re: Cornell
When I was at Harvard there was a big flap around 1990 about men’s rooms at the campus Science Center and also a couple of the libraries being used for gay “cruising” and sex — of course most of the controversy was about police tactics (both campus and City of Cambridge) in making at least a dozen arrests. Then I think for some years they kept the doors removed from those bathroom stalls (though I’m not sure because I never went near any of those bathrooms again, but that was what I heard). The biggest flap was about whether Cambridge police were “sensitive” enough — especially since they used medical/latex gloves to process the perps and it became a cause celebre among the gay/lesbian/multisexual “community” that the mean, nasty Cambridge police weren’t very “sensitive” to wear the gloves while fingerprinting etc. the perps. I actually never heard or saw a thing about it at all outside of the articles in the campus paper, but it sure did make some of the local activists upset..... [not the random stranger sex, mind you, just the fact that the police were actually making “insensitive” arrests]
I’m happy to say I’ve never been directly aware of any sexual activity in any public bathroom..... UGH. Have only read the occasional article like the one below, but most of the time whatever’s happening is either ignored by police, unknown to police, and/or simply kept quiet by the practitioners. But how would you like to have your campus bathrooms taken over as a gay sex bathhouse:
[this was from 1990]:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=242035
Justified, But Insensitive
SCIENCE CENTER ARRESTS:
Published On Thursday, February 08, 1990 12:00 AM
THE arrests of 12 men on charges of “open and gross lewdness” in the Science Center bathroom over the past several weeks has provoked a storm of protests from campus gay activists. They complain that the police were insensitive in the handling of the arrested men and that the recent crackdown on sexual activity in the Science Center is necessarily a symptom of hatred of gays.
On the first count, they are right. On the second count, the evidence is far less conclusive.
The Harvard Law School Committee on Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues charged last week that Harvard and Cambridge police had harassed the arrested men, and demanded that the University administration require Harvard police to undergo sensitivity training in gay and lesbian issues.
In the case of the Cambridge police, they have a legitimate complaint: Cambridge officers insisted on wearing latex gloves when they fingerprinted the arrested men, a practice that Cambridge police Capt. William R. Burke called “a precaution...to prevent the spread of AIDS.”
This practice must end. Although Burke said that the use of rubber gloves is not limited to handling of gay detainees, the Cambridge police evidently assumed that AIDS is spread through casual contact, such as holding down a person’s hand on an ink pad. It isn’t.
The use of gloves in booking the men was less a public health measure than a way for police officers to demonstrate their contempt for the arrested men.
Morris Ratner, chair of the Law School committee, also charged that Harvard police verbally harassed the arrested men. If they did, it was also unacceptable. Harvard should institute sensitivity training on sexual orientation for its police force. Powerful societal actors have a responsibility to use their resources to eliminate bigotry.
THE committee’s larger complaint is not about the treatment of the men in custody, but the Harvard police’s concerted policy of arresting men found engaged in sexual activity in the bathroom.
In a letter to The Crimson, Rattner and Jarret T. Barrios ‘90, co-chair of the Harvard-Radcliffe Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Student Association (BGLSA) charged that the crackdown on bathroom sex was motivated solely by “the perhaps unconscious manifestation of a deep-seated ignorance and fear of gay people and gay sex.”
While there is likely some truth to the assertion, it is overly simplistic to attribute the arrests solely to pervasive homophobia. It seems just as likely that the motivation for the crackdown stems from a long history of using the Science Center bathroom as a “tearoom” for anonymous sex between gay men. These men have reportedly repeatedly made unwanted sexual overtures towards Harvard students and staff. It doesn’t matter whether the propositions were heterosexual or homosexual—the University has a responsibility to keep such activity out of its restrooms.
That means eliminating public sex from the Science Center. The BGLSA and the Law School committee argue that the arrests by plainclothes officers were unnecessary, and that posting a uniformed guard or a sign that says “No Sex” would suffice...... [YEAH, RIGHT].....
[article continues at link]
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=242035
The use of gloves in booking the men was less a public health measure than a way for police officers to demonstrate their contempt for the arrested men.