Another Republican sexual hypocrite out of control. Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R-of course) is clearly shooting for worst defense of the year after being caught trolling for a same sex encounter. Earlier this month he was arrested at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Titusville for soliciting an undercover male officer inside the restroom after offering to perform oral sex for $20.
Allen, who also served as the McCain campaign’s co-chairman in Florida, has decided that he would come out of this scandal looking better if he is perceived as a racist rather than a homo. Sweet!
OK. Let’s look at what the police report says about the encounter and you decide whether Allen was acting like a man desperate to escape the terrifying big black buck by saying (or in this case, doing) anything.State Rep. Bob Allen told police he was just playing along when a undercover officer suggested in a public restroom that the legislator give him oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated, according to a taped statement and other documents released Thursday.
…”This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he “was about to be a statistic” and would have said anything just to get away. Allen, who couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday, has repeatedly declared his innocence, his intention to fight the charges and his desire to stay in office.
The above exchange took place after Allen entered the restroom twice cruising, peeped over the stall wall at the officer and then pushed open the door to join the officer to proposition him. That’s some incredible acting on Allen’s part.
The officer: “I was standing against the far wall of the stall. Allen closed the door behind him and stood against it. I said “what’s up” and Allen said “Hi.” Allen then said “this is kind of a public place isn’t it.” I said “do you have somewhere else where we can go?” Allen said “How about across the bridge it’s quite [sic] over there.” Allen engaged me in a conversation in which he agreed to pay me $20.00 in order to perform a “blow job” on me.”
By the way, when Allen was being put in the paddy wagon, the officer said Allen asked whether “it would help” matters if he was a state legislator. The officer said, “No.” I’m sure that it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that Allen voted with the Christian Coalition over 90% of the time between 2003 and 2006.
More entertainment on Allen’s record can be found at Joe.My.God, including the fact that he is the author of Florida House Bill #1475, the “Lewd Or Lascivious Exhibition Act.”
Allen may seem insane for coming up with something this ridiculous to avoid being labeled as gay, but he wouldn’t be alone.
American University anthropology Professor William Leap has spent more than a decade researching male sex in public places. In 1999, he edited an academic compilation called Public Sex/Gay Space. His conclusion is that up to half of the men who seek this kind of sex are not gay.Another lawyer interviewed for the piece said that most of the men he represents on public restroom sex charges aren’t gay. ‘’The percentage of people I represent on the charges, the vast number of them turn out to be very straight and very married. They’re looking for moments of instant gratification.'’
Also:
* GOP cornucopia of carnal scandal
* NY Magazine: married men on the down low
45 Responses to “Busted Florida Republican state rep’s “black gay panic” defense on soliciting charge”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
That book is on my shelf, still waiting to be read.
‘’The percentage of people I represent on the charges, the vast number of them turn out to be very straight and very married. They’re looking for moments of instant gratification.’’
He means “turn out to be very invested in identifying as straight”, right?
Because, seriously, if you’re seeking out sex with men, even if you’re pitching rather than catching, while you might not identify as “gay” (and that’s something I totally get), and you might still be happily married and sexually attracted to your wife, you sure as hell aren’t “very straight”.
These are probably the types of guys who would say, “A hole is a hole.” Nothing straighter than that.
seeking out sex with men being a key phrase, there.
I don’t really buy the idea that some men who deliberately seek out sex with other men (men who look like men and identify as men) in places where gay men usually go to cruise are actually still completely heterosexual and not really attracted to men at all, it’s just that they’ll fuck anything. In prison or the military or on a desert island, sure. But I know from experience that finding people to fuck in a hetero context is virtually always easier than finding people to fuck in a queer context (unless, perhaps, you’re a member of certain gyms in Chelsea).
If men who like having sex with men in an anonymous gay cruise context want to be “on the DL”, well, OK, whatever floats your boat, I guess. But it bothers me when this is extrapolated to mean that the man in question is “actually straight”. If he was actually straight, he wouldn’t have been cruising the rambles at 4 AM. There are much easier ways to find a “hole”.
And not just a racist, a wussy racist who would rather blow a guy than stand up to him.Anyone happen to know if there’s a particular blog or website devoted to tracking all the Republican sexual hypocrisies and incidents of “impure” sexual behavior? It would be nice to know there’s someplace I can go to get a full list of all these bullshit GOP offenders.
wonkette throws up an index every so often, but I don’t know of any one particular blog dedicated to it.
…wait… this chickenshit was “afraid of becoming a statistic” by being mugged by black guys- so his major defense was to ask to suck another guy’s cock?
…schwa? WTF? man republicans are twisted.
Is this how he gets republican state leadership to back his legislation?
…mayhap he just feels safer with a dick in his mouth.
//sudden image of him and chris mathews making out (get the mind-bleach)//
If there’s one thing a big scary black man likes more than beating the living shit out of a white guy, it’s being treated like a homosexual prostitute. That’s why so many rap songs include lines like “I’ll break your neck unless you pay me for buttsecks.” It’s true. I read it on the internets.
(a) Possibly the more obvious conclusion is that “gay” and “straight” are identities certain people claim at certain times for certain reasons, not fundamental types of people. I’m sure Leap’s work is more nuanced than the one-sentence summary above, but it’s not clear how people are so clearly sorted into gay and not gay.
(b) It’s horrifying that people are being arrested for this. Amid the easy snickering, let’s give a moment’s thought to all the people who are caught by this kind of police operation.
@ c —
A - It’s not Leap I was critiquing. I know next to nothing about his work other than that “His conclusion is that up to half of the men who seek this kind of sex are not gay.” Not gay can cover a pretty wide amount of territory, including men who don’t identify as gay but still participate willingly in homosexual sex. Which, as a former student of anthropology and gender studies, is what I’d assume Leap is talking about.
What I take issue with is the prosecutor also quoted, who says that the vast number of men he brings up on public sex charges are “very straight”. Which, sorry, no. Even someone who identifies as straight but also has gay sex on the DL is not “very straight”, in any possible sense of that expression. Once you find yourself cruising for gay sex, you forfeit the right to be regarded by others as “totally 100% heterosexual in every sense of the word”.
B - I’m perfectly fine with public sex, between people of any gender, being illegal. (as long as it’s used as a quality of life ticketable violation rather than to throw people in prison and fuck with the gay community, of course.)
>>>>These are probably the types of guys who would say, “A hole is a hole.” Nothing straighter than that.
Aren’t these the same guys that say, “You poke it, you own it?”
Heh.
You know, the “hole is a hole” defense might work better if he wasn’t paying to suck someone else’s dick. Just saying, I dont think you can continue to call yourself straight after that.
C, he was soliciting people in a public bathroom for sex. I don’t know how excessive the punishment for that usually is, but I don’t think people should have sex in a public bathroom or bother other people in public for sex. Find someone on the internet and go to a hotel room, but don’t bother anyone else in your quest for anonymous sex.
Wow! Relying on prejudice against gays AND blacks? That guy is so getting acquitted, and possibly the key to the city.
Oh wait, he didn’t kill the guy, he offered to blow him. Nope, he’s done for.
hmmm.
I mean, getting solicited by scumbags isn’t cool. I would really hate to have that guy follow me into a bathroom stall and ask to suck me off.
C, you think people shouldn’t be getting arrested for this kind of behavior?
I know we run into the whole Miranda Rights type of defending a scumbag on principle kind of issue on pandagon a fair bit, but do you really want to be known as the guy who thinks creepy semi-pathological men’s room solicitation is an inalienable right?
We’ve been on this story a bit since it broke, since it’s in our neck of the woods, and when Allen’s screwy excuse broke, my initial reaction was “so he thinks it’s better to be thought a racist than gay,” and given the part of Florida he lives in, that’s probably not a horrible bet.
Opopo rox the house, as always
As I was reading this, my first instinct was to call bullshit on the whole,”…up to half of the men who seek this kind of sex are not gay.” I am sure the author gives a more nuanced interpretation of this, as suggested in an earlier comment, but the statement itself stands as testiment to what is so problematic about getting to the bottom of the whole gay/straight issue. The very fact that a trained anthropologist, who knows better than to believe in the gay/straight dichotomy still uses these identities as baselines for categorization speaks volumes about why a conservative politician would rather be percieved as racist than gay.
I believe the mentality of the Christian Right, where one legislates one’s own very narrow interpretation of morality, stems from the real fear of identity fungibility. The two identities this group has most notably fought to position as rigid are female/male and gay/straight.
Make no mistake, though. Yes, these are two important dichotomies fir the RR to maintain, but the real keystone dichotomy, the one that undergirds all others is unholy/holy. Whether they are subjugating women, or gays, or any other group, they are realy just using code for “unholy”.
That’s what a theocracy does, and that’s why we’ve got to oppose it on all fronts. Ironically, I wrote an open letter to the Christian Right on my blog earlier today detailing just that sentiment. If they wish to identify the “left” as “enemy”, they will find themselves facing a capable adversary.
http://nekoonna.blogspot.com/
@ the opoponax:
“B - I’m perfectly fine with public sex, between people of any gender, being illegal. (as long as it’s used as a quality of life ticketable violation rather than to throw people in prison and fuck with the gay community, of course.)”
“But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
I usually idolize most/all of what opo sez & how, but on this one, I can’t help but suspect that such a law would never, in the real world (’Murkan sector, anyway), not be used as a means of oppressing the gay community.
I am confident there is no problem this guy can’t suck his way out of.
I think I heard about this before it even made the rounds on here, Pamela. Bob Allen’s defense is weaker than the weakest weak. If he had any common sense, he would resign his state seat.
And yes, the Christian right is our third enemy in the fight for democracy.
’The percentage of people I represent on the charges, the vast number of them turn out to be very straight and very married. They’re looking for moments of instant gratification.’’
This reminded me so much of a friend of mine. We were all sitting around talking about where we were on the kinsey scale. And a lot of my friends are in the middle of the road. This guy says he’s a one. And we’re all, “How can this be possible considering that we all know you had sex with a man?” His explaination “I am marrying a woman and that makes me a 1.”
Uhm… not really?
I can’t help but suspect that such a law would never, in the real world (’Murkan sector, anyway), not be used as a means of oppressing the gay community.
How’s that?
All you have to do is not be outrageously predatory about it.
Sure, the ongoing example of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, is a situation in which the use of “Teh Illegal Public Buttsecks” is just a homophobic scare tactic. But there are quite a few notorious cruise areas in NYC which are rarely, if ever, disturbed by police activity. Even though public sex is totally illegal in NYC, just as it is in Ft. Lauderdale.
For that matter, why should any violation/misdemeanor laws be on the books, when they could theoretically be used to discriminate against people?
Is this a normal transaction? Because I didn’t realize that it was so difficult to find a guy (hetero- or homo-) willing to get a blowjob that you had to pay them $20. I always thought that the person giving the blowjob got the money.
Worst.Excuse.Ever
I am also anti-public-toilet-sex. At least take the person to your car or, barring that, behind some trees. Don’t make some poor person with diarrhea sit there on the toilet having to listen to you blow some guy.
And I think we can all agree that paying for sex is not a good thing, yes?
oppo- entrapment sting operations of this kind are common. Besides a possible misdemeanor conviction the penalty also usually includes having your name printed in the paper. Yes, these laws are used to harass the gay community.
I always thought that the person giving the blowjob got the money.
Apparently, that’s not the standard for desperately repressed gay men…
“is this a normal transaction? Because I didn’t realize that it was so difficult to find a guy (hetero- or homo-) willing to get a blowjob that you had to pay them $20″
I was thinking the same thing … maybe he just gives super good head and nobody’s ever ask for the 20 bucks?
these laws are used to harass the gay community.
I never said that such laws aren’t used to harass the gay community, but that there’s nothing intrinsic about laws against public sex that requires them to be used to harass the gay community, as opposed to just enforcing them like any other similar law.
I also said that I’m only for them when enforced as similar laws generally are, and not when used as a blunt instrument.
The bottom line is that homophobic locales are going to persecute gays in whatever way they can, and less homophobic ones are not going to persecute gays at all. AFAIK, less homophobic areas (such as my home city of NY) do not publish the names of men busted for this — or if they do, it must be real discreet, because I’ve read all sorts of newspapers (even the boring parts like the police blotter and the public notices), and I’ve never seen it to be the case.
deep6,
http://thinkvote.blogspot.com/
The list is slightly out-of-date so it excludes, among many others,
* Ted Klaudt (the South Dakota former state rep who legislated against sex offenders and drew up the nationally known abortion bill, while, allegedly, performing “exams” on his foster children and pages with speculums to “harvest their eggs” so they could “get money for college.” He reportedly told one of them, “you can’t cry, you have to get stimulated” and gave the girls beer and told them to “toughen up.”)
* Young Republican leaders Glenn Murphy and Michael Flory: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/7/16227/45753
Also, on that list, it is worth noting that Heldreth led the effort to “save” Terri Schiavo.
ace - too cool. Gracias. I’ll check it out at home when I’m not as likely to set off the corporate internet security policy porn-o-meter.
Mnemosyne:
I am also anti-public-toilet-sex. At least take the person to your car or, barring that, behind some trees. Don’t make some poor person with diarrhea sit there on the toilet having to listen to you blow some guy.
And then listen to you pray to Jesus to take away your sin.
I agree. I mean, I’m definitely on the far end from the “oh my god faggitz looking at my pecker is rape” end of the spectrum, but geez. Everyone poops and pees. Let’s all be allowed to poop and pee in relative peace.
But that means there have to be other places it’s safe and sane to find people you want to hook up with.
No problem deep6.
Eek, there is new evidence in the former case just as I looked at it:
http://www.keloland.com/ClassLibrary/Page/News/files/712klaudt_affidavit.pdf
Now ain’t this just timely.
I just learned in the Harry Potter race wank threads; http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1098854.html, that there are apparently racist sexist white men, into seeing white women ‘degraded’ by having sexual relations with black men. Now I wonder how many of those ‘Oh fear teh miscegenation!’ men are just jealous they weren’t getting their share of teh cock?
The Advocate;
August 07, 2007
Florida representative Allen: Fear made me offer sex
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid47894.asp
“Titusville police told the Sentinel that they were investigating a nearby condo burglary when they saw a disheveled, unshaved man enter and leave the park restroom three times. They decided to send in Officer Danny Kavanaugh.”‘
Now that I know the people who arrested him and triggered this lulz weren’t trolling to arrest gays, I can go back to enjoying my schadenfeude.
Perhaps this whole situation is the very reason why the fundies in florida, one idiot mayor in particular, want extremely expensive automatic bathrooms.
If they whine and bray about gay sex in front of children, then the police will certainly do something about it - like, you know, frequent the local gloryholes and set up a sting.
When they do, the will inevitably net some highly glorified down lowlife who will then bring shame on the right wing hypocrit convention.
how much will you bet that Mr. Civic Official targeted black lovers for his extracurricular amusement so he could pull this “I was soooo scared”?
Oh man, The Daily Show is really having fun with this right now.
Odd. I’m pretty sure, as a not very big woman, that I’m much smaller in relation to big stocky black men than this guy is, but somehow I’ve managed to encounter my share of areas full of black men, without ever being so terrified as to offer to blow random black men that I’m not attracted to. Let alone offer to pay them money to blow them.
“Know how I know you’re gay?”
“How?”
“You got arrested trying to solicit blowjobs in a public restroom. From men.”
“That’s gay?!”
a. You want to stop public sex, fine, but that’s not what the guy’s being charged with. In fact he showed some concern for the publicness of it according to the report.
b. Re soliciting, there’s a whole tearoom etiquette. If you’re just going about your business it’s highly unlikely you’ll be solicited. If you hang out, make extended eye contact with strangers and chat, yeah, someone may suggest sex. (And if godferbid anyone ever does suggest sex in the bathroom that you don’t want, say no and that’ll be the end of it.)
c. Re paying, I won’t, but if other people want to, it really seems pretty low on the scale of the bad things that go on in the world.
What worries me is the easy we-can-all-agree-this-is-icky tone about the post, and much of the thread. It becomes easier because the guy’s a Republican with politics we don’t like.
Allow me to make the unpopular stand here. Why are we focusing on the fact that this guy is a hypocrite? Whether a decent human being or not (I think he’s a piece of shit), he has every right to ask for a blowjob if he wants to, without police officers spending time in bathrooms arresting him for it.
The point is this: this wouldn’t have ever happened if there weren’t the intentional and deliberate crackdown on gay men. I am not against calling him a hypocrite, I am against us not questioning WHY there were police officers in the public bathrooms cracking down on gay men offering each other blowjobs.
This for me, as an ally of the LGBT community, is just another step in criminalizing homosexual conducts.
Why are we focusing on the fact that this guy is a hypocrite?
To tell the truth, I don’t deeply care about the fact that he’s a hypocrite; I care about the fact that he’s a racist.
I am against us not questioning WHY there were police officers in the public bathrooms cracking down on gay men offering each other blowjobs.
In this case, they started out staking out a burglary in a neighboring house, and saw a target of opportunity when the guy started cruising the public bathroom.
Which doesn’t settle the question of how the law should actually handle soliciting in public bathrooms. As a woman who objects to being solicited by strangers in public places, I have to grant men the same right to find sexual soliciting by strangers in public places scary (as long as they keep their objections to how a reasonable woman would react, and don’t do the violent gay panic thing at the least possibility that another man might ever be attracted to them). And I know I’d rather the spots where women are presumed to be possibly open to sexual solicitation be ones that I have to go to when doing my normal business, so it’s fair for men not to want to accidentally run the risk of being solicited when they’re just trying to pee.
On the other hand, in practice it seems that it’s legally OK to harrass me in the street, but legally much worse to sexually approach other men in the tea room, and I don’t really see that as fair. I’d be happier if people simply risked getting fined for unwelcome sexual advances to strangers regardless of the sexes involved.
By the way, at his Web-site, I find it funny that his “favorite activity” as listed as “watersports.” I am sure it doesn’t involve a jetski or being in the water at all.