It's easy to sneer at Larry Craig.
Maybe too easy.
He practically has a target tattooed on his forehead-or perhaps I should say on his ass.
It's fun to sling arrows at that target. It's such an easy one to hit. So, well, wide.
Heh heh.
Why not laugh? After all, the guy is a hypocrite, right? He says over and over again that he's not gay - and yet he plead guilty in June to disorderly conduct in a men's room, legal jargon for saying that he was trying to solicit sex from another man.
He plead guilty to trying to have sex with another man-and yet he has been remarkably unsympathetic to gay issues, voting against us being treated equally in marriage, the military and the workplace.
He says he has done nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of-yet rumors that he has slept with (or tried to sleep with) men have been persisting at least since 1982, when he sent out a strange, preemptive press release denying he had slept with Congressional pages (strange because no one had accused him of anything). What is a preemptive press release but a sure sign of feeling ashamed?
He proclaims that the officer's accusations are unfounded-and yet not only did he plead guilty to June's encounter, but another man came forward in May to say that Craig had sex with him in a public bathroom in Washington's Union Station in 2004.
Zzzzing! Let's get him. Hypocrites are fair game. Let's trot out our sarcasm and our best one-liners and see if we can be the one to make people laugh the loudest.
And yet . . . And yet. I find the smile freezing on my face when I put his behavior in context.
Because the Larry Craig story is the worst thing to happen to gays and lesbians in a very long time.
It it makes me uneasy that men who want to have sex with men are still being targeted in public restrooms by police officers. The whole arcane ritual these sex-seekers do (which now is hardly a secret, since every major news organization has done a bathroom expose this week), including using shopping bags to hide their legs and a slow dance of toe-tapping and hand-waving are clearly designed so that innocents don't need to worry about being targeted or exposed to sex they don't want.
But this is not just about the police sting. It's about the media and the public's reaction to news of the police sting.
America isn't coming off a week of sleaze with the understanding that people who are the most anti-gay are usually so because they are terrified of their own closet impulses. Mr. Red State isn't sitting back in his easy chair and thinking, "Those gays sure have a raw deal. Maybe this wouldn't happen any more if they were just given the chance to live openly, marry, serve in the military, and work without fearing discrimination."
America is coming off a week of sleaze that showcased "gay" men having illicit, "disgusting" bathroom sex. Our respectability and normalcy both slipped a few notches, thanks to Larry Craig.
In a week when we should have been focused on the happy news that Iowa had declared gay marriages legal for a few hours; in a week when we should have been promoting, once again, our stability, seriousness, and ability to commit to family life; in a week when we should have been able to sit back and applaud as an Iowa judge made his case for our equality, we instead were forced to listen, over and over again, to graphic dissections of the sex habits of some men who have sex with men.
Instead of being won over by the sweet sight of two young men kissing with happiness after being wed, Americans instead turned away in disgust while watching bathroom exposes which painted gay men as agents of sexual and moral degeneracy.
This is not good.
Once again, we are being defined by what we do sexually instead of who we love, who we commit to, what we believe in.
No, I can't laugh at Larry Craig, because his downfall hurts us more than any of his anti-gay senate or congress votes.
I can't shoot an arrow at Larry Craig because it is not an arrow at all, but a boomerang, and it takes down all of us.
27 Comments for “Don’t Smirk at Craig—Wince”
posted by James on
It is difficult to get past the stereotypes Mr. Craig reinforces when those same stereotypes are reinforced in every Pride Parade in every city. What has the gay community done to change that stereotype? Some gay men are getting married and settling down–but those are mostly “self-loathing assimilators.”
When I was growing up, the Mr. Craig’s drove up and down the strip and picked up the young gay gays–and that was it, that was the whole gay community. You did that in parks, bathrooms, bathouses, etc. That was what being gay meant.
When I rejected all that, I was told I was “in the closet.” Better the closet than tapping my feet in some bathroom and going home to read John Rechy. I wanted to be a man with traditional values and ethics, and for years and years, there was no room for me in the gay community.
So, now, you want to pretend that gays were secretly about marriage all the time. The Mr. Craigs were simply abnormalities, and most gays secretly lived in lifelong, monogamous relationships hoping one day their monogamy would be legal.
Mr. Craig isn’t the problem. The problem is all the gays who promoted that world as the norm for so many years that men like Mr. Craig, who might have been drawn to a monogamous relationship with a man based on traditional values, felt he had to hide not only from straight society but from gay society. His faith and values are just as repulsive to the gay community as his sexual behavior is to the straight community.
How many Mr. Craigs has the gay community forced into bathrooms because they wouldn’t allow gays the freedom to express their sexuality according to traditional faith and values, but instead, imposed a Stonewall-based Pride morality on everyone who tried to come to terms with themselves?
posted by Michigan-Matt on
Jennifer writes: “Because the Larry Craig story is the worst thing to happen to gays and lesbians in a very long time.”
Nawh. That’s missing the glory-moments given to us by Boy George’s stint as Gay Poster Boi, George Michael’s equally lewd but really, really gay toilet escapades or Michael Jackson’s help in advancing what it means to be a gay closeted celeb in America… opps, Middle East.
I still think the very BEST thing for our community is for Craig to keep insisting he’s NOT GAY. I wish my gay brothers would quit giving him ready cover in the closet… we all need to say that Craig is NOT GAY and stick to that story. If he does admit at some point he is, we need to deny him his declared membership in the gayHood and remind the world he is NOT GAY.
By the way, I think McGreevey did and does a lot more damage to gays every single day he remains in the limelight.
posted by MMMM on
To the author Jennifer Vanasco >>>
I share your reaction to that story. And thanks for dispelling the myth that these men are predominantly gay and the other myth that the Craig story is a definitive expose of “gay” culture.
As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum, the public sex phenomenon has been studied, and we know that over half of these men are NOT gay or bisexual. Studies of this kind are linked on Andrew Sullivan’s blog at the URL: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/09/men-sex-and-toi.html.
The study explains that the public sex participants are usually married men who identify as straight (though that population may include some closeted bisexuals and homosexuals). The study says, “54 percent of the men were married and living with their wives. He found 38 percent considered themselves neither bisexual nor homosexual. The men wanted a sexual release that was quick and would not endanger their standing with their family or society. Just 14 percent of the men identified themselves as living-in-the-open homosexuals.”
These men are straight or straight-ish with a fetish for taboo sex, male-on-male kink, risk, and/or exposure.
To those people who think straight men don’t use sex to relate to other men, whether for intimacy or to intimidate, abuse, or otherwise achieve orgasm, I say you have selective perception and ideological blinders.
To James > I appreciate your life experience, but the generalizations you try to make based on your experience are lies and distortions, your rhetoric is fallacious, your assertions are false, and your narrative of history and the current state of affairs is a complete reversal.
To Michigan Matt > I agree that the best response to Craig is to accept his explanation that he is NOT GAY. He epitomizes entirely the ugly repressed underbelly of his traditional straight republican world.
posted by Brian Miller on
Too many “gay commentators” worry about “what other people think” when some scumbucket does something stupid.
Craig was not, and is not, a member of the “gay community.” Claiming that he’s “ruining the reputation of gay people” through being caught is a bit like claiming that Bill Clinton is “ruining people’s impressions of married men.”
Life is far more complex and nuanced than that. Most people who know a gay person know that Craig’s escapades are the exception, not the rule. Those who DON’T know gay people already had preconceived notions that weren’t going to change anyway.
And the real shameful thing is that Democrats and Republicans alike have hypocritically grabbed on to the story in an effort to advance their own agendas about sexual politics, rather than just accept that Craig was, shall we say, less than honorable.
At least we’re going to get an amusing sequel now that he’s decided to fight his expulsion from the Senate (including various committees). All his gay Republican defenders are on a very hot seat at the moment! 🙂
posted by Ingrid on
Since this story broke and comments started flying I kept hoping that someone would make the point that we should not be proud that public bathroom sex equals gay men. So I did the next best thing and made the comment on my blog. I agree with James that some of the blame is with gays themselves. As a lesbian I find it outrageous that other gays are not outraged that this behavior is synanomous with gays. I don’t give a damn whether or not Craig is gay I care about the message we send when we say that gay men were and are forced to engage in public sex because of a hateful society. This doesn’t hold water and takes away from the responsibility of the individual. The question is not whether or not Craig is gay but why do gay men have to have sex in public? From strategically placing shopping bags to tapping in bathroom stalls we have given gay men pass in behavior that is deplorable.
posted by JohnJ on
It’s all of a piece with the incredibly frustrating self-perpetuating cycle of homophobia in this country. Fear that someone might think you are a gay man causing men to mock and ridicule gay men driving men like Craig into the closet who when their tawdry lives are revealed serve to confirm the rightness of that ridicule. Other gay men react not with denial but an in-your-face anger – So, you don’t like queers? Well I’ll give you queer. I’ll stand on a float in my underwear gyrating. And so they feed the cycle in a different way. All that said, this time I do think that some heterosexuals, as obtuse as they are on the topic of homosexuality, are beginning to perceive the link between homophobia and the pathology of men like Craig.
posted by JohnJ on
I should add that some of our straight allies do us no favors when they try to dismiss the kind of behavior Craig was engaged in – It’s innocuous, really. Shouldn’t we be talking about Iraq?
posted by James on
I don’t think the problem is homophobia. I think the problem is that part of the gay community who conflate sexual hedonism with homosexuality. In fact, most gay couples in history up to the 20th century were marked by intense loyalty–Damon and Pythias, Sergius and Bacchus, Achilles and Patroclus, etc. There has been the discovery of a legal contract known as an “affrement” which the French used in the middle ages to bind same-sex couples.
In order to be gay in the late 20th century, you had to give up any sense of sexual ethics or faith or traditional values. I have suffered more mocking for my faith by the gay community than I ever have for my sexuality by the straight community. The gay community I have known is bitter, vicious, cruel, and relentless when it comes to faith, ethics, and values.
I imagine a you Sen. Craig attempting to come to terms with his sexuality. “I’m gay,” he might say, “but I want to live my life with integrity, according to traditional values and my faith.” Can you imagine him saying this in the Stonewall bar? He’d be laughed out of there.
Consequently, it has been impossible for men of faith and values to find a place in the gay community. The gay community is just as responsible, if not more so, for the shame-based underground which has to meet in bathrooms.
If you want to express your homosexuality with integrity, faith, and values, then you will be mocked and derided by the majority of the gay community. Try it. Tell a random 10 gay people that you plan to abstain from sex until married, and you plan to stay with the same partner for life. See how many eyes roll. See how many say, “Oh, honey, that’s so self-loathing–grab a box of condoms, jump on our penis-shaped float, and let’s go!”
posted by JohnJ on
James, you really put the donkey before the cart. I too can’t imagine anyone in the Stonewall bar saying “I want to live my life with integrity”, not really surprising in a world where talking with a friend over a beer could lead to a night in the slammer. People have only so much imagination. Sometimes not even enough to imagine their own deepest desires. Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed plenty of gay men are now saying just that, loud and clear. Sounds like you hang out with a particularly low-class crowd. Your despair over gay men might be alleviated a bit if you spent some time in a similarly low-class straight environment where you would hear talk of getting some pussy ad nauseum.
posted by JohnJ on
James – I meant to say cart before the donkey. Or is it horse?
posted by JohnJ on
And, James, can you imagine Senator Craig saying that in 1950’s Idaho or 1950’s anywhere or in most of today’s churches, for that matter? You suppose gay men would roll their eyes. Not so bad in comparison to complete ostracism and the possibilty of someone coming at you with a baseball bat. You really need to look at the big picture and give gay men a break. After all, who’s more likely to be driving this process of denigration and degradation – the heterosexual majority or the homosexual minority?
posted by Jen on
Sen Craig’s actions were not those of the typical gay man. Gay people have sex with other gay people – at home – or maybe even gay bars – but not in public restrooms. There are only two reasons men resort to having ilicit sexual encounters in public bathrooms: 1. Wives. 2. Children.
posted by James on
So, where is someone like Sen. Craig supposed to turn? Let’s imagine a young guy who really believes in faith and values but discovers he’s gay. You’re right–the church will ostracize him, but so will the gay community, unless he gives up his faith and values. Both his sexuality and his faith are part of his identity, and to survive, he has to give up one or the other.
Even though there are welcoming churches now, the vast majority of gays look down on traditional religion and values. We all know that homophobia in the straight world is bad, bad, bad, but what about the ethicsophobia which pervades the gay world? Why can’t the gay community be just a teensy bit self-critical and take responsibility for the damage it has done with its “anything goes, girlfriend” philosophy?
posted by Charles Wilson on
Larry Craig is not “all of us.” He is a tortured, closeted, far-right wing Republican. He is supported by other closeted and semi-closeted gay Republicans who just can’t quite bring themselves to say that their self-serving strategy of going with the flow has been a disaster.
Gay Republicans should be going to their own and telling these people that they MUST come out of the closet, precisely so Larry Craig will NOT be seen as the face of gay people in power.
But no, that’s not going to happen, and it won’t happen because gay Republicans are the biggest cowards on the planet. They are more scared of coming out of the closet than they are of being arrested in a public toilet. That’s the bottom line, and until it changes things won’t get better for that whole crew.
posted by deputydawg on
What I do not understand is the ecstatic glee that gays on web boards around the country are taking in this affair.
They seem to be obsessed with using Craig’s name in every joke and for every post they come up with.
No doubt the guy was politically at odds with much of the popular gay “agenda”, however I would think that gays who are actually true to their causes would be more concerned with the fact that this guy has apparently been bullied into confessing to a “crime” that was never actually perpetrated.
The whole notion of this stuff strikes me as fundamentally more important than craig’s politics. Gays should be more concerned about being singled out as guy and then targeted for arrest by baiting. While this type of public sex harvesting certainly doesn’t interest me, I would guess that if the cop had not responded to craig’s tapping of the foot, then craig would have simply moved on. But instead he baited him, and then arrested him for what seems to be no harm no foul….regardless of what the intent may have been.
Besides, the guy has experienced tremendous embarrassment and humiliation on a world stage. I think he’s been “punished” enough at this point.
As a gay man I don’t take glee in other people’s misery…..even when their politics don’t agree with mine. To do so would make me just as bad, if not worse, than he is.
posted by MMMM on
Charles Wilson >>> Right on.
James >>> You are STILL ASSUMING CRAIG IS GAY. He himself has said otherwise, and there is little reason to doubt him. If he were gay, Craig could have gone to any number of tame gay venues to socialize, any one of several gay and gay friendly churches to worship, and he could have formed a family, raised children, and otherwise tried to live the kind of purpose-driven life that you describe. The people most actively trying to prevent that in this country are straight bigots in the Republican party, the ones with whom he allied himself for all of his adult and political life, not the harmless and politically powerless twinks who may have called him girlfriend on his way to the toilet one day.
posted by JohnJ on
James – Ethics amounts to treating others as you would be treated yourself. I know, this is too simple for those who feel the need to cling onto an ethnic (ethical) identity with a mindless “we do this, you don’t, therefore we’re better”.
posted by countymounty on
James,
I agree with your last statement.
The gay community, like the black community, will regress until more members ARE willing to publicly acknowledge the very real problems that lie within our cultures and which continue to harm us more than those from outside.
posted by countymounty on
Just to add to my last post:
It’s much easier to remain a perpetual “victim” than it is to acknowledge that some of your problems are of your own accord. This would require people to take responsibility for that, which many do not want to do.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James and Countymounty act as if Larry Kramer hasn’t been pointing out the bad behavior of the “gay community” for decades. Contrary to your misinformed opinions, there is quite a bit of self-criticism and debate amongst gays.
posted by JJason on
Let’s not kid ourselves.
No one was sitting around going,
“Well, I was all set to accept those gays. Yes I was. I have the local pride parade already on my calendar for 2008. I looked up my congressman’s contact information to urge him/her to support gay rights. I was going to write an op-ed piece for my local paper supporting marriage equality. But after Larry Craig, nevermind. You’re all a bunch of perverts.”
James, I’ve been to pride parades for years. At no point in the past 4 years have I seen a float with a closeted senator trying to play footsie with an undercover cop. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a float for self-hating closet cases at a Pride Parade, so please tell us what stereotypes was Craig reinforcing that also appear in every Pride Parade?
I often wonder if someone has actually ever been to a Pride Parade considering the majority of the participants are religious, social, outreach, and political organizations dressed in t-shirts and shorts. But maybe that’s just Chicago.
I would also hardly call waiting a month or so to pleade guilty being “bullied”. If you look at the officer’s statement, it wasn’t just toe tapping. And the officer did not bait him. He simply observed Craig making all the known signals of someone looking for sex, and then arrested him for solicitation.
James, I’m sorry you’ve been mocked for your faith by “the gay community”. My question is, where are these “gay community members” that are mocking you? Probably not at the Unitarian Church, or the Metropolitan Community Church. If you’re hanging out in a bar, chatroom, or other hook-up zone, expect that the people in there will often be catty, bitter, lonely people. That’s why I make friends in other places, not bars.
James, many people are kicked out and attacked by their church. Gays end up turning their backs on religion because of it. A place that’s supposed to be about love turns against them, I’d say that’s enough to make someone very hostile toward religion. It does NOT give them the right to mock you, but you gotta understand it’s hard to fathom your experience. You’re like a fish with legs to them. I’m not saying you have to put up with it, but you should try to understand them. Their faith, their church, betrayed and abandoned them.
There’s also the phenomenon of the outsider. We know there’s nothing wrong with being gay, yet there is the taboo. It makes people wonder, “If being gay isn’t bad, but it’s a taboo…..how many of these other taboos are also harmless?” There is also the idea that “If I’m going to hell for being gay, I might as well have fun on the way.” That’s how hedonism entered the gay mainstream.
Yes, there are the “all the rules change when you’re gay” types. The ones that seem to think everything from monogamy to gravity only applies to straight people. It’s outsider elitism, and that’s all. I haven’t met that many of those types, and I’ve discovered that some of them react negatively because they assume you are judging them for not being like you.
I have a friend who was in an open relationship. It’s not for me, I think relationships are complicated enough without adding outsiders into the mix. But I accepted that this is what he wanted, and he accepted that it wasn’t for me. All I’ve ever been concerned with is that he’s happy, healthy, and making his dreams come true. Perhaps you come off a bit judgemental?
I’ve always had to be selective with my friends, being gay didn’t mean that suddenly an entire community would want to be my friend. But most people are at least nice in general sort of way.
MMMM — Sorry but people toss out “study results” all the time. Many of them aren’t true, or the studies in question are hugely flawed or out of date. I checked out Sullivan’s blog, and then followed the link to the STLtoday.com website.
-The study is from the 70’s. That alone should be a red flag. Times were different then. Gays today, even gays that are Out, do not always answer honestly about their orientation on a survey for fear of reprisal. These men were committing, or attempting to commit felonies, homsexual acts at a time of great intolerance. So it’s very likely they will not admit to being gay or bisexual. The researcher does not seem to have accounted for that.
-There’s also this part” Humphreys conducted in-depth interviews with 100 men. Half of those he interviewed in the bathrooms. The other half he interviewed using clever and controversial methods. He would write down the men’s license plate numbers and track them down a year later. He donned a disguise and talked to the men under the pretense of a social health survey. The men presumably never learned they were part of Humphreys’ study”
So he used a very small sample size, half of whom were interviewed on the spot and the rest he stalked??
All this study shows is that 100 men, in one park, in one city, answered questions by an unorthodox and creepy survey taker. How can you reasonable suggest that this somehow applies to Craig 35 years later in another city?
posted by MMMM on
I don’t think Craig’s changed much since the 70s. LOL. But okay, so the study is as creepy as the public toilet sex phenomenon it treated, the greater point is unchanged, that some or many of these men are still predominantly straight but horny and turned-on by the circumstances. It’s not a “gay culture” issue, it’s a male sexuality issue.
posted by Bobby on
“These men are straight or straight-ish with a fetish for taboo sex, male-on-male kink, risk, and/or exposure.”
–They’re not straight, straight men don’t have those fetishes just like gay men don’t have fetishes for secret sex with women. I have straight friends, they’re not interested in giving blowjobs or getting blowjobs.
posted by JJason on
Your point about them being straight is flawed. You’re ignoring the given circumstances under which the study was conducted, not unlike the man who performed the study. It’s not surprising that 54% of 100 men found cruising toilets in St Louis in 1970 are going to say they’re straight. Is that even remotely surprising? People say a lot of things that are not true. We are the stories we tell ourselves, and sometimes they are lies.
I didn’t cruise toilets, but if you’d talked to me 30 years ago I would’ve told you I was straight, too. My partner would’ve said he was straight too. I’ve only been out to myself for 7 years now. In fact all the gay men I knew thought they were straight 10, 20, 30 years ago. Hell, I had sex with 6 different men over as many years and still considered myself straight. I had all sorts of reasons to deny that I was gay. Self-denial is a powerful thing.
The survey quoted is completely useless.
But what would be interesting is to do an identical study in several cities right now. Or, it would be interesting to go through the list of men who were in the first study and have a follow-up study to see if they still consider themselves straight.
Follow ups are crucial to most surveys.
Again, all this study shows that 54% of 100 St. Louis men in 1970, cruising a secluded toilet, will tell a complete stranger they are not gay. There are a lot of possibilities why, and nothing in the study accounts for possible lying. It’s just as likely that some of that 54% are lying as it is that some of them are telling the truth.
The other way you can look at it is only 14% admit to being gay or bisexual. The rest may or may not be. Hardly gives much insight.
We all know it’s possible to have sex with men without being gay, but the only times I know that happens is with confused and adventurous adolescents, or when a lot of cash is involved.
posted by MMMM on
Again, if you think there are straight men don’t use sex with other men to achieve some kind of intimacy, or to intimidate, abuse, or otherwise achieve a cheap quick and dirty orgasm, I would encourage you to think again. My point still stands that it’s not a gay culture issue. It’s about a segment of male sexuality. And all of you strict Kinsey 6s who can’t imagine a gay man ever using a woman for a casual adventure, and otherwise, or that you know exactly how that phenomenon is delimited, are ignoring far too much of reality, especially when and if you jump in to use the Craig story to beat up on gays. Tsk tsk tsk. Not having it. I’m outie. Have a great weekend.
posted by JJason on
Ah, I see, since your evidence proves faulty and virtually meaningless you retreat to the “I know better than you” tactic. Nice try.
It’s certainly possible that straight men “use sex with other men to achieve some kind of intimacy, or to intimidate, abuse, or otherwise achieve a cheap quick and dirty orgasm” — it’s called prison. I’ve seen no credible evidence of this happening outside of the penal system, that does not involve adventurous young people, or substantial amounts of cash.
Another faulty part of the survey is the fact that Humphreys, the man who conducted the survey, was married with children and deeply closeted himself. You don’t think a deeply closeted homosexual who wants to be straight would have a preponderance of finding “straight” t-roomers? You really believe he was able to keep his own bias out of his work?
Statistics, science in general, isn’t just about collecting data and presenting it. There are proven methods, there are biases that need to be dealt with. 100 men is simply not a large enough sample size to be useful. He didn’t have a control group at all. Doing a survey in one city does not show what’s possible in other cities. Doing a survey once with no follow-up is very problematic. Taboo subjects have a tendency to make people lie, even people who are knowingly engaging in a taboo. Research has to account for that and either eliminate it or minimize it. And finally, using data from over 30 years ago and pretending nothing and no one has changed is intellectually dishonest. It’s what Paul Cameron, NARTH, and their buddies do.
You presume a lot about me, I don’t even know what a Kinsey 6 is, nor do I much care. I’m not the one presuming to know how this phenomenon is delimited, you’re the one using faulty research and ignoring and dismissing all the flaws I’ve just pointed out. There is the saying, “If you torture a statistic long enough, it will confess to anything.” I certainly have not, nor will I ever us the Craig story to beat up on gays. I don’t even know where you’re getting that one from.
You are certainly entitled to the opinion that these men, including Craig, are straight, but for now that is entirely your opinion. There is no credible evidence to support that position. I just explained exactly why the survey is throughly flawed and useless. If thousands of men had been involved, if follow ups were included, if the research was conducted in cities and rural towns all over the country, if the survey had been more recent, it would be useful. Sadly, non of those factors exist, so the survey only shows what 100 men are willing to tell a complete stranger about their sex lives. They could be lying. They could be telling the truth. Without a more methodologically sound survey, we’ll never know for sure.
posted by squireparty on
Party down, tired of towing the line, don’t know why you want to bring me down, BABY, baby, that is not fine…….