Author Topic: Public sex, Larry Craig, and entrapment  (Read 1763 times)

moremojo

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Public sex, Larry Craig, and entrapment
« on: February 22, 2008, 09:46:51 pm »
Last night on PBS I watched "In the Life", a news show devoted to lesbigay and transgendered issues (I am not sure to what degree of regularity the program airs), and one segment used the recent Larry Craig debacle as a point of departure to address the phenomenon of public sex (in restrooms, parks, truck stops, etc) in the male homosexual community and how police entrapment has figured, at least historically, in many of the instances where men have been identified and prosecuted for such activity. The show argued that the question of entrapment and its reality in the lives of too many gay men was underdiscussed in the mainstream discourse on the Craig incident.

Commentators, who included gay-rights activists and gay-friendly lawyers, noted how many men who indulge in sex in public places are very, sometimes desperately closeted gay men who feel they have no viable alternative in which to pursue their sexuality (it was strongly suggested that Craig fell into this camp), while others were recognized as engaging in activity that caused excitement precisely because it was illicit and dangerous. (One other perspective that wasn't explored is my own perception that some of the men involved in such activity are acting as sexual opportunists, seeking an easy and quick sexual outlet that doesn't necessarily correlate with any particular sexual identity). In any case, public sex was acknowledged as a problematic but real component of the gay world, both today and within history.

Following right along with this surreptitious world is the presence of law enforcement and criminal prosecution, and the show focused on how the police have not only arrested men caught in the act, but have also all too often acted in ways that enticed men into acts or verbal admissions that caused them to be arrested. It was revealed that in the pre-Stonewall era, a gay man's life was so perilous that even accepting a plainclothes officer's invitation in a bar or park to go elsewhere was greeted with arrest and criminal charges. Defendants had little legal ground to stand on because of the society's rampant and entrenched homophobia, and one man who was a survivor of such an ordeal described how he was so filled with shame at the time that it never occurred to him to challenge his charges.

During a particularly pernicious sting operation in Boston in 1978, the local gay community grew so incensed that a street march was actually held to denounce police tactics. It was noted how much a shift has occurred in the gay sensibility since then, when a whole community could rally behind their brethren charged with criminal conduct, and today, when public sex is widely regarded among lesbigays as an embarrassment at the very least.

This hasn't stopped the activity from taking place, nor the accompanying arrests and prosecutions and even the troubling stories alleging enticement by undercover officers. One New Jersey man, his identity hidden, recounted how he was approached and followed by another man in a public park, who repeatedly asked him to "show him what he had". When the first man eventually exposed himself, the second man, who turned out to be a plainclothes officer, arrested him on charges of public lewdness. The man said the officer went ballistic on him during the arrest, and that he spent the next six months in a state of profound depression.

The show included interesting police-surveillance footage dating from 1962 (in color, even) showing a succession of men engaging in sexual activity within a public restroom. This, in addition to one lawyer's assertion that New York's Central Park had harbored same-sex acts from the very first installation there of public facilities in 1896, served to show how persistent and perennial this activity really is.

The commentators returned to the issue of Larry Craig, and of how entrapment may or may not have figured in his story. To my surprise, the consensus leaned towards an interpretation of entrapment. The arresting officer was planted as part of a sting operation, and, in their argument, did little to dissuade Craig's advances. Craig was cited among other things for an "interference with privacy" when he extended his hand and leg into the officer's stall, but one lawyer made the astonishing argument that, as the restroom was designated as public space, no absolute standard of privacy could be expected--implying that the law cannot consistently argue a case of public indecency if the space is considered private (admittedly, I have real problems with this interpretation, as I think everyone should have a reasonable expectation of their space being respected while they are ensconced within a restroom stall, but the lawyer's assertion does raise compelling concerns about the law's consistency, fairness, and equability).

Overall, then, even though Craig was admitted to be an embarrassing focus for such a discussion due to his long record of homophobic legislation, the show in the end proved rather sympathetic for him, as it did for the other men who have found themselves in similar situations. One closing commentator suggested the viewer not necessarily place too much trust even now in the relationships of law enforcement and the judiciary system to the gay community, reminding him that the modern gay rights movement had its very foundation in the opposition to police harassment. This was an interesting and thought-provoking program that I was glad to have seen.