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 nations dont ask, dont tell policy banning open homosexuals from military service.
If preventing public sex in airport mens rooms is important enough to justify the deployment of undercover cops, isnt 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 GIs on bathroom atmospherics doesnt 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 mens bathrooms, or open the door of womens 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 wouldnt make him any more welcome in a female facility.
The problem isnt just the chance of molestation, its 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 its used for sexual encounters, whether those connections involve gay or straight sexuality.
In a column in Sundays 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 Senators 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 mens 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 thats why we dispatch police officers to patrol public rest stationseven though theyre 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? Its 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 mens 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.
Vote the guy into the Senate? /s
You owe me a keyboard!
Those were finally disassembled in the late 90's!
Technically, he was enTAPped.
Badumpump.
I want representatives to handle stress well, too. But the fact that someone might not do well in a particular situation is no reason to destroy them. How hard would it have been for the officer to press the situation to get a clearcut statement of intent? That’s all I ask...just make sure we’re not prosecuting people for mannerisms that they might not even understand the significance of... Sorry...poor grammar...
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