Letters to the Editor
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Oooh.
Am I the only on who got a little turned on by this article?
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I think there will be a lot of "anonymous" postings . . . .
You know, I'll go to the barricades defending gay rights, gay marriage, etc. But after reading this article I think how great it would have been if I had not read this article. Not because it made me want to have my dick sucked in a bathroom, but because it made me want to join the religious right.
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stall party of two
I gotta tell you. I noticed it isn't just gay men.
Ahem.
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Thank you!
Finally this middle-aged heterosexual woman begins to understand at least a little.
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Yuk
Men never cease to gross me out - and I'm straight. Shame.
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Thanks for this article, though I'm guessing a lot of cowards will avoid adding a letter except as "Anonymous."
I said something similar to this (well, I didn't so far as to say "bathroom sex is hot") in one of the Craig treads on this site; there are so many, I'm not sure which.
Anyone who has watched more than a couple of gay movies or television shows (even straight-laced, uptight David Fisher on Six Feet Under got an STD when he let a prostitute screw him in a parking garage), read one or two gay novels, or encountered just about any gay porn knows about tea room sex. And let's not forget major celebrity stories, like the recurring adventures of George Michael, also mentioned here. It's pretty widely known, and generally not derided.
But I guess, you know, this time it's a conservative who got caught. And people want to sling mud at the Republican. But they don't want to seem like gay-bashers. So they want to pretend there are "gays": out and proud, well-scrubbed, innocuous, just-in-the-bedroom sububanites, Ozzie and Harriet except it's Ozzie and Ozzie or Harriet and Harriet, you know healthy. And then there are "corrupt closet cases": lying, sleazy, dirty old men leading the lives Tennessee Williams and John Gielgud (is that bad company?) were resigned to in the bad old days, you know, sickos.
Trouble is, it's a false analogy. Some guys like annonymous sex. They are pretty healthy and decent, though that kills the stereotype (hurrah!). And there are some good, decent guys who are still in the closet. Sometimes because they are young, sometimes because they just have a lot of baggage in their lives.
Sure, there are some gays who fit that squeaky-clean suburban profile I mentioned. Though I suspect some of those Ozzies are slipping into a stall or a bathhouse or hooking up online with a stranger, or something else, on occasion. I also suspect some of them are as close-minded and judgemental and hypocritical as Craig has been made out to be, and perhaps is: they are only one part of the culture.
Read the column Savage Love sometime, please.
Do we have to be in such denial? Do we have to be so self-righteous?
I can't wait for Camille Paglia's next column.
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I almost vomited on my keyboard...
I just don’t get how having sex in a bathroom especially a men’s public restroom is so titillating for gay, bi or straight men. The act smacks of extreme horniness and bottom of the barrel desperation. We are talking about a frigging toilet here complete with the wafting aroma of fecal matter, piss and BO. YUCK! I don’t care if Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie and [insert favorite porn star here] are in that restroom begging for penetration, there is no way I’m having sex in a nasty ass public restroom.
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Yep, it's true
Mr Hannaham knows of what he speaks, but I have to wonder do straight people need to know this? I've seen gay men talk about their cruising behavior to straights or to lesbians and it usually gets a puzzled look. Either people are grossed out, or they are secretly envious. Well, Salon readers, now we learn just how liberal you really are.
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riiiight
no, I am not jealous that gay men get to have no-strings sex in parks and bathrooms, for christ's sake. That doesn't make you just gay, it makes you gross.
And I'm pretty sure Dan Savage would agree here, given his feelings about bath-houses. He would also tell you that gay bathroom sex really does mean that yes! you are gay. Imagine that.
How disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
anyway, have fun with all those STDs I'm sure you are collecting along the way. I will be inching closer to the religious right, along with the previous poster, every time I hear a gay man defending public, anonymous, potty sex.
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riiiight, part 2
larrfirr, even tolerant, queer friendly liberals still have standards of decency, which should not include smiling and nodding while degenerates copulate in our public spaces.... don't we? Certainly those two words seem to elude James Hannaham.
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I thought you looked familiar, James!
;-)
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whatever, it's not necessarily a gay guy thing
I live in New York, where a whole lot of the bathrooms we have, especially in bars and clubs, are single-occupancy, making them a lot more like the UK's "cottages." And let me tell you, I know plenty of straight people and lesbians who have had hot dirty sex in bathrooms as well. It might not be as prevalent as in gay circles, and at least in my circle of acquaintances, it might not be as anonymous either, but you don't have to be a gay man to get off on having sex in a bathroom. Sometimes it's just the most convenient private place. I'm a gay woman and I've had sex with the last six women I've dated, and some other one-night stands, in women's bathrooms at various locations, and I don't even have a particular thing for it, it's just been convenient and fun. I don't really see what the big deal is unless you're rolling around too much on the floor getting hepatitis and infections. But then, maybe people think (as usual) that lesbians having sex is a lot less gross than gay men. I guess it's not like lesbians are going to spurt stuff all over the walls. In most cases.
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Incorrect, Awesome-o
And I'm pretty sure Dan Savage would agree here, given his feelings about bath-houses. He would also tell you that gay bathroom sex really does mean that yes! you are gay. Imagine that.
He pulled his later-to-be husband into a stall to make out before they went home together. I think he's talked about other bathroom sex activities in his past, too, though I'm not entirely sure of that. I know he wrote an article early in his career defending men who have annonymous sex in the park, and when raids started occurring, followed one through a night there, and wrote rather romantically about it. "I like coming as I'm gazing up at the stars" was the final line, a quote from the man he was hanging out with. He does think gays should be less slutty, though he doesn't mean by that that they should "never" be slutty. He thinks healthy moderation is a good thing.