Sans Fig Leaf
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"An unsavory topic"
6 September, 2007
A couple years ago the
mayor of a medium-sized city in the south decided that men
propositioning other men for sex in public places was the most
dangerous threat facing his city (if not the world), and among other
measures, ordered the police department to step up its surveillance and
entrapment activities in said public places.
The budget was increased, many more officers were put on the duty of
pretending to be looking for a hook-up. In two years of stake-outs,
officers pretending to be on the prowl, signalling other men, et
cetera, they had a couple of successes.
Literally a couple. In two years they arrested exactly two men.
The chief of police thought this was not an effective use of his
department's resources and said so. He was ordered to continue. So he
looked for more evidence than his department's experience, and reviewed
the state records for such arrests spanning the previous two decades.
He has since said that he was shocked most by one simple fact: more
than 99% of the men ever arrested for such activities are married with
children. Their families and colleagues are shocked when it happens and
certain that there must be some mistake.
So when the senator from Idaho, having pled guilty to this sort of
activity in an airport restroom recently declared, "I'm not gay. I
never have been gay." I believe him.
I don't believe for one instant that he wasn't trying to have a quickie
with another man, but I agree he's not gay. Why? Because gay men don't
go looking for sex in public restrooms. Messed-up, self-loathing closet
cases do it. If a study by the National Institutes of Health conducted
in the late 1980s is to believed, there are literally millions of them
out there, regularly seeking these fertive, secret encounters, scared
to death to even admit what they want or why they're satisfying this
need in this way.
This is the issue that virtually no one is talking about regarding this
case (and other recent similar incidents): why millions of people with
gay or bisexual tendencies are forced to hide who they are. Why certain
groups of people think that it is perfectly all right to expect these
men and woman to marry someone under false pretenses--why they often
blame the unsuspecting spouse when the lie is revealed by something
like this arrest. Why some institutions are perfectly willing to
overlook those tendencies only so long as the person lives a lie and
pursues this particular need in the most demeaning and unsavory way
imaginable.
I have been somewhat surprised that more of the media outlets are
actually discussing the hypocrasy of the situation, though it's not
realy the most important issue. Yes, by voting for anti-gay policies
and advocating against tolerance, the senator has created the very
situation that resulted in his arrest.
Making eye contact and otherwise signalling your interest in getting to
know someone is not, by itself, lewd behavior. As more than one
conservative pundit has pointed out, thousands if not millions of
straight people engage in similar activity in bars and nightclubs every
day all around the world. Any truly objective observer of the behaviour
at a straight bar known for "pick ups" would have to conclude that the
reason those people aren't arrested is not because they aren't cruising
for sex, it's because of the gender of the persons they are cruising.
The cop wasn't a passive observer, either. He returned the signals. He
encouraged the senator to send more signals. Again, several pundits (of
both conservative and liberal bent) on the various news shows have
correctly pointed out that what the senator actually did isn't really
what any sane person would consider a crime.
What might have happened afterward may be a different matter. I agree
with all the people who say they wouldn't want to walk into a public
restroom and see a couple people, of any gender, going at it. But to be
fair, I don't want to watch the activities that are supposed to happen
in restrooms, either. Just like I don't want to accidently see what my
married neighbors may be doing in their bedroom. If I accidently
overhear my neighbors in such circumstances, I don't think I should
have the right to have them arrested.
So I don't think the senator's worst crime is the charge for which he
was arrested. Rather, he is guilty of something far worse. He has
promoted an atmosphere of fear and loathing for gay and bisexual people
which a surgeon general report in a previous republican administration
said was responsible for one in three teen suicides. He's supported a
legal structure that denies health care and legal benefits to partners
and children of millions of openly gay, productive members of society.
He's supported or encouraged attitudes that have oustracized people
from the families, discouraged people from offering help and compassion
to those infected with HIV, and much, much more.
While blame him for all those things, I don't hate him. All I feel for
the senator is pity. Not because he has been caught. Not because his
career is over. Not because people who he thought were his allies have
turned on him with a viciousness which would make a shark blush. Not
even because of the effects this may have on his relationship with his
family. All of those things are a direct consequence of the hateful,
intolerant attitudes he has aided and abetted for his entire political
career.
I pity him because he is a messed up, self-loathing, closet case. It's
as simple as that.
--Rita Mae Brown
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