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.
Would the music from Popeye be playing in your head?
You’re probably right.
But I’m very uncomfortable with what I heard of the line of questioning and statements on the part of the police.
Moreover, I had no idea that “toe-tapping” was some sort of signal. I wonder now if “restless leg syndrome” is real, or a homosexual mating ritual...
I also use a wide stance when sitting in a public “thrown,” especially when I’m trying to keep expensive clothing off the floor.
Truthfully, I don’t know what’s going on with Larry Craig. I don’t know much about the other accusations of homosexual activities. But, if he’s hunting for homosexual sex in public bathrooms I want his ass out of the Senate. But I just can’t stop asking myself “what if this guy is innocent.”
I just think that the police would have done everyone...including the concept of justice...a great favor by pursuing this event to the point where clear intent could be established. Unfortunately, they didn’t get anywhere near that point.
Wouldn't you be irate & profess loudly & repeatedly your innocence?
Would you allow this 'charge' go on your record, and that you pled 'guilty'.
Thank about it.
If you think that innocent people have never copped a plea bargain to avoid the “big hit” in this country, you don’t read much.
Look, I’m not saying the guy is innocent. I’m not arguing that Larry Craig is a genius, either. But, after 26 years as a military officer I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked into the eyes of someone who got themselves into a stressful situation and reacted in a way that got them into trouble and asking them “What the hell were you thinking?”.
I’ve supervised hundreds of college graduates, many of them seasoned aviators with many hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of time in the cockpit. I know and understand stress, and how stress can affect judgement.
It’s very easy for us to sit at our computers and second-guess Craig’s actions. We’re not in his situation and we know all the outcomes, because its all played out. We’re not confronted with public humiliation, possible loss of family, loss of career, and legal jeopardy. It’s not fair or intellectually honest to sit here and pretend that Craig should have seen things as clearly and rationally as we can now.
Some people react to stress with calm professionalism and a methodical, logical approach to resolving whatever situation they’re in. But some people will do virtually anything, including self-destructive things, to escape a seriously stressful situation. In 1988 I had a college graduate tell me that she’d allowed herself to be raped, rather than try to fight off the man involved, in order to simply “get it over with” and escape a stressful situation.
You could put 100 randomly-chosen men in Larry Craig’s exact situation...all of them innocent (although I suspect Craig isn’t innocent)...and I guarantee you that confronted with an officer telling them that by taking the plea deal they would make the problem “go away,” that at least a handful of people would take the plea.
Again, I’m not arguing that Craig is innocent. I suspect that he’s not. But I’m a big advocate of “innocent until proven guilty” and I think the government has a responsibility to prove intent in a situation like this. They didn’t.
What they did was put maximum psychological pressure on a guy with a lot to lose, and lure him into taking a plea deal by promising him that they’d make the issue “go away.”
Was Craig an idiot for doing what he did? Yes.
Does the fact that Craig reacted stupidly to a very, very stressful situation mean he’s guilty? No.
They both got caught tapping a shoe (Hsu).
Thanks for your cleared-headed writing. Gay sex makes me cringe, but something about this cop made me cringe also. Until other named people come forward and say they had SEX with or was propositioned by Craig, I am leaning toward Craig.
They didn’t even have seats on the toilets, let alone stalls in the old 2 story wooden WWII barracks at the reception station at Ft Knox back in ‘79!
Firewatch at night. If you value your life don’t screw with the plastic sheeting insulating the windows. Watch the tracers at night in the distance at the ranges, hear the different weapons; boom, crack, tat-tat-tat.
To be fair that was the only place I saw facilities like that. The transient NCO barracks at Ft Stewart reminded me of a college dorm. They had three man rooms with a modular desk/wall locker arrangement facing a bed (no bunks) with a window in between.
Each room had it’s own Motel 6 style bathroom with toilet & shower in one room and the sink/mirror in a little ante room. Very nice.
I think I’d just put a turd in his hand if he reached under the stall divider while I was using the toilet.
The jokes write themselves
Well, thanks for the kind words. I’m not “pro” or “anti” Craig. It just ticks me off that the police didn’t take the incident far enough to clearly establish intent. This wasn’t a “dangerous perp” issue where they feared for the safety of the officer. It would have been easy to exchange a few words, like “do you want to”...to eliminate such “signals” as foot-tapping as something that represents “proof” that Craig was looking for sex.
I heard a caller to a radio show, yesterday, say that if we used such “signals” as proof of intent to commit prostitution we’d be arresting every woman in a short skirt that waves at a car. And, that’s a good point.
I want criminals prosecuted. But I want all Americans afforded the assumption of “innocent until proven guilty.”
I’m about 80% sure that Craig deserved to be arrested. But the 20% rumbles in my guts.
Not necessarily. They didn't have to be targeting the Senator - just anyone they could happen upon.
Having said that, I'm still a bit on the fence as regards 'entrapment'. I have no problem with big, burly police officers or feds posing as 12 year old girls on the internet in order to nab pedophiles. However, at least some judges seem to have an issue with it. If judges have a problem with that kind of entrapment, they might also have a problem with this kind.
I was responding to the following comment “Someone targeted the Senator, targeted him and planned this event.”
I remember when tapping one’s foot was a sign of impatience.
ROTFLMAO!
This is NOT a gay issue. It is an issue of entrapment. Someone targeted the Senator, targeted him and planned this event.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a closet queen Senator is....well, a closet queen Senator.
Nobody was ‘entrapped’. He went cruising for gay sex, and got an undercover cop instead.
Its that simple. And as we all now know, this isn’t the first time Leisure Suit Larry Craig went looking for a gay sex partner. Its been going on for DECADES.
You think his actions in 1976 were part of this ‘conspiracy’ at the Frat House as well?
Sheesh.
Thanks for your cleared-headed writing. Gay sex makes me cringe, but something about this cop made me cringe also. Until other named people come forward and say they had SEX with or was propositioned by Craig, I am leaning toward Craig.
Thats already happened.
This is the point here, listen to the tape of his arrest interview.
Rather than standing up for himself, confronting the issue at hand he weaseled, negotiated, lied, let himself be intimidated and tried to make it go away.
No different really in what happens when a RINO "republican" is confronted by a democrat in the course of the nations business.
How can he be expected to stand up for his constituents, his party, or his supposedly "conservative" values?
Weather he is guilty or not, Good riddance!
So what if he's innocent? That's the price for keeping law and order. Or are his services in the senate so valuable to the country and the state of Idaho that we can't afford to do without him? No one, is irreplaceable, and scumbag senators (and representatives) like Craig need to remember that.
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