From: tim@ear-ache.mit.edu (Tim Wilson)
Subject: Re: tearoom sex and bathroom police
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	<1993Jan12.024221.4791@godel.questor.wimsey.bc.ca>
	<TIM.93Jan12075356@ear-ache.mit.edu> <1993Jan12.185658.26658@spdcc.com>
Distribution: soc
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:08:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.185658.26658@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:

   In article <TIM.93Jan12075356@ear-ache.mit.edu> tim@ear-ache.mit.edu (Tim Wilson) writes:
   >   However, if (as  
   >   the complainant in your article alleged) people are feeling uncomfortable  
   >   in bathrooms as a result of sexual activity, it is sexual harrassment  
   >   plain and simple, and should be dealt with accordingly.
   >
   >I admit this is an important point.  I'm dubious as to whether such
   >harassment has actually occured, or whether certain parties with
   >agendas of their own have learned that they can use the harassment
   >issue for their purposes.   

   I wouldn't have thought that you'd have agreed on defining this point 
   as "harassment".  To the extent I have much of an opinion, I think it is.
   When we use the word "tearoom", we are not talking about casual
   cruising during the middle of the night, we're talking about Grand
   Central Station, where the entire environment can arguably be said
   to be "hijacked" for the purpose of men having sex.

My intention was to acknowledge that the harassment claim is a part of
this discussion.  I don't dismiss it out of hand, but I'm dubious
about it.  When I use the word "tearoom," I mean a bathroom where gay
men have sex with some degree of regularity---a place one can go and
have a fair probability of being able to trick.  It doesn't have to be
Grand Central Station.  

   < graphic description of the nasty ol' bathroom in the basement of
     the Harvard Science Center concluding with ...>

   Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick.  It didn't take long before I would walk
   three floors upstairs to use the facilities.

   Now, I'm sure this makes me an anal-retentive prig and a fascist, but,
   yes, I felt inconvenienced and put upon.  It annoyed me that in order
   to simply take a piss or a crap in the most convenient restroom, I had
   to put up with the constant reminder of public sex.  It was simply tiresome
   to deal with this all the time.  Did I "use this for my own agenda"?
   Well, my own agenda was to relieve myself non-sexually, so I made do.
   But I sure would have preferred that these guys got their rocks off elsewhere.

I think the key word above is "inconvenienced."  In my book, being
cruised by someone you don't want to be cruised by is inconvenience,
not harassment, regardless of where it occurs.  I'm not going to lie
and say I've never felt inconvenienced by unsolicited advances.  But
is that the same thing as harassment?  Is being cruised in a bathroom,
is knowing that people are in there having sex right now, even as
you're trying to pee, really anywhere near the same thing as receiving
death threats from an ex-lover, or fearing for your grades (or job)
due to the unwelcomed advances of a professor (or boss)?  

   What if we had common restrooms for both sexes, and perfectly harmless
   men would hang around on the off chance that some woman was interested?
   Given that this is not the perceived role of such a restroom, do you think
   that women using it might object to this behavior, even if they were not
   themselves harassed?  Do you think they're being out of line?  Is our
   concern here merely a vestige of sexism?

Given restrooms used by both sexes, what if *one* restroom out of many
evolved into a space where horny men and women often met and played?
And, there was fairly common knowledge throughout the community that
such was often the role of said restroom?  And that such use had been
occuring for numerous years?  That's more analogous to the situation
occuring here.  Given the modified scenario, I would imagine that some
women and some men would object.  A few might be because they'd been
inconvenienced, but more probably because others were enjoying
themselves. 

--
Tim Wilson
Internet:  tim@ear-ache.mit.edu	
UUCP:  mit-eddie!mit-athena!tim
Bad Colorado.  No business.