| Entrapment of closeted bisexual men |
 Entrapment of closeted bisexual men
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Aug. 30th, 2007 @ 02:01 pm 
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Entrapment of closeted bisexual men
When I turned on the car radio this afternoon, I was taken aback to hear "Fresh Air" host Terri Gross talking with an older-sounding woman about the issue of "entrapment"!
At first it seemed odd the two women would be familiar enough with undercover law-enforcement sexual misconduct procedures and the laws prohibiting male same-sex behavior in public required for such discourse.
Their conversation turned out to be about the unfortunate, sometimes fatal, situation where a person or household pet is trapped into the high-suction drain of a pool or hot tub.
While this makes for less than compelling radio chitchat, clearly this is not the national discussion about entrapment that we should be having.
We need to examine the extensive history of the sex sting of male-only sexual activity in so-called public spaces in this country, such as the recent example of Senator Larry Craig's Minnesota airport restroom encounter.
Craig's case exemplifies the sort of presumed "guilty until proven hetero" approach to law enforcement against "sex criminals" that some consider tantamount to systematic oppression of all sexual expression between men.
We can only speculate, but Craig appears to have been set up as a scapegoat to be sacrificed as a time convenient to the White House — such as when needing a media diversion.
At the "crime" scene, no actual crime was committed — Craig wasn't even accused of sexual contact or exposure — yet he is being witch-hunted off his committees and out of the Senate.
The law has so vilified homosexuals that most states still allow entrapment of men seeking contact with other men in "public" spaces, under the rubric of lewd conduct and lascivious behavior — essentially, the same laws by which homosexuals were persecuted previously in private.
Many of these laws are still on the books in many states, under myriad procedures irregularly enforced, and arbitrarily proscecuted.
Given the extreme social stigma surrounding homosexual behavior of married men, bisexual family men are even more susceptible to exposure of their same-sex desires than homosexuals.
Since sexual activity of any sort between same-sex persons have been largely proscripted by law, in private as well as in public, in such stings guilt was presumed by both officer and suspect.
Rather than suffer the consequences of public exposures, many such victims of sexual blackmail will submit to rape in the hope that the officer will not pursecute him further.
This exposure affects all men seeking sexual contact with other men in public (and until recently private) spaces. Such threats of public exposure have often included blackmail of money, and sexual favors to be presented immediately.
There is a gripping and horrifying account of such sexual blackmail by police of a young homosexual man in the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
The untold history of "vice squad" entrapment of homosexual males and drag queens in the USA is long and extensive, and certainly includes tactics such as dressing homoerotically, active flirtation, extended eye contact, (simulated) fondling of the genitals through clothing, exposure of the genitals, and active masturbation.
Since the law authority's own sexual behavior or orientation in an entrapment situation is always considered appropriate and almost never challenged, and claims of such misconduct by victims usually dismissed outright, the potential for sexual abuse by police authorities is huge.
Male eroticization of risk is nothing new to men "in the closet," "on the down low," or "in the life," but that is a topic for another time. For now, we need to examine why public displays of homoerotic behavior are still construed as illegal, and work to eliminate laws that vilify same-sex desire and behavior, whether private or public.
http://wolfbear.livejournal.com/180412.html
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Thank you. I have been waiting for someone else to make this point.
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