Senator Larry Craig

Courting Danger in Public Places

By Christopher Hitchens

Along with a string of votes to establish "don't ask, don't tell" and to prohibit homosexual marriage, Sen. Larry Craig leaves as his political legacy the telling phrase "wide stance," which may or may not join "big tent" and "broad church" as an attempt to make the Republican Party seem more "inclusive" than it really is.

But there's actually a chance - a 38 percent chance, to be more precise - that the senator can cop a plea on the charge of hypocrisy.

In his study of men who frequent public restrooms in search of sex, Laud Humphreys discovered that 54 percent were married and living with their wives, 38 percent did not consider themselves homosexual or bisexual, and only 14 percent identified themselves as openly gay. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Personal Places, a doctoral thesis which was published in 1970, detailed exactly the pattern of foot-tapping in code, hand-gestures, and other tactics - which has lately been garishly publicized at a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men's room. The word "tearoom" seems to have become archaic, but in all other respects the fidelity to tradition is impressive.

The thrills were twofold. First came the exhilaration of danger: the permanent risk of being caught and exposed. Second was the sense of superiority that a double life could give.

The men interviewed by Humphreys wanted what many men want: a sexual encounter that was quick and easy and didn't involve any wining and dining. Some of the heterosexuals among them had also evolved a tactic for dealing with the cognitive dissonance that was involved.

They compensated for their conduct by adopting extreme conservative postures in public. Humphreys, a former Episcopalian priest, came up with the phrase "breastplate of righteousness" to describe this mixture of repression and denial. So, it is quite thinkable that when Sen. Craig claims not to be gay, he is telling what he honestly believes to be the truth.

excerpted from:
"Why men like Larry Craig continue
to court danger in public places."
By Christopher Hitchens
author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
© slate.com Sept. 3, 2007