Strange that I should be spending so much time on the Larry Craig thing, but it seems to have brought a lot of issues into the light. For example, this post by Hilzoy at Andrew Sullivan (cross-posted at Obsidian Wings. She starts off by noting Scott Lemieux's reaction to a post by Esquivel, and yes, they all raise some valid points -- Lemieux, especially:
Indeed; I'll also add that as far as Craig knew the advance was not unwanted but invited, which makes the case particularly problematic (although I don't know if it rises to the standard of entrapment under Minnesota law.) The rest of the post is sound analysis, too.
Analysis of what? Esquivel raises some good questions about the case (which, if Craig had retained a lawyer, seem good enough to have gotten it tossed out), but I don't see any real analysis there. After the first couple of paragraphs, Esquivel goes into a rant about sexual harassment of women, which Hilzoy joins in her own post.
Which has nothing to do with Larry Craig or his circumstances.
The important part of both Esquivel's and Lemieux's posts is the question of entrapment, which is central to the Craig affair and something that gay men, in and out of the closet, live with constantly, and both raise the question and then drop it. Oh, I forgot -- sexual harassment of women is much more important when you're talking about a male US Senator arrested for soliciting another man for sex.
Please. No, it's not a good post. It's a pretty crappy post -- they both are, at least as far as anything substantive about Larry Craig and the way his case highlights how gay men are treated and the way we're portrayed in this country. They're both so far off base as to be irrelevant.
This post by Jamie at Andrew Sullivan is much more germane. Interestingly enough, Hilzoy's post is titled "Double Standards"and she manages to hit the one that has nothing to do with Craig. Jamie's post actually talks about something relevant.
If you want to see another good post on double standards as they actually apply here, see this one by Greg Sargent.
2 comments:
I am so sick of this Craig thing. If someone slid his foot into my stall, I would tell him to get his God damn foot out of my stall. In most cases I think it is just wimpy when adults need someone to protect them from sexual advances. To me there is only one issue in the whole story and that is did he abuse his position in Congress by flashing his ID card. All the rest should be a private matter between he and his wife. I thought the same thing about Bill Clinton.
Actually, I agree with you. Usually, a polite "no, thank you" will do the job. If it doesn't, of course, you're free to escalate.
The interest for me is how this case reveals real attitudes on the part of the public and the press about gay men, starting with the unspoken belief (and voluminous justifications for that belief) that this particular event was, in fact, a sexual transgression.
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