lol @ larry craig

[tiddles]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/audio/politics/craig-audio-msnbc.mp3

the more this story develops the funnier it gets

i tend to spread my legs when i lower my pants

[Miroslav]

Re: lol @ larry craig

We have Senator Craig, who is obviously gay and apparently gets turned on by taking dumps in a public restroom... and then we also have Florida Rep. Bob Allen, who apparently gets off on blowing other men in public parks for $20.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289137,00.html

Wanna bet that these two have met before?

[tiddles]

Re: lol @ larry craig

ahahah you can't make this shit up, pure comedy gold.

although it hurts a bit to that these are the guys that make our laws...

[KinKyJ]

Re: lol @ larry craig

I'd lick it like this!

Funny shit that Craig being such a gay basher gets caught with... his pants down

[AntonyM]

Re: lol @ larry craig

These politicans are just wild rubes
who have never be put in check
with the little bit of power they wield.
Fortunately, they are too stupid for their good
and provide us with a little bit of humor
via their idiotic behavior

[toasty]

Re: lol @ larry craig

I think we need to start an official "Republican Sexcapades" thread and just add to it as needed when yet another family-values-promoting talking head is exposed as a complete hypocrite. It would probably be longer than the nonsense thread in GYY.

[toasty]

Re: lol @ larry craig

I love the explanation that he has a "wide stance" when he's taking a dump. The guy's a US Senator, FFS, and he's talking publicly about how he shits. Pure gold.

It's tough to imagine a circumstance where my pooping technique would be an issue of national concern.

[toasty]

Re: lol @ larry craig

For whatever reason, St. Louis' local press always tries to draw some sort of local connection to any national story. Most of the time, its a pretty strained connection. Just noticed this story today, and it's actually a really interesting read about what is evidently known as "the tearoom trade." Check it out if you're the least bit interested.

In Forest Park, the roots of Sen. Craig's misadventure
By Todd C. Frankel
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/31/2007

ST. LOUIS ? Back in the 1960s, long before a U.S. senator got busted for lewd behavior in an airport bathroom, it was called "the tearoom trade."

But social researchers knew almost nothing about it.

So a young graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis started digging. He spent months hanging out in the public restrooms of St. Louis' Forest Park. He wanted to observe the tearoom trade in action: men who met for brief, anonymous homosexual trysts in public. He wanted to discover what compelled them.

Laud Humphreys' research was pioneering. It shattered stereotypes. It also cost him his job.

Humphreys discovered the majority of men visiting "tearooms" were married and generally upstanding citizens. Many did not think of themselves as gay or bisexual. In his groundbreaking 1970 Ph.D dissertation, "Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Personal Places," Humphreys detailed the trade's constant rituals: shoe-tapping and reaching under the stalls as a covert way to seek out willing partners.

"This is exactly what you find in the case of (U.S. Sen.) Larry Craig," said John Galliher, sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and co-author of a Humphreys biography.

The parallels between Humphreys' research and the accusations against Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho, are striking. The undercover cop described how the senator tapped his foot in a stall at the Minneapolis airport in June and reached under the divider as an invitation for "lewd conduct." Even the senator's very public "I am not gay" protest earlier this week matches the theme of men whose actions do not match their public identities.

It was as if the Craig case had been plucked from Humphreys' pages, said Wayne Brekhus, another Missouri sociology professor and biography co-author. "Even this dance of nonverbal anonymity, it seems to have been preserved for 35-plus years."

Humphreys, a former Episcopalian priest from Oklahoma, began his research to learn what motivates men to seek quick, impersonal sexual gratification in open areas.

He stationed himself at different Forest Park washrooms ? the same small, stone buildings scattered through the park to this day. There was no shortage of research material: He wrote of witnessing 20 sex acts in just one hour while he waited out a thunderstorm at one restroom.

Humphreys noted how the men would use silent signals ? call and response foot-tapping and finger-pointing ? to seek out willing partners.

Even in the 1960s, police were wise to the game.

"When a homosexual takes a seat in the adjacent commode and starts tapping his foot," Humphreys wrote, "the (police) decoy will tap back."

That is what allegedly happened in Craig's situation.

"At 12:18 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," the airport police sergeant wrote in his report. "Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly."

Craig motioned with his hand under the divider, according to the officer, who then held his police ID by the floor for the senator to see. The senator claimed his intentions were misconstrued: He said he has a "wide stance" during bathroom trips and that he was attempting to pick up a piece of paper.

But the senator pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. When the case became public this week, he claimed he was not guilty. Humphreys, who died in 1988, would have been transfixed by the senator's case, his biographers say.

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.

Humphreys found that 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.

"Most of the people who do these things are actually heterosexual," said Joel Jackson, youth advocacy coordinator for Project Ark, a St. Louis-based AIDS outreach group.

So the tearooms ? a slang term of unknown origin ? were populated not by gay men, but by supposedly straight men. The idea that a man could identify as a heterosexual while having homosexual sex was shocking. Yet it fit a larger sociological research interest in the diverging roles of a person's identity and actions.

Humphreys coined the term "breastplate of righteousness" to describe men who used the cloak of social and political conservatism to conceal their deviant behavior.

So while some people scoffed when Craig, a socially conservative Republican, claimed at a press conference that he was not gay, some sociologists believed him.

"I think Senator Craig is a hypocrite," Galliher said, "but I don't see him as a gay man."

The senator's case also brought attention to the little-known tearoom trade. Today, websites share ratings and comments on different public places for homosexual sex. There are hundreds listed in the St. Louis area, from restrooms along the highway to big-box stores in Kirkwood to shopping malls in Chesterfield and Frontenac.

But the bathrooms in Forest Park have fallen largely dormant, according to these websites and police.

"Forest Park for a while was a huge problem," said city police spokesman Richard Wilkes. "It took awhile for it to be cleaned up."

And because of the covert nature of the signals used to gauge sexual interest, many people might not even know what is going on. "If you're not looking for it, you might not notice it," Brekhus said.

When Humphreys published his findings, the Washington University chancellor was outraged ? he felt Humphreys had committed a felony by witnessing a felony and not reporting it. The school threatened to withhold Humphreys' doctorate. He was forced to leave. He taught briefly at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He finished his career at Pitzer College in California.

At the time of the tearoom study, Humphreys had a wife and two children. Many people wondered why he was attracted to his area of study.

Years later he provided an answer.

He revealed that he, too, had been living a lie. He was gay.

[tiddles]

Re: lol @ larry craig

i can't imagine doing that "research". my new favorite part of this story is when Craig opened his press conference with "Thank you all for coming out today"
lol

[33L]

Re: lol @ larry craig

Fuck Craig, hypocrite that he is. This story represents the foulest, most asinine aspect of modern Judeo-Christian culture. He hates himself so much that he is going to lobby against himself. He is sick, mentally, as are so many of his constituents. But, this is what you get when your country's politicians are simply low-paid actors working for corrupt corporate interests who try to garner votes by appealing to sexually repressed peoples' pathos.

[toasty]

Re: lol @ larry craig

Looks like Craig is officially not going to resign on September 30 after all. First he was going to resign (or it was his intent to resign), then he was going to resign unless he was cleared before 9/30, now he's only going to resign if his guilty plea is upheld. It just keeps getting better. If I were the GOP, I'd be livid at him for continuing to drag this hysterical story on.

Does he honestly think that, even if he does stay on, he'll be able to be effective? The guy is a punchline...

[WaveSculptor]

Re: lol @ larry craig

Humphreys coined the term "breastplate of righteousness" to describe men who used the cloak of social and political conservatism to conceal their deviant behavior.

It's critical that the American public comes to understand this intensifying divergence of personal identity and social role-playing, as the article's author puts it. I'm reminded of another quote:

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross

Of course, even politicians are entitled to their private lives, but if this creates a conflict of interest, for example a gay senator who lobbies against gay rights, it makes a mockery of our entire political process. The more we come to understand this phenomenon, the better we can perceive the wolves in sheep's clothing who would sooner devour the last of us than lower themselves to serving the masses.

[Miroslav]

Re: lol @ larry craig

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_on_go_co/craig_senate

yes, I'm guilty...............................well actually, no I'm not

ok I'm going to resign!...............................no, on second thought I'm not

I'm not really gay!.........................................oh wait, yes I am!

MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND you retarded monkey

[Huggie Smiles]

Re: lol @ larry craig

are you a retarded monkey? Yes I am!