{political flamebait redacted by dave}

I'm having a hard time understanding the "mechanics" of illicit gay bathroom sex, though, perhaps owing to the fact that I'm not a Republican senator....

I mean first of all, attempting to play "footsies" with a stranger in the adjacent stall seems like a great way to catch a beatdown...but even if the senator HAD "gotten lucky", and the guy in the next stall actually had turned out to be another gay cruiser(just how common IS this sort of behavior?!) instead of a lowlife cop who spends his time sitting in bathroom stalls all day, how was he planning to have sex between the partitions? Do they do it on the floor? What the fuck?

LOL, some things are probably better left to the imagination...

I'm with you on this one, Logjam. I know I pick stuff up off of public restroom floors ALL the time.
Seriously, though. Almost as interesting as the actual occurrences in the can that day in June is the quick "guilty" plea by the Hon. Mr. Craig., and the delay in this story hitting the front pages. I'm trying to understand what any of us could POSSIBLY conclude from the quick plea of guilty. Maybe it's one of those "damned if you do - damned if you don't" kinda deals. You know, like "exactly when did you STOP beating your wife, Senator?" I don't even recall Craig's (undoubtedly) lame explanation for his guilty plea...

I am confused by the palm up thing! I mean lets think about the interpretation. Is this the gay universal hand signal for I want to give you a handjob right now? Now suppose it were. You have a small stall WITH a toilet. You have a "wide" guy as he describes himself. How in God's name is someone going to kneel down at that spot on the floor and even if they could would it be comfortable? It couldnt be as comfortable as a motel room. I mean if I wanted a tryst thats where I would try to book it. You mean to tell me you are that horny that you would risk doing it in a public restroom. I dont even want to THINK about the mechanics involving oral sex OMG that filthy bathroom floor........there were NO GLORY HOLES either. I dont know about this one I have to side with the Senator on this one. Can anyone who is gay shed some light on this? What was he thinking?
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The Thunderous Crapper 63 Enjoying home toilet advantage since 2004!

Forget the "mechanics" for a moment and consider the following.....

Larry Craig has been a U.S. Senator for 17 years, a U.S. Congressman for 10 years, and before that an Idaho State Senator for 6 years. Folks, that's 33 years experience as a legislator (i.e. a professional law writer). Despite his vast experience in the leagl realm, he claims to have only plead guilty in hopes of "making it all go away". He did not seek legal counsel and now considers it a mistake.

I do not buy that for one minute. There is no way, the guy is that big of a dolt, that he's risen to the position of U.S. Senator, yet does not fully comprehend the U.S. justice system. I think he he knew he was guilty of so much more and chose to take a lighter plea so he could claim "I'm not gay and I have a wide stance in the bathroom stall." To top it all off he blamed his poor decision to plead guilty on a newspaper. It's not my fault, it's the media's.

Brilliant!!!

Excellent, AC. I think he was hoping a quick, quiet guilty plea would keep the spotlight off of the whole affair...and look at how long he was correct. This happened in June, and it "hit" big time, what, a little over a week ago?

To The Thunerous, never heard of a "palm up" sort of signal. Most of the gay men I know would never have an intimate moment around a public toilet. Ever.
Also, I hate to say this, well- most of (85%) the men who come in to get medical help for STD's are the straight married men or the bisexuals. Just stating the truth.
On a lighter note, one time I came in contact with someone in the "other stall" at a campground. I left the trailer to take a poop out of politeness.(trailers are small). And walked up to the shower&stalls, room. (nice, new tiled floor for a campground). Went in and one stall had some guy in it. So walked over to the adjasent stall and went in, was preparing for the poop when a grey snake crawled out from behind the toilet. I screamed and fell, legs sliding under into the adjacent stall and knocking my face on the toilet seat. The other guy yelled, "what the hell is going on!?".. nice way to start a camping trip. And yes my palms were up at that moment.

I wonder what "palms up" meant to the snake.

Logjam nailed this one, the list of religious right preachers and politicians caught in this type of behavior is huge. Here's a sampling from the last little while:Ted Haggard, Glenn Murphy Jr., Jim West, Ed Schrock, Mark Foley.

What pisses me off is most of these people are anti gay because they LOATH that aspect of their own sexuality. It's like some guy campaigning against abortion because he fucked up as a teen got some girl pregnant and then paid to have the abortion but later FOUND GOD and decided it was all wrong (but still hid his little secret).

Here's a bit from a weekend paper accompanying the Craig Story, I think some of our more homophobic posters here will no doubt shrink from commenting.

"In looking at cases such as these, psychologists point to seminal research on sexual arousal and homophobia, published in 1996.

The study measured male sexual arousal and found that homophobic males were aroused by explicit homosexual images but non-homophobic males were not.

While it doesn't mean that all homophobic men are gay, "it's curious that the men rated higher in homophobia had higher penile arousal than those who did not," says Trevor Hart, a Toronto clinical psychologist and professor at Ryerson University.

"It's possible, with the support of the study, that some of these men are in a bit of denial about their own feelings," Hart says.

Gay or straight, seeking sex in a bathroom stall is just plain creepy.

I "play for the other team" so to speak, and I too find cruising a bit creepy. The only place I've ever seen glory holes in a mens' room was a particularly trashy Greyhound station, and they had nipped that problem in the bud by removing the stall doors (this probably also curbed illicit drug use somewhat, though the hardcore junkies won't care) This does hamper shameful shitters, though I honestly hope that very few of them have to use that filthy bathroom.

As to the above, I can definately see that in some homophobes - anger at other gays due to fear of being exposed. After all, it works for school bullies, secretly gay or not: as long as they accuse other kids of being "fags", they hope, no one will dare say it to them.

On the other hand, though, I think there's also a fair percentage of homophobes who are ignorant of how "gay" really works and are terrified of being hit on by gays or, if they're really in the dark, afraid of it somehow rubbing off and them unwillingly becoming gay. I've heard tales from men who claimed to be straight until a man raped them, which "turned them gay". Some ignorant people seem to think that somewhere there's a gay/straight switch that an outside trigger can switch on, against your will. And there's still another group: those who really do simply believe that homosexuality is the number one worst sin - the belief of it being a sin is widespread, sadly, but I think that has a lot to do with homophobes finding it "disgusting", as well the idea that all gays are promiscuous and promiscuity is a sin (At least I can see where they're coming from with that one, but how many straight and by guys and gals don't sleep around a lot?)

One more note: as much as I do say "homophobes", I really should say "homophobic people". They're just people, no matter what they think, just as I'm just a person, no matter what I think or how I live. As much as human nature prevents "Can't we all just get along?" from working for very long, it's rather true: we're all just people.

As for Senator whats-his-name, I definately don't want a guy with severe homophobia as my senator. Or as my pastor. But dude, loads of guys cruise for sex. And I'll bet there are tons of funny excuses made when they get caught: "But dude, I'm an important (place position, title or job here)!!"

Some good points, Jake. Another interesting angle has recently been noted by some of the talking heads on the all "news" channels: another married politico, David Vitters, was recently revealed to have been a regular customer of a call-girl service.
But this "scandal" involves hetero sex, and hasn't generated NEARLY the hysteria surrounding Craig. The homo-intent angle is clearly what has everyone running for political cover and expressing such outrage.

What's even interesting to me is that I don't think I give a shit if he was cruising for sex in a bathroom. I want a politician who does a good job taking care of our country and fighting for children's and animal rights, putting taxes where they should be put (into the roads and upkeep of our schools, not into his pockets), and finding better ways to deal with the problems of our society. If he happens to be a ho, then, well, he's a ho.

It gets on my nerves that religion, while supposedly separated from state, still manages to leech into the arena.

Then again, if these holy roller politicians just kept their obnoxious, judgemental, fire and brimstone mouths shut, no one would care when they got caught slumming. They cause their own problems by denying that they're who they are, men who are in power because they have more testosterone than other men, who have bigger drives, larger appetites, and who therefore will want to get laid more often, no matter if it's with one team or the other.

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.....hugging bunnies since 1969
www.daphneszoo.com

You've hit it dead center, Daph. Some of the coverage of the Craig matter has dealt with his self-righteous pontificating when Clinton got his helmet buffed in the Oval Office. It's funny (and infuriating) to watch those clips now, wondering whose bung hole Craig was plundering in the can just before he sat down for his date on "Meet the Press".

The more politicians do stuff like this, the more song material we'll have! KEEP IT UP!!!!! SUPPORT BROWN METAL!!!!!

Maybe he was trying to grab ahold of the bottoms of the stall walls so that he could bear down with all of his strength on a particularly difficult turd? Can't you just see him setting there with his legs splayed open, bent completely forward, holding onto the bottom of the stall walls, red-faced and straining with all of his might to get this dry, basketball-sized turd out of his butt?

Personally, I would give anything to get up on the witness stand and profess on the public record that I was only taking a good shit than plead guilty to solicitation charges during arraignment. But, then, I suppose that's why I'm not a U.S. Senator either.
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Yo quiero Taco Bell.

Ya know deja that should be his defense! Your honor it was a particularly wicked shit that refused to come out so I was holding on to the bottoms of the stalls with the palms of my hands to get better leverage. I never thought of that one before!
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The Thunderous Crapper 63 Enjoying home toilet advantage since 2004!

My wife just told me she heard that Larry Craig just returned to DC from Idaho -- via Denver. Poor guy will never be able to fly through Minneapolis again. But more importantly, the poor guy has a bathroom stigma attached to him. He'll never allow himself to be seen entering or exiting a bathroom in public ever again.

Imagine how difficult that must be: in order to save public face, he'll have to avoid public bathrooms forever. It's worse than be a Shameful Shitter -- it's being a Stigmatized Shitter.

..."The defense enters Exhibit A, the good Senator's flatulence." This is some of the most frank, thoughtful discussion I've read on the Craig affair. Just found the site today - and it's love at first peristolsis.

I'm in a Usenet discussion with someone regarding Larry Craig, and have been looking for some kind of proof that "palm up" has significance. I'm certain it does, but can't find any back-up.

Sgt. Karsnia METICULOUSLY documented the hand position and movement in his police report. I mean, it is the most detailed part of the report! It only makes sense that this has significance.

In listening to the audio, Sgt. Karsnia is ADAMANT that the hand that came under the divider was Craig's LEFT, and that the palm was up. And Craig was adamant that it was NOT his left hand.

Clearly, something about this is a signal.

Is it the palm up, is it using the left rather than the right hand, or is it, as I'm starting to suspect, using the hand OPPOSITE the divider wall under which you want to reach? (I say this because it is also mentioned that the thumb was facing the front of the stall -- if the right hand had gone under palm-up, the thumb would be facing the back.)

Any comments? Even if you know someone or know OF someone who knows this is a signal, I'd like to hear. (Might be a signal just in that one bathroom at MSP, too...)

Don't be so hard on the guy. I say that because... I've done it! Driving home to Virginia from Ohio is a looooooong trip so when i stopped at a reststop in maryland i was "feelin" it. Did the generic palm up signal and in minutes i left a happy man.
The point Im making is... at least he was generous enough to signal the other guy, instead of just gettin down and dirty from the beginning.

If I was in a public stall, and a hand came under the partition palms up, that person would be taking back a log shaped gift. Probably not the one he was hoping for though.