I don't suffer from fear of flying - it's fear of airports that cripples me. Anything could happen to you in an airport: You could be apprehended by the TSA, the DEA, and, as we just learned from the Larry Craig case, by the vice squad. I'm at the point where I'm beginning to develop subsidiary phobias - to Cinnabon, Sbarros, and, most recently, airport restrooms.
I don't know whether lesbians hook up in airport ladies' rooms. Judging from my lesbian friends, they don't hook up at all. They fall in love, move in together, and start devoting themselves to home improvements. But if they do, on occasion, cruise airport restrooms in the manner of a U.S. Senator, what signaling techniques do they use? And could I have inadvertently been employing them?
Because, face it, how many of us knew that the way to attract a fellow male stall-dweller was by tapping your foot and swiping your hand along the floor? Just three days ago, in DFW (Dallas/Ft. Worth airport to you infrequent flyers), I was in the ladies' room performing the well-known automatic-faucet-activating gesture: frantically waving my hands, palm down, under the faucet, hoping to activate the sensor. Then, just before screaming, "Why don't they let us turn on our own damn faucets?" I realized that the hand-waving could be a signal and that the lady at the adjacent sink could be an officer of the law. I hastily abandoned the effort to wash.
Once - and I admit this with some trepidation-- I even consciously communicated with the occupant of an adjacent stall. What I said was: "Could you pass me some toilet paper?" Then I reached down under the partition separating us to collect the proffered paper. Now I realize it would have been wiser to leave the restroom unblotted, because a hand reaching into one's stall is surely a Craig-like signal.
For the last six years, between September 01 and today, my main airport worry was that I might look or act like a terrorist. No dangling earrings or dark lipstick, was my rule, though I had no hard evidence that female terrorists prefer them. No anxious glances at the uniformed personnel. No reading Guns and Ammo; instead carry Real Simple and Martha Stewart's Living. No tantrums when the TSA confiscated my eyeliner. But now I see that my efforts to look less like a terrorist might have made me look more like a, heaven forfend, lesbian.
Short of some undisclosed evidence that the 9/11 killers were closeted Wahabist gays, you may wonder, as I do, why - with the "threat level" at an ominous orange - agents of the law are being deployed to detect people of alternative sexualities. Larry Craig was apprehended by a man apparently consigned to spend his entire day on the can, watching for errant fingers. Possibly this fellow has some intestinal issues which made this a necessary posting. But, sphincter control permitting, could he not have been more usefully employed, say, interviewing passengers as to their willingness to blow themselves up to score some theological point?
This is what El Al, the Israeli airline, does, and it's believed to have the tightest security in the world. Its security people no doubt have bathroom breaks, but they spend a lot of their time on their feet too, interviewing prospective passengers: Why are you traveling? Who will you be seeing? Why aren't you carrying any tourist books? El Al doesn't rely on interviews alone of course. They also confiscated my baggy of peanuts, though who knows what havoc you could wreak with them.
The official justification for the security measures that have made air travel so scary is that they keep us safe - and, beyond that, free. But I'd feel safer and a whole lot freer if I didn't have to worry about accidentally impersonating a gay person. I'd feel freer still if I knew it didn't matter, travel-wise, whether I was gay or straight. If lesbians want to cruise the ladies' rooms for quickies, which I very much doubt that they do, and if one of them should hit on me, which I find even more unlikely, I can always say, "Uh, not right now, I've got a plane to catch."
As for the fellow who unintentionally revealed the presence of the sex police in our airport restrooms: I'm hoping Larry Craig comes back and comes out. This will no doubt involve a tearful public renunciation of his past homophobia and a lifetime membership in the Log Cabin Republicans. But he'll meet plenty of guys, and in the end it will be so much easier not to have to pretend to take a leak every time he needs a little loving.
There has been an unhealthy glee in seeing a right wing homophobe/sexophobe get "caught". But "caught" doing what? Carried away in the personality and politics of the event people are ignoring the basic facts of what happened.
Craig DID NOTHING ILLEGAL. He tapped and bumped his foot, he brushed his hand along the stall, he placed his luggage by the door... all legal. He is a creepy right winger..icky but legal.
He was arrested for what the OFFICER THOUGHT about what Craig might have THOUGHT. Scary huh? Thousands of men's lives have been ruined over the years and are being ruined right now, for what an officer THOUGHT they THOUGHT. Shades of the KGB.
As a woman I have been approached by men for "hooking up" in many ways over the years; some polite and flattering and some very crude, offensive and explicit. As long as someone does not proceed to harass or assault anyone, simply asking for sex should not be a criminal offense.
We have all known of women-and a few men, who were stalked - or worse.In all cases the stalking victims were told that until the stalker/s DID - NOT THOUGHT - "something illegal' the police could not touch them.
No one should be arrested for merely asking another adult for sex, period. As You pointed out in your article, the other person can, as Nancy reminded us, just say no.
Men who are presumed to be seeking sex with men are the only ones who are routinely arrested all across the nation for possibly being interested in sex with another person and indicating that interest in no way that otherwise breaks the law.
What if women undercover officers arrested men in the same way for approaching women. The numbers of men arrested would be staggering.
ACLU and civil rights activists, American citizens interested in fairness, where are you?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09/17/2007-09-17_study_more_men_failing_to_wash_hands_in_.html
I can't believe the gall of the person who scolded the mother about letting her son wander around alone just because she's afraid of what he might see, hear or fall victim to in a public restroom. Letting your children go to the restroom by themselves (something kids want to do as soon as they're old enough) isn't the equivalent of leaving them alone to wander unattended!
Mr. Smart Mouth doesn't want policemen in the potties, and yet he thinks it isn't safe for children to go into them alone; could it be there's a connection between police presence and child safety that he's missing? Or could it be that, just like Ms. Ehrenreich, he thinks the potty is an appropriate place for adults to grab quickie sex?
As for the guy who presented himself as an authority on what Gay men do in public restrooms, he should speak for himself! As a Gay man, I found his comments highly offensive; they had nothing to do with me. Only hedonists and closet cases haunt public restrooms. In their own minds, these men may have legitimate reasons for doing so, but society has a different take on such behavior, and so do I.
It infuriates me that there are so many knuckleheads who think adults should be able to turn public spaces into orgy rooms . . . and the kids be damned! Police patrol public restrooms because of complaints about inappropriate behavior in them, and there's nothing wrong with that.
When policemen are made out to be villains for apprehending a sicko like Larry Craig, it tells me our society is in far worse shape than I'd imagined; and when a respected journalist like Ms. Ehrenreich joins the vilifiers, it tells me she's doesn't have as much on the ball as I was previously given to believe.
It boggles my mind, but then I never do anything more than pee and wash my hands in the airport loo. A cab and hotel are usually close by and it just feels so good to step outside and away from all that palpable paranoia anyway. Idiots deserve to be caught - not that there's anything wronng with it.
IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, besides eveyone knows lesbians are born coupled.
I can sorta see that you wouldn't want to go into a public bathroom to be surprised by groaning, grunting and slurping in the stall next to you, especially if you are with a child.
However, we can thank the Regressive Right for being so freaked out about sex & the human body and making these laws.
Whether it makes sense or not, there ARE public decency laws that people have to follow.
You break the law, you should have to pay. Willing partner or no.
I'll leave it to those who publish scholarly material on the behavior of gay males to give the reasons why some adult gay males prefer anonymous gay sex in public rest rms.
I'm sorry you can't seem to find a convenient outlet for your manly urges. There's got to be room for creativity here. Dumbass teenagers generally find a place (I know I did, and I always used a condom, for christ's sake). I find it hard to believe that thousands of sixteen year olds are out-smarting you guys.
What can I say? Don't be a fool, stay in school .... you'll find better places to hook up.
That being said, I am creeped out by the evidence against Sen. Craig (whom I despise as a person and a lawmaker). The case against Sen. Craig is circumstantial, subjective, and inferential. The last time I used a men's room, I was the only one there, but my shoe was only about an inch from the edge of the stall. If there had been someone in the next stall, and he had been in a similar posture, there would have been less that 3" between our shoes.
It also comes down to his word against the cop's. It's not 100% clear to me that we should take the word of a policeman over that of a senator. Was there any videotape of this shoe tap? Or of the alleged hand signal? I hardly think so! (I hope not!)
As far as the guilty plea is concerned, innocent people plead guilty to misdemeanors all the time. It's not supposed to be that way, but it is. Of course, when you plead guilty, you have blown (so to speak) your legal presumption of innocence.
Why don't more people remark on the beautifully simple system popular in Europe, where you step on a button or lever on the floor to flush or turn on the sink? Simple, reliable, and it doesn't consume billions of batteries (and make us look like idiots) like America's tricked-out toilets and sinks.
I guess I answered my own question: too simple and sensible.
1.I learned this from a Chinese restroom attendant: To keep the water from the electronic faucet flowing,just keep your thumb steady in front of the little red light under the faucet while you get your opposite hand wet.Repeat with other hand. Soap up. Rinse as above. No waving! No problem!
2.When arrested, do not offer the police officer your Senate card and say, "What do you think of that?" (This is particularly good advice if you are a Republican in a Dem state.)
the kids want to stop on a long road trip:
"I TOLD you to go before we left!"
Also,I remember the anecdote that Jack Paar years and years ago attributed to Tallulah Bankhead. She was in a stall where there was no toilet paper. She asked the woman in the next stall, "Darling, do you have any tissue?" When the answer was negative, she said, "Then would you have two fives for a ten?"
Thanks for the good laugh about fear of sending signals while trying to get those annoying taps to start! Never thought of it but probably will from now on and laugh.