Notes on… things.
As you may recall, Larry Craig (R-usedtobe ID) recently got busted trying to solicit sex in a men’s toilet. Erica C. Barnett made some interesting remarks regarding the double standards in all the brouhaha (she linked to a bunch of people, who also linked to people - it’s all very hypertext revolution), namely that Larry Craig was sending signals to another man that he wanted to get it on. He didn’t try to force a guy into having sex - he was sending signals for a encounter.
And he got thrown under the bus.
As Erica (and others) rightly point out, such solicitation happens to women all the time. Hell, what Craig did was less aggressive than a man whistling at a woman on the street. And certainly less aggro than my experience at the Night Cat last night. Some guy asked me to dance. I said yes, and this was taken as a sign that I wanted to smooch him (naturally). I didn’t. And he just kept at it (the dance was over). It was annoying, and he was blocking my way off the dance floor. Eventually, I pushed past him, found Luke and we scampered.
Now even writing it down this way makes it sound far more threatening than it was (which is also saying something). Annoyance was my highest level of concern. But really? The fact is that I have been socialized to accept the fact that men are allowed whistle at me, touch various parts of my body unasked, and attempt to wear me down into consenting to sexual activity. It might not be considered attractive, but it’s condoned. And… that fucking sucks. I should have punched that guy in the face. I said I wasn’t interested and he kept at it.
This is not to say that’s it’s not alright to show interest. It’s completely fine to say, ‘Hey. Think you’re hot. Smooching please,’ so long as ‘yes’ is followed with smooching and ‘no’ is followed with ‘alright.’ It’s a lot, some might say, like tapping your foot in a bathroom stall.
Now, I’m not really prepared to make great, sweeping statements (other than the ones I’ve already made) regarding the nature of Western masculinity, but it seems like there’s more going on than just ‘the gay factor’ with the Craig fiasco. There’s something also there about the horror of being solicited on the part of straight men.
And to that I say - suck it up honey. If you think it’s okay to randomly proposition and grab a woman, then shut the fuck up if a gay man mistakenly propositions you. If he barges into your personal space and restricts your movement, then come to me complaining. We can talk about the insane number of times it’s happened it me. It’ll be great.
And don’t touch me.
Sphere: Related Content
September 9th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Nice! There’d even be a high-five if we were in the same city..
September 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am
The difference is that the foot-tapping is a signal to immediately have sex in a public place. That’s pretty gross. If Craig was somehow revealed to have just been overly friendly in a gay bar, you would have an analogy.
And I haven’t picked up this vibe of that the bad part of gay cruising in public spaces is that straight guys might get cruised. For one thing, a straight man in the stall next to Craig wouldn’t have known he was being propositioned - the deal with the foot tapping is that it’s subtle signal that straight men don’t know. Secondly, the reason police are interested in guys tapping their feet is that it’s a lead in to public sex, which is gross and unsafe. If foot tapping was a lead in to sex in a nearby hotel room, there would be no police in that washroom.
I agree that overly sexually agressive guys suck. You *should* punch them in the face. Tell them I said it was ok.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:52 am
i’m with you on this one brie.
i have read somewhere about the extent to which one could argue that sex in a bathroom stall is public or not, especially in countries such as Britain where you have to pay to use the stall, anyway. It could be argued that it’s a private rental unit.
in response to neil above, craig wasn’t arrested for engaging in public sex. he wasn’t caught engaging in public sex. there is a genuine concern to be had that he was arrested for expressing interest and seeking consent from another interested party. i say, until the cop is willing to put himself in such a compromising situation as to be in the same stall as craig with his pants down, then no one has yet committed a crime.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Dan Savage definitely agrees with you, Neil, but there are a couple of caveats. Firstly, I think there’s a great deal of straight public sex to which a blind eye is turned. I watched a couple in the park yesterday put their two coats over their bodies, etc, etc.
I think having sex in public is kinda gross, be it in a bathroom stall, the alley behind the bar, or Edinburgh Gardens, but the circumstances under which it’s enforced are unequal. For straights, it seems to be condoned as ’something risque’ whereas gay public sex is considered harmful to the public good.
It’s from here that I draw the analogy: there’s a correlation between the reason why I can be grabbed in public and the fact that the ‘gay panic’ defense can lower prison sentences.
If Larry Craig had been a smart hypocrite, he would have said, ‘Well, I intended to pick up in the bathroom and then take him home.’ It wouldn’t have been true, but neither were his other blundering assertions. But that still wouldn’t have saved him - because the crime he committed was sending those subtle signals that, as you point out, a straight man wouldn’t likely have picked up on.
I think a great deal of the furor surrounding the case doesn’t come so much from the ‘Oh god, sex in public!’ argument as the fact that he turned the area into a place where men might be exposed to solicitation by ‘the gays’.
Finally, you totally grabbed my ass in the subway last year. I’ll have a punch waiting for you in December. Thanks for the support.