U.S. Senator Arrested (And Things I Didn't Know About Propositioning Gay Sex)
 

I have no idea how this story avoided the media for 2 months, but US Senator Larry Craig (Idaho) was arrested and pled guilty to misdemeanor Disorderly Conduct back in June for trying to get some action in a Minneapolis airport bathroom

http://www.idahostatesman.com/eyepie...ry/143517.html

The abridged version:

According to the police reports, a man, later identified as Craig, kept watching the undercover police officer through a crack in the stall. Craig then entered the next-door stall and placed his luggage against the opening under the stall door.

"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall," said the officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, in the report.

The report continued: "At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area."

The report said Craig swiped his hand beneath the stall divider several times, and Karsnia showed his police identification under the stall.

"With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit," the report said. "Craig responded, 'No!' I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn't want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom."

Craig was detained about 45 minutes and questioned by officers at the Airport Police Operations Center. At one point, the police report said, Craig handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said "What do you think about that?"

Craig denied any lewd intentions and told police he has a "wide stance" in the bathroom and reached down to pick up a piece of paper from the floor.

"It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper," Karsnia wrote in the report.

Am I missing something here? Its illegal to tap your foot in a mens room stall??

Color me naive, but I don't see how any of this is actionable by law enforcement...? If it all happened as the officer reported, it seems like a case of "the Senator was clearly up to something dirty, but we can't prove his intent, so let it go".

I mean, as a juror, I'd be hard pressed (does that qualify as a clever double entendre?) to convict someone for lewd conduct based on what I just read in that post.

I wonder if they tried any cases as part of this "sting", it would be a tough case.

Though, it seems like it would take quite an effort to touch feet with the guy in the stall next to you.

And besides, if loving anonymous men's restroom sex is wrong, then I don't wanna be right!

Gay guys have sex in bathrooms? No wonder they have so many diseases...

Damn.

If someone in the stall next to me touched my foot, I would probably be traumatized and never be able to go in public again.

What did you know about propositioning gay sex?

so wait...it's illegal to proposition someone?? wtf? so how does a person go about hooking up with another person?

it's not like he offered to pay the guy or anything. This is just stupid

Hey, this story's not about me.

there are worse thing they could touch

If there was no intent Craig wouldn't have pleaded. There have been rumors about Craig for years, although I never heard that he was into anonymous sex.

btw- Just to creep you out a bit, airports are probably the most used places for anonymous gay sex.

I don't use public bathrooms for anything other then taking a piss. I feel weird when someone tries to talk to me when I am pissing.

Well you know those western libertarian types....

Gay guys will have sex anywhere, with anyone, under pretty much any circumstances.

You know why? Because they're guys.

Seriously, if straight guys thought there was even the slighest chance that they could get anonymous sex by tapping their foot next to a woman, every shopping mall in America would look like the encore from Riverdance.

do we have any openly gay guys on this forum?

I was just thinking the same thing - I don't remember any.

I don't think so. I believe one semi-prominent member had said they identified as bi, but were currently in a relationship with a woman.

I've thought about asking that before, but figured it wasn't my place to do so.

In a public bathroom? Yuck.

Yup. tapping the foot of the person next to you in the bathroom is a sign of someone wanting to engage in sex.

It's pretty well known that rest stops along major highways are places for this to occur.

I believe there is one and he is a lawyer.

I don't see how you can "catch" anything while engaging in any type of sex that you couldn't get by using the bathroom for what it's intended for.

Hey. :mad:



:)

i'm not getting how this is anything illegal though. unless you're going to charge them under like "attempted sodomy" or something. Otherwise isn't it just two consenting adults? no $$ changing hands, no physical proof that anything was going to occur in the bathroom. The senator could just say "yeah I wanted to pick him up and take him to a hotel room."

I guess the element of intent is placing all the luggage in such a way that it blocks the view of the stall he was in. But that's very thin.

I'm guessing most people caught up in this just take the disorderly conduct conviction (which amounts to a fine), rather than fight it. Especially someone in the position of a republican senator from Idaho affiliated with a Mormon candidate's presidential campaign.

I think lewd conduct (or attempted lewd conduct) in a public location is the issue. He wasn't tapping the guy's foot to offer to buy him a drink--he made the universal sign to request dirty bathroom nookie from a stranger.

Note to self: next time you're having trouble crapping, don't tap your foot anxiously.

As it turns out, I happen to be one of those due to my location just to the north of you. Hence the joke. ;)

The idea of any type of sex in a public restroom is just NASTY...I've been in some bathrooms so filthy that I didn't even want to stay in it to take a piss. I realize airport bathrooms are nicer than your run-of-the-mill roadside stops, but still...yuck.

QFT

That does seem pretty weak.

If the undercover officer were a woman, and the Senator came up to her in a bar and bought her a drink and made "a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," I don't think that you would have an arrest at that point.

The idea that you can go from a signal saying "Hey, let's have sex" to "This guy was attempting to have sex in public" seems like a major stretch.

If you're trying to say that you can't understand how a guy could get it up when there's shit on the walls, I'll agree with you. I was just commenting on the health aspect of it. Once my piece comes out of my pants, it's exposed to all the same elements whether I'm about to take a leak or about to get a hummer.

FROM A CHICK.

Rumor was in Chicago that Marshall Fields (RIP) was the place to get gay sex in the bathroom. Supposedly the toyboy... SPOILER ALERT!!! ... STOP READING IF YOU'RE SQUEEMISH... would kneel in a very large Marshall Fields shopping bag to hide his pressence.

According to the Idaho Statesman a man claims Craig had sex with him in a restroom at Union Station. Craig pleaded guilty because he knew exactly what he was doing and didn't want that to get out.

As much as I think the guy is a hypocrite, I also feel sorry for him. Living in the closet can destroy an individual and in this case, like Foley before him, the inability to express his sexuality led him to make incredibly reckless decisions.

.

that's exactly the point i was trying to make earlier, just expressed much more clearly. thanks albion.

Well I posted those lyrics so people don't stop believing that race doesn't play apart in the vick thread. I have nothing against gays but I don't play on or near that side of the field.

I get a bizarre feeling from this thread for some reason.

A former chairman of the MARTA board (Atlanta's mass transit authority) was caught having gay sex in the bathroom of the atlanta airport maybe six months ago. It was even worse for him, because the guy he was doing it with had flown in from somewhere else and was going to fly out that day, implying, of course, a paid sex type situation.

So he paid $300+ for a flight but not $50 for a hotel room?

There's "something" about airport bathrooms that we're not getting the allure of.

It's gotta be the musky aroma.

wtf

If you think I'm clicking random links in this thread, you're crazy.

it's a reinactment brought to you by some news team.

the best part is the woman holding the divider.

wtf, so the divider woman hasn't used a stall before?

And that guy is wearing black dress pants with brown sandals. That's some kind of fashion crisis I think. He can't be gay.

yeah, you catch that "I never..." then she cut herself short. What, never was in a stall before?

That's exactly what I was talking about. Do women's washrooms everywhere have dividers that go all the way to the ground?