Toilet training

I admit it: I had no idea that tapping your foot while sitting in a public toilet stall was some sort of sexual signal. Touching foot-to-foot, okay that makes more sense, and the fingers under the partition, yeah I can see there might be something more to that than just an unsanitary wave.

So US Senator Larry Craig has helped to educate millions of men about sexual signals in the men's room. But what, exactly, has he done beside that? What crime?

He supposedly engaged in “lewd behaviour”, but what's “lewd” about tapping your foot? Let's be clear here: He did not engage in any sexual act while in that stall. As I heard someone recently remark, how is what he did really any different from asking someone in a bar to go home with him?

Well, it is different. Craig was in a public place where most people would have the expectation of being able to use the facilities for their intended purpose. Also, as an apparently deeply closted man, he'd never go to a bar or any other establishment where he could openly seek sex with similarly minded men in a place where those who aren't interested won't be around.

These days, most men caught in these situations lead lives that make them appear heterosexual, even to the point of marrying and having children. Being so deeply closeted, the only way they can act on their sexual nature is to seek out these clandestine (and dangerous) meeting places. Openly gay men have plenty of other options.

However, for years police have used these entrapment techniques and before the advancement of gay liberation their crusades caught plenty of gay men. These men would be charged with criminal offences and, even without any evidence, they would often plead guilty to avoid exposure. In some places, the men would face felony charges. In others, their offences landed them on “sex offender” lists, even decades after the events.

Entrapment like this is still used as a tool of oppression. All too often, as in this case, there's no real crime committed, and the police still rely on closted men paying any fines to try and avoid being outed, as Larry Craig did.

So, while I'm always glad to see some rabidly anti-gay wingnut exposed as a hypocrite, I'm not too thrilled about how his hypocrisy was revealed. Entrapment is entrapment, no matter the ideology involved, and its long use to harass and oppress gay men is an issue that still hasn't been dealt with.

Mind you, if America had healthier attitudes to sex and sexuality in general, then it's likely that these events would never have happened, and it would've taken more than a tapping foot to see Larry Craig arrested or exposed.