jesurgislac : Larry Craig: Savage Update

Larry Craig: Savage Update
Mostly (as usual) I thought Savage Love was brilliant, but:

And while I would be the first to argue that most of the men looking to get it on in toilets and other public sex environments are discreet and don't bother anyone—and I argued just that on CNN last week—some are not discreet and some do bother people. (I also argued that most of the men getting it on in toilets are straight-identified, just like me and Senator Craig.) There were complaints about that particular bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, and the police did what the police are supposed to do when there are complaints—they responded. If straight men, like me and Senator Craig, had been fucking women in the toilets at the Minneapolis airport, the police would no doubt have responded to those complaints, too.

Clueless.
(Almost as clueless as Donald Clarke, in my previous Craig thread.)
So I wrote:

Dear Dan,

"the police would no doubt have responded to those complaints, too."

Oh, the hell they would.

If a woman is being signalled by a straight man that he wants to have sex with her, and she reports this to the police, the police reaction may be sympathetic, but they will not put an undercover policewoman
on duty to wait in the airport lounge, or wherever this happened, to arrest any straight man who signals that he wants to have sex with her.

(Otherwise, great column, as usual.)

There were two double-standards on display in that airport arrest, not just one. The homophobic double standard I think you've already picked up on. The sexist double-standard:

When straight men complain that men are annoying them by showing sexual interest, the police take that very seriously: undercover policemen are sent to wait for men making advances so that arrrests
can be made, etc.

When women complain that men are annoying them by showing sexual interest... that's just something women are expected to put up with. (The most common reaction from Nice Guys(TM) when a woman explains exactly what she had to say to convince a persistent man to go away and leave her alone? "Oh, you didn't need to be so MEAN. You could have turned him down NICELY.")

It's at root the same double-standard, of course: straight men feel entitled both to express sexual interest however they like, and to be shielded from any sexual interest they find annoying.

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I think you missed his point
(Anonymous)
2007-09-10 07:33 (link)

In the passage you quote, Savage wasn't talking about people signaling an interest, or hitting on each other - he was talking about people actually having sex in public restrooms. His point being that there was a patrol not because there were reports of men hitting on each other (frankly, I doubt that there were such reports - it sounds like guys cruising use these subtle signals that straight guys are intended not to notice, and given the history of gay-bashing, I think the gays probably knew to keep it super-discrete when not in a known gay-friendly place - if I'd been in the stall next to Craig's, I wouldn't have known that I was being sent a signal) but rather because men were actually having sex. That was what the news reports said - that that bathroom was becoming a well-known spot for guys to actually hook up. Savage is arguing that if straight couples were actually having sex in airport bathrooms, the cops would be sent to put a stop to it - and given how many kids are brought in to use those bathrooms, I'm confident that he's correct; someone would complain, and something would be done.

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	*I think you* missed his point jesurgislac** 2007-09-10 07:58 (link)
	I think Dan Savage missed the point, and you did too: Craig wasn't arrested for having sex in a public toilet, he was arrested for signalling a man that he'd like to have sex. While the police may claim they were acting on reports of men having sex in cubicles, that isn't actually borne out by what happened. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: I think *you* missed his point
(Anonymous)
2007-09-10 09:26 (link)

No, no, I get that point - but it seems perfectly plausible to me, and in fact pretty likely, that the cops' claimed reason for being there was the true reason. You seem to be assuming that the airport cops set up a sting because straight men got pissed off that strangers were tapping their shoes in adjoining stalls. I don't think straight men had complained about being hit on in the bathroom, because I don't think they were aware that anyone was signaling an interest in them - that was the whole point of the subtle coded signals. (Yes, Craig eventually waved his hand under the stall, but that was after the cop kind-of led him on by responding "appropriately" to his foot-tapping and -rubbing.) As it happened, the cop who arrested Craig took him in for signalling an interest in sex, as you say, and not for completing the act, but I've heard elsewhere that that particular bathroom was indeed well-known in gay circles as a hookup spot. Hence, I think the reason for the police patrols being ordered in the first place was probably not that straight men were filing complaints about being propositioned (because they weren't being propositioned) but rather that men (maybe even gay or bi men) were complaining about actual sex happening. Knowning that was happening, the cops decided to conduct a sting and arrest perpetrators for solicitation, before any sexual conduct took place. I think they acted too precipitously in Craig's case, and I certainly agree with you about the double standard that favors straight men in society generally - I just don't think that Dan Savage overlooked the latter point, or that the Craig case is an especially apt illustration of that point.

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Re: I think *you* missed his point

jesurgislac
2007-09-11 02:49 (link)

You seem to be assuming that the airport cops set up a sting because straight men got pissed off that strangers were tapping their shoes in adjoining stalls.

No. I think the cops set up a sting because there were reports of men using that airport restroom as a hookup point. But my point is: that the cops would not have set up a sting, let alone arrested a man for expressing interest in having sex, if there had been similar reports of heterosexuals using a place as a hookup point. (See

wutitiz's comment, below, on bathroom stings.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

bathroom stings

wutitiz
2007-09-10 18:46 (link)

I have an interest in police stings generally, having once been the victim of one (a alcohol sales sting when I was working as a clerk at a gas station years ago). It has been my conclusion that stings like this are generally a way to maximize the number of arrests per officer hr, and thus generate lots of fine revenue for city coffers. The stings are a kind of mass-production for cops.

In the case of beer stings, the cops used to send out one officer and one decoy (underage person, who was a 'cadet' interested in an LE career). They would hit 30-40 establishments in a night, and through various tricks and traps, would typically issue citations at 40% of them. The fines & court costs were in the vicinity of $300 a crack, so they could easily gross close to $5000 for a few hours of safe, easy work. Generally, a store clerk is not going to pull a knife or gun, as a real criminal might.

Why would the cops chose to run a sting like this in a men's room? Why not just post a sign saying "please call xxx-xxxx to report offensive activity" and then respond & make an arrest when there is an actual problem? Because that would not rack up the quantity of arrests and resultant fine revenue desired. A sting would.

I am a 51 year old straight male, and in 40 yrs. plus of using public restrooms, I have never encountered other males having sex, at least that I'm aware of. Once when driving through Oklahoma, of all places, a guy asked me at a rest-stop restroom if I wanted a BJ. I declined and went on my way. I didn't call 911, didn't have an aneurysm, didn't feel scarred for life.

I still try to respect the cops as people who put their life on the line for the rest of us, but the cops who do these mass-stings, whether its beer/cig sales, hookers, seat belt tickets, or toilet sex, are scuzzballs of a higher order than any toilet sex seeker.

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	Re: bathroom stings jesurgislac 2007-09-11 02:47 (link)
	Yep, you nailed it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Color me naive, but...
(Anonymous)
2007-09-10 19:00 (link)

...when, precisely, did expressing interest in having sex become illegal?

I mean, last I checked we had institutions designed for that very purpose. We call them "singles bars."

Ok. I'm not trying to be facetious, really I'm not, but... a dude signals to another dude that he'd like to have sex... and he gets arrested. If they had actually commenced goin' at it in the stall, maybe. MAYBE. (Even then I might have some eye-rolling to do, but it wouldn't be quite as disgusted eye-rolling.) But this? Come on. Are we actually caring about this?

~kristy

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Re: Color me naive, but...

jesurgislac
2007-09-11 02:46 (link)

..when, precisely, did expressing interest in having sex become illegal?

When a man is expressing interest in having sex with another man. In any country where sex between men is illegal, or treated as if it's illegal - as is the case in large parts of the US - then a man approaching another man for sex is approaching him to engage in criminal activity.

I mean, last I checked we had institutions designed for that very purpose. We call them "singles bars."

Yes, but those are heterosexual institutions.

Ok. I'm not trying to be facetious, really I'm not, but... a dude signals to another dude that he'd like to have sex... and he gets arrested. If they had actually commenced goin' at it in the stall, maybe. MAYBE. (Even then I might have some eye-rolling to do, but it wouldn't be quite as disgusted eye-rolling.) But this? Come on. Are we actually caring about this?

In a very nice kind of way: yes, you are naive. It is not so long since many states in the US had legislation that made it illegal for two men to have sex in their own bed in their own home with the doors locked and no one else in the house. Openly expressing a desire to have sex is a heterosexual privilege.

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