This Foley situation is what happens when gay men live surrounded by constant homophobia.

not sure how that works.

Oh man you're right, I just looked at his blog and he is all over this stuff. That was unintentional. :-/

Here is the link:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/

He says it a lot better than I.

"It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction" - Mark Foley on Bill Clinton's history of sexual harassment in September 1998.

i am not trying to be a pederast apologist here, just saying repression can fuck you up. catholic upbringing heeeyyyyyy

(Countdown to "WHAT ABOUT JAIL?????" counter-argument commences... NOW)

Yeah see.. it's one thing to be met occasionally with instances of homophobia; that's unfortunately normal in our society. But most gay people don't surround themselves with overt homophobes. The RNC has an explicitly anti-gay rights agenda and the RNC was this guy's entire career, and as far as I can tell, being a politician is a fairly encompassing career; you're surrounded by other politicians of your party, campaigning on these issues, etc etc. I think it's unrealistic to say someone could be immersed in this with absolutely no adverse psychological consequences to the way they relate to their own sexuality.

http://www.lostlevels.org/200609/09.png
http://www.lostlevels.org/200609/10.png
http://www.lostlevels.org/200609/11.png
http://www.lostlevels.org/200609/12.png

(Also similarly it's not unreasonable to think that someone who comes from a very repressive background would be unaffected later in life, regardless of sexual preferences... i.e. very religious background might lead to problems dealing w sexuality as an adult.. not exactly unheard of)

Firm values viz.: gay men are not all pedophiles; people should respect age-of-consent laws; it's inappropriate for members of Congress (of whichever sex) to be perving on pages (of whichever sex); etc.

Also xpost: it's not just a matter of the RNC. Just about anyone who goes into politics -- anyone who goes into public life on a mainstream non-artistic level, but especially politics -- will find his or her own homosexuality something of a career problem. Just flat-out; this is pretty obvious. Combine that with just the normal weird friction between public image and private life that goes on in politics, and it's a recipe for at least a few people in really dangerous closets (ones where their sexuality threatens not just their personal lives but their careers, public images, pretty much everything about their being).

i'm sure as fuck not attracted to 17 year-olds of either sex. yuck.

I knew a guy who was a HS junior who was in a relationship with a 27 year old, and I've known men in their late-twenties who were in relationships with 17-18 year olds, and while it's out of the norm, is it really something you can condemn out of hand?

On the other hand if it was an older man wooing a 17 year old girl, this would seem really creepy. Maybe because of the Greek model and because of a gender double standard?

Bingo. My friends and I talked a lot about this on Saturday. The GOP horror seems most concerned with OMIGOD A MALE TEENAGER, when, really, a lot of us know plenty of people who've thought about this kind of thing and understand that plenty of 16-y-olds know exactly what they're doing. (I emphasize "thought" -- Foley didn't DO anything; he talked dirty, which is, I admit, enough, according to the law).

yeah, and my title on the other thread was wrong. he DID know about myspace.

LOL another domino falls

this is the guy that offered to blow the cop right? what happened today in this case?

The only commenter that matters is Carol Herman:

And, about the only thing I don't get, is why would a married man not teach his wife to stick a dildo up his butt? It's far less riskier. And, it would fall into the "better or worse" deal. I'd imagine, when a woman is married to someone famous enough to draw these headlines, how hard is it to shove a dildo in, instead? Kind'a like a giant Preparation H.

What wife WOULD teach her husband not to stick a dildo up his butt?

One of those great mysteries.

Poor Larry Craig, I lived in Idaho 16 years and he was my favorite government official bar none. Lil' Idaho Repub senator, only one of three to vote against renewing the Patriot Act! He did some really good things to decrease suicide rates among the elderly in Idaho, too (which were of course quite high). I'd run into him in the street and he be happy to stop what he was doing and answer questions. He always promptly wrote back to me, too. I have an autographed 8x10" on my wall and everything (you can request them on his website).

Poor guy, it's hard to be gay in Idaho and possibly even harder to be closeted (ie so many married Mormon men who can't/won't do anything about it). It's easy to understand why he'd do this. It wasn't anything like Foley: the cop was a (seemingly) consenting adult, and he couldn't exactly go to the Locker Room or some other Boise gay bar to get his jollies. (Though having Larry Craig give you the puppy dog eyes through your stall door crack's gotta be creepy.)

It was funny, when I worked at Kinko's, the phone number was almost the same as that of Larry Craig's office. When the big "don't let gays marry" bill was up for vote, we got calls ALL DAY from people asking us to vote against it, gays rot in hell, etc. :( Which we all just answered and said, "Okay, we'll pass it on," figuring the sadness of hearing it all day was better than it being said to the actual person voting on it. Now I wonder how HE felt getting those calls all day.

Maybe I should put a little picture of a Bend Over Boyfriend DVD next to his portrait.

Yeah, it's hard for me to drip scorn when, glancing at this guy's record, he seems part of a dying breed: the Goldwater western conservative. Obviously we don't know all the facts, but he seems rather indignant, obnoxiously so.

That gets to me, too.

This really similar, but more exploitative thing, happened in the 1950s in Idaho. You can read about it in the wonderfully titled book, <i>The Boys of Boise</i>. The book is terribly written, though, so I can't recommend it unless you are super obsessed with Idaho political history. Or maybe the history of persecuting gay people.

this is the guy that offered to blow the cop right?
No. That was Bob Allen, from Florida. He was aligned with McCain. This Larry Craig fellow is a Romney man.

drudge headlines:

BROKEBACK BATHROOM: SENATOR BUSTED IN AIRPORT SEX STING...
CRAIG'S LIST: TERROR IN THE TOILETS...
His Own Private Idaho...
'I should not have pled guilty'...
Court Docs...

uh abbott this guy is nothing if not dishonest, srsly. total hack disregarding consequences for selfish aims.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=78e_1188264220

LISTEN TO HIM SPEAK

haha, oh man, i wonder what political net coverage would be like if Drudge would have landed his dream job as headline writer for Variety(or the New York Post)

He was the most honest & best IDAHO politician, which I know is like being the world's best-wiped asshole, but it meant a lot to me at the time.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to mention assholes on this thread, well-wiped or otherwise.

Come on, dude is blaming the newspaper in Boise! And he's made so many anti-gay votes that he gets no sympathy.

xpost

And he's made so many anti-gay votes that he gets no sympathy.

That's the bottom line here. Dude is scum in my book. I'm sure his situation is ruff, but guilt-panic gay bashing isn't any better than any other kind. And blaming the media doesn't make him look any less the opportunistic hypocrite.

I'm turning around here. I was just so proud of him for voting against the Patriot Act, which only two other senators did.

Boise's newspaper is a joke BTW, like it could change anyone's mind about anything.

So, what's the deal with the foot tapping that only lewd gay men know about.

Is it like "Shave and a haircut" where one guy does the first four beats and the second guy does the "Two bits!" to confirm?

The only time I tap my foot is when I'm at a bar, it's getting late, and I wanna go home.

My dad's gonna get super conspiratorial in bathrooms now. He's currently running on this outdated/probably inaccurate information about handkerchiefs in back pockets.

Oh so your DAD wrote that one Onion article. Got it.

He told me like 19 years ago that was their "secret code."

I knew about foot tapping.

"I have a wide stance on the toilet" is a prize alibi.

only one of three to vote against renewing the Patriot Act!

no, he was one of four GOP Senators - all representing insular rural jurisdictions - to join a majority in voting against renewal without amendment. he subsequently voted twice to support renewal.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=1992179b-4ccd-4081-a13a-29ad7a735f46

Humiliation deepens for toilet senator, journalism

linked from cnn, no less. i mean toilet senator's a great gig but still.

You know, if straight men knew they had, say, a 30% chance of having mutually gratifying sex in a bathroom between flights in an airport...

NAUGHTY BOY

I pretty much recant.

paid more than $US500 ($600) in fines and fees

That's some good clarification.

I knew about foot tapping.

"I have a wide stance on the toilet" is a prize alibi.

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 8:50 AM (Wednesday, August 29, 2007 8:50 AM) Bookmark Link

Feel free to explain further.

I used to think it was odd hearing someone in the other stall clearing their throat. There was once this one guy in the next stall somewhere in the bootheel of Missouri sounding like he had TB or something. I thought, wow he must really want some action.

I knew nothing about foot-tapping until reading this Slatearticle yesterday.

I've always been kind of amazed that I've never, not once, gotten a hint of cruising anywhere -- rest stop, club bathroom, anywhere -- but now I know I wasn't looking for the code.

I should have known that I could learn more about restroom hookups by reading Slate.

This morning I was trying to figure out how wide a stance one would need to touch someone elses foot, then I thought it might not be a good idea in a public restroom if I don't want to actually draw attention.

Sumo squat territory, basically

http://www.feel-fit.com/images/fitness_uebungen/sumo_squat.jpg

Is it wise to use a "wide stance" when you go to the bathroom?

No. When you're sitting on the toilet, spreading your feet and leaning forward tightens the levator ani muscles that control defecation. If you're having trouble passing stools, you should take the opposite of a wide stance, and lean back. Doctors recommend this technique to relax the bowel muscles.

So THAT'S why I keep shitting the lay-z-boy!

Ew.

So he went about a six hundo, eh?

http://www.exegetic.net/images/achewood_ray_toilet.gif