Nobody really *wants* to have sex in a bathroom.
I’ve been doing a good deal of travel this year. Not a ton, but enough that I’ve spent some time recently in airports and conversely, airport bathrooms.
Not so strangely enough, this time spent in airport bathrooms has led me to think more about Larry Craig.
Recently, Nicole was telling a story about how there was a number of mainline Philadelphia republicans who had been frequenting gay bathhouses on their way home from the city to satisfy certain “needs” that they were not able to satisfy at home. It’s kinda sad that there’s still enough of a stigma about being gay that people don’t feel comfortable enough to just come out and say “I’m gay” and then be allowed to live normal bathhouse free existences.
However, I am basing this thought on the same notion that more porn= less rape generally is thought of, that people when given access to an outlet for their needs will generally choose the more sociologically sound. Not that I want at all to compare being gay to porn, but what I’m getting at is that if people can get what they really wanted all along that they’d be calmer more productive individuals.
So back to Larry Craig. I’m in LA in the United terminal and I duck into the men’s room to wash my hands. All of the stalls are full. People are… um… doing what normal people do in stalls and there is a serious, shall we say, aroma going.
It stinks.
And there’s paper towels everywhere.
And the trash can has a very recent diaper on top.
And there’s puddles of who-knows-what.
How does anyone other than a desperate, desperate man come into this room and think of… sex?
Yuck.
I can’t even imagine, and for the benefit of science, I tried. I tried to think sexy sexy thoughts but all I could think was how stinky it was in there. Oh and let’s not forget about noises…ew.
So here’s what my postulate is: If Larry Craig could have allowed himself to just *be gay* then he’d never have to try to pick up guys in an airport bathroom or any bathroom for that matter. And if mainline Philadelphia republicans were cool with just admitting something to themselves, they could go back to their house in the suburbs and do all the things that they wanted to do at the bathhouse only with someone who would also have dinner with them afterward.
But no, Larry Craig had to do the same thing he did when he was caught up in the cocaine/ male congressional page scandal back in the eighties. Deny everything and then come out against homosexuality.
Larry, don’t you know that displaying that kind of homophobia only further helps convince us otherwise?
My friend Patrick once said that the only way that you could be sure that you weren’t gay was to have sex with someone of the same sex and not like it. However I think Larry Craig has done the opposite, he had sex with someone of the same sex and liked it so much that he was willing to do something truly filthy to hide something that’s completely normal.
I know what you’re thinking, if Larry Craig had just come out in the eighties and said “I’m gay”, he would have been an unelectable Idaho Republican congressman. But, what if he were instead, a really lucrative Idaho lobbyist with a partner to come home to and clean starched sheets on which to satisfy himself instead of Minneapolis airport toilets. I keep thinking of the directv commercials that follow one line of reasoning to it’s utmost – you know if you just got what you wanted in the first place, everything would end up being fine.
Wouldn’t that be a better life?
Tags: Airport Bathroom, Larry Craig, sadness, That smell