They not only wrote the story, they actually ran an AP photo of the men's room, just in case you ladies don't know what one looks like. (This cutline corrected from original.)
We've been having a debate around my house for several months now...since about the time Par (Mr. Ethics) Ridder took over at the Strib...about whether or not we should cancel our subscription to The Newspaper of the Very Local Twin Cities.
I've been saying yes, mostly because, bridge coverage aside, the paper is very weak tea indeed. Every day it seems less like the residual pride of the journalists left there is able to bubble through the crust of the utterly venal management to come through with a story that I care about.
The last straw was Saturday, though. The top of the front page was covered with this story. In case you failed to get your undies in a bunch about anonymous gay sex at the airport, the problem is going to be solved. Yup, the most important story in the Twin Cities on Saturday was that the airport will be lowering the dividers of the mens' room stalls at the airport. Too late for Larry Craig, of course, but the fears of Twin Citians who are concerned that sex (yes, sex!) happens between consenting adults have now been allayed.
I'll sleep better knowing that stuff I couldn't possibly care less about is being assiduously covered by the Strib. I thought that was the job of Channel 5.
It probably moved a lot of papers out of newspaper boxes that day. Now frequent and non-direct fliers can stop chugging imodium before heading out on a trip secure in the knowledge that the restroom stalls have been skeezy perv proofed. The story should have been paired with NWA execrable on-time record. Perhaps if they didn't have so many delayed and cancelled flights, people wouldn't have so time to kill between flights at MSP. You know, when I think about it, the mostly pointless and gratuitous and ineffectual violations of my privacy perpetrated by the slack-fawed forces of airport security gross me out more than a few desperate closet cases sniffin' around the restroom stalls. Let's revisit that expensive farce while we're redesigning the crappers.
Why is this story not being reported from the perspective of a seemingly atavistic subculture in the "gay community"? Why do gay men resort to anonymous sex in public airport bathrooms in 2007? It seems so 1950s. Is it just closet cases like Craig? This aint' Iran.
Post has been corrected re the photo credit.
And Jimmy. I agree that I don't like the idea of anonymous sex in the airport bathrooms. It's just that I don't think it should be represented as the most important thing on Minnesotans' minds...or the minds of the editors of its largest newspaper.
What's next? Brittany Spears' parenting problems? Oh wait...
"Photo by Andy King, Associated Press"
Wire photo. No Strib photographer.
I quit the trib long ago, when they decided it was OK to sponsor some bible-thumping homophobe's tent revival. The funniest thing is their reputation for being "liberals". I didn't know war-mongering, hyper-consumerism and constant religious proselytizing was some leftist conspiracy.
What I'd really like to know is whether the Strib photog asked permission to take that photo? He must have - how else would he have gotten past security? I must admit, I would have loved to have heard the conversation with the press duty officer at the airport that day. Who in the airport's communications office had to accompany the photog into the john? Did they clear it out first? Looks to me like one of the stalls is occupied. Nice. Real nice.
No offense, Tom, but I know that you'd be checking out the free online version of the Strib even if you canceled the subscription. If you cancel, you have to boycott. Otherwise, it's kind of like sneaking an oreo or two while on a hunger strike.
Hmmm ... I wonder what will happen now? Hmmm...
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Officer Friendly!"
"I didn't mean anything. Honest. The toilet paper was stuck in the ... no ... please don't arrest me."
Did you look at the photo credit? "Photo by Andy King, Associated Press"
That's no Strib staffer.
And I believe in the days after the Idaho Statesman ran its story on the MSP restroom becoming a tourist destination, the AP picked up the story. And then, days later, the NYT did its own story (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/washington/19craig.html?_r=1&oref=slog...). And I don't think the Strib did anything other than use the AP story for a blurb on Page 1 for Have You Heard?
There are plenty of reasons to save a few bucks and drop one's subscription to the Strib. But this story has been a revelation for most of the people with whom I converse on a regular basis. We had no idea that in 2007 gay men still feel the need to resort to public restrooms, or "tea rooms," for the purposes of anonymous sex. The fact that some actively hostile homophibic Senator from a red neck state got busted for it made it news, like it or not.
But larry Craig aside, this predilection among a subgroup of gay men is why it became such a treasure hunt to use a restroom at first Dayton's and now Macy's. I imagine this left over from the fifties is less about "need" (as in being forced to seek out romantic assignations underground in a hostile, homophobic world) than it is about a quick, easy and anonymous sexual thrill.
Look, TB, you mischaracterize the concern here as consenting gay men having sex. Hardly. It's that a small minority of gay men are having it in public restrooms, and elsewhere, places that I prefer to go wtihout having to confront strangers poking around for a quickie. As a frequent flyer, I certainly don't care to have Larry Craig's rheumy eyeball peering into the stall at me for two minutes as he sizes me up as a likely or not candidate for some wordless sexual congress. I couldn't help noting during a recent trip through Chicago's Midway Airport that their stalls are already Senator proof. I don't care to run across men with imploring eyes milling about the bird sanctuary at Lake Harriet, either, or along the trails just south of the Franklin Bridge as I go for a trail run, or the parking lots at Crosby Park in St. Paul.
When public places get turned into locations for anonymous sex, gay or otherwise, things get skeezy in a hurry. It's a buzz kill. Sometimes people have their kids with them, or, their kids are in those places on their own. And they shouldn't have to confront people with tenuous grasps on their sexual identity rutting like randy javalinas in the next stall over. Using a public can is undiginified enough. Savvy?
Making the space less attractive for guys who like to have sex with complete strangers as they change planes is a better way of combatting it than sending the lowest airport cop on the totem pole in there to squat in wait like some sort of vice spider.