But I think we need to create the circumstances to make it fair for everybody. Every time this discussion comes up, someone chimes in with, "What makes you think gays are attracted to straights anyway? We go into the shower, just to get clean, not to leer. You've already showered with gays at the in gym, and there have been no problems." But, there have been problems. I've had bad experiences in my local gym.

As I wrote on my blog, back in August:

Little did I know that my YMCA gym membership came with a complementary introduction to gay locker room culture. Not being gay, I find the benefit unwelcome. I recently joined the Embarcadero YMCA, one block from my employment.

Being a pre-op tranny and all, this may all seem a bit surreal for the average person. Hormones have smoothed out the contours of my physique. Yet, as a serious cyclist, and regular surfer, my body does have a certain symmetry.

It becomes very apparent that there is a sizable gay population that uses the facilities. It's not like I went around asking people their sexual orientation or anything. I didn't have to. Leering stares, shower trolls, steam room exhibitionism and a sign that reads something like, "Sexual activity will not be tolerated," have made it clear. Its not like the gym is located in the Castro. Its freaking by the Embarcadero business district.

I don't feel comfortable walking around naked, even in a gym. I especially don't feel comfortable making my way to the shower. I've been watched, and followed into the shower area. But, apparently, others are not so shy. People walk around and otherwise linger without clothes, for no apparent reason. When I do have to undress, I have repeatedly found myself being stared at. In my opinion, his type of behavior is sexual harassment.

I find especially annoying the set of lockers from which there is a direct line of vision into the shower area. If the behaviors exhibited in the locker room were exhibited by a man toward a woman in a different environment, it would be call harassment. Why has it become okie dokie to behave this way in the locker room?

"Gay, straight, black, white, Republican, Dem, Conservative, Liberal... poor old Robert Byrd really, really needs to retire..."

___________________

Robert Byrde was the only senator with the fucking balls to repeately call out the Bush Administration for its criminal war in Iraq. I'd rather have a politically incorrect man in the senate, than the neo-male, get along to go along, correct thinking, pussies that are there now.

...and certainly not any actual evidence that he was gay. We certainly know that he was married (to women) twice.

"Nowhere in the ancient sources is it explicitly stated that Alexander had homosexual relationships, but it is nevertheless strongly implied. For instance, Aelian writes of Alexander's visit to Troy where "Alexander garlanded the tomb of Achilles and Hephaestion that of Patroclus, the latter riddling that he was a beloved of Alexander, in just the same way as Patroclus was of Achilles"."[136] Noting that the word "eromenos (an. Gr. for "beloved")" in ancient Greek does not necessarily bear sexual meaning, Alexander may indeed have been bisexual, an orientation, which in antiquity did not bear any ethical controversies as can often be the case today. What is certain is that Alexander married twice, Roxana, daughter of a Bactrian nobleman, Oxyartes, out of love;[137] and Stateira, a Persian princess and daughter of Darius III of Persia out of political interest.[138]." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great#Relationships]

In any event, he would not have been lurking around the Castro here in SF, what ever his sexual orientation.

I think you are largely correct. A Catholic Priest named Charles Fiore has sad something along similar lines, but he actually does blame homosexuality itself.

"A 'gay' culture is growing among clergy of the American Catholic Church that receives support from members of the hierarchy as well as from those directly involved in the training of priests, according to a Catholic priest-theologian."

"'The problem is not clerical pedophilia,' Fiore told WND, 'but homosexuality.' The distinction is important, Fiore noted, because most victims of Catholic clergy abuse are adolescents."

'Strictly speaking,' Fiore stated, 'pedophilia is the sexual molestation of a pre-pubescent child of either sex,' but the overriding problem is the abuse of older children from 12 to 18. 'More than 90 percent of the cases,' Fiore observed, "involve the clerical molestation of teen-age young men."

On an totally unrealated subject, the freakin' Cadillac Advertisements on the ise of the webpage are so aggressive, they actually pop out and hinder participation in this forum. Salon ought to be ashamed of putting such obstrusive ads on these pages.

I don't buy that argument. I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy in now.

I'm starting to feel like a 2nd class citizen.

"just put men in cages"

______________

They are. Why do you think we have the highest per capita incareration rate in the fee world?

you know feminists won't take a stand against it, and if you think "slut shaming" is bad, try being called a rapist, after a false rape allegation.

This is what they should do with women that make up rape allegations; sentence them to the time that the accused would have served if he'd been convicted of rape. Oh, yeah, she should have to serve her sentence in a male prison, so she can get treated like convicted rapists do in prisons.

when he discusses sex reassignment surgery due to botch circumcision, yet does not bother to mention john money or the david reimer situation.