It’s always hard when you’re part of a group that large segments of society look down upon, to know when jettisoning your wackos (and every group has them) is the preferable thing to keeping them. On the one hand, the wackos hurt the image of your group with the public at large. On the other hand, they often times make significant contributions to your group’s activism, and ostracizing them will actually hurt more than it will help. I say this in answer to a question in one of Clayton’s posts:
If it is a tiny minority, why do supposedly respectable gay rights groups like Lambda Legal and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force feel the need to defend it or provide legal advice about how to deal with the legal consequences? This would be equivalent to Focus on the Family providing instructions for Christians about how to get away with assaulting homosexuals–confirming a false and nasty stereotype.
Gays are at a point now where they ought to think about shedding their wackos, and distancing themselves from gays who choose to have sex in public places. But as the article that Clayton updates with points out, a lot of these guys are living normal, respectable lives, outside of their bathroom habits.
I’m not sure why it’s so hard to believe that these guys aren’t necessarily gay. If you’re a mainstream, out of the closet gay guy, you don’t need to resort to public restrooms to get your cheap thrills, you can go to a gay bar and pick someone up.
But if you’re in a marriage, and have absolutely no dignity, or care little for your commitment for your spouse, a cheap thrill at an airport bathroom while on a business trip might seem a convenience with little chance of the wife finding out. Affairs and prostitutes cost money, and time. Hotels show up on credit cards.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending sex in public, but I’m also not sure I’d dismiss the notion that this might not be a problem that’s limited to the gay community.
If you think only gay people have sex in public places…well…let’s just say that *some* hetero people think the risk of getting caught is part of the fun. I’ll say no more. :) But some of the girls I met in college had some crazy ideas…heh.
What people like Clayton fail to realize is that fucking of course gay people don’t develop sexually the way we straight folk do–because there are tons of really hateful folk like Clayton telling them day in and day out that gay people are misguided, that they’re sinful, that they’ve got a mental problem, that they’re morally deficient, that they lead an unhealthy lifestyle, etc etc. People like Clayton go out of their way to make sure that gay people feel like most people find their sexuality to be something shameful…
So it’s no surprise that lots of gay people feel differently about sexuality than straights do. Open minded though I am, I’m also straight as an arrow…and I don’t remember anyone ever beating me over the head about how I should be ashamed about my attraction to the opposite sex or that I was going to hell because of something I couldn’t control.
Well said PGP
I’m curious: is Sebastian-PGP posting from the 1960s? We don’t live in a society anymore that regards homosexuality as shameful or disgusting. We haven’t for several decades. At least when I graduated high school in 1974, homosexuality was widely regarded as just a little unusual–not shameful or disgusting.
I went to a college with an 85% male population. There was little, if any, gay sex going on. There was also very little hetero sex going on. I think the reason for this is that it was inhabited by nerds.