, conditions are usually more spartan.
Now it's you standing there...what do you do?
Hint: You don't elect the fellow to the Senate...
I stand six foot tall and weigh 375 lbs. What do you think would happen if I caught someone molesting my son?
I suspect that the world be a safer place when you were done.
As it would be in my case. I draw the scenario as a justification for Freak-boy's expulsion. If only we went after the democrats so hard!
If they didn’t outrun me they’d wish they did when I landed on them! LOL
The doors to the stalls are very flimsy, a strong shoulder to a door will open it easily and then you take care of the molestor.
This is NOT a gay issue. It is an issue of entrapment. Someone targeted the Senator, targeted him and planned this event. They managed to get him spooked enough to sign a plea to a “lesser offence.” The whole thing smells to high heaven. Can’t Freepers recognize this?
Call in the FBI for a thorough investigation and help Larry Craig salvage his reputation!
I have never had much use for the “Magic Bullet” Senator, but this time, the one time, Arlen is on the right side of this bizarre case. Go Arlen Go! Go Larry go!
Get real...!!
If Craig didn't have a 'proclivity' for this type of dalliance, he would have yelled bloody murder and defended himself to the nth degree...
..rather than roll over for this!
After considering Tip O’Neills’ acceptance of Congressman’s Gerry Studds’ repeated sexual relationships with male pages, and Nancy Pelosi’s acceptance of Congressman Barney Franks’ endorsement and practice of sodomy, the Democratic party should be known as the “pervert party.â€? They have replaced the ten commandments with one: thou shalt not be a hypocrite. But their repeated construction of self-serving double-standards is hypocrisy itself.
After considering Tip O’Neills’ acceptance of Congressman Gerry Studds’ repeated sexual relationships with male pages, and Nancy Pelosis’ acceptance of Congressman Barney Franks’ endorsement and practice of sodomy, the Democratic party should be known as the “pervert party.” They have replaced the ten commandments with one: thou shalt not be a hypocrite. But their repeated construction of self-serving double-standards is hypocrisy itsel
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I’ve always maintained that homosexuality is socially problematic because of bathrooms.
For the same reason women don’t want men learing at them in the bathroom, straight men don’t want gay men learing at them in the bathroom.
What, then, is the solution? Separate bathrooms for gay men? That wouldn’t work out so good, witness Senator Craig.
So how do you maintain congenial public restrooms with homosexuals?
I know of no answer.
(leering)
It is an issue of entrapment. Someone targeted the Senator, targeted him and planned this event.
_________
Again, have you an explanation for how the cop was set up and in place before Craig even entered the bathroom? How did they know which bathroom? Which stall?
Without credible answers to the above, the entrapment thing is pretty farfetched, doncha think?
Of all the absurd BS circling around this affair, “entrapment” is by far the most ridiculous.
This well-educated, intelligent man waived counsel and signed a confession (to keep things quiet). Those are the acts of a guilty man.
You got that part right. Both of them should leave the public office right now. As for the rest of what you wrote, it is not an issue of entrapment, it is an issue of behavior. Can a certain group never known to restrain itself, behave themselves in a public restroom?
It seems they can't given the number of people trying to change the subject when their actual behavior is mentioned. There is no justification for what he was accused of. The only person who made him behave that way is him. He even agreed in his plea that his behavior was criminal. That's not entrapment. No action he has taken since the arrest says innocent man. It does say stupid man, and demented man, anything but innocent.
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