The North Carolina 'bathroom bill' has captured the national press to the extent that typing 'NC' into the web-browser results in the number one auto-fill result 'NC bathroom bill'. Congratulations, North Carolina... even better, the anti-gay legislation was accompanied by regressive workplace policies- the right-wingers use the social issues to con the rubes into voting against their best interests.
The real puzzler to me is the bizarre fixation on public restrooms... I just can't understand anyone portraying them as hotbeds of eroticism, though this has been a Republican fixation for years. One of my favorite bars has a unisex bathroom, and the individual stalls afford a large measure of privacy. Working alone at nights, I have often been in the women's restrooms (I'm the guy who locks up and turns off all the lights when we close), and the stalls afford a large measure of privacy. There's really not a lot of room for salacious activity to occur in public bathrooms, not to mention that the cold, harsh environments aren't exactly conducive to an amatory mood.
The really crazy thing here is that public bathroom shenanigans, whether sexual or violent, tend to involve conservative men.
Things are bad enough, but it takes a Louie Gohmert to make things worse... here's Louie waxing gohmertic on public restrooms:
“…I was as good a kid as you can have growing up, I never drank alcohol till I was legal, never to, still, use an illegal drug, but in the seventh grade if the law had been that all I had to do was say, ‘I’m a girl,’ and I got to go into the girls’ restroom, I don’t know if I could’ve withstood the temptation just to get educated back in those days.”
About the only thing an adolescent Louie would have learned in the girls' restroom in his middle school is that the pretty girl in math class that he had a crush on takes craps as prodigious as the varsity football team linebackers. Hmmmm... given how full of shit Louie is, maybe he did get educated in the girls' restroom back in seventh grade.
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My town is responsible for turning all of LGBT rights into an argument about bathrooms.
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance got flubbed by its proponents last year, who had a specific bathroom provision in it originally. They took it out, but then the mayor went running around assuring everyone that bathrooms were still covered under general public accommodations language.
And immediately, the opponents found (at long last) a way to stop LGBT rights in its tracks.
There is apparently an army of would-be male kidnappers waiting for equal rights to pass so they can kidnap little girls from public restrooms. There are apparently also a lot of scenarios in which adults shower with little kids in public.
Which surprises me, frankly.
My dad owned a business, and he never cared who he sold to and never checked genitals before letting someone use the restroom. Maybe I'm just not scared enough.
Indeed. This weird prudish/prurient fascination with controlling where people can 'go' is embarrassing to the point of being cringe-inducing. I mean, who even thinks about this stuff. You go in a public bathroom, with its harsh lighting and harsher smells and you do your business, or you do a line, and you get the hell out.
One of the running gags in Beavis & Butthead was that Beavis always conflated masturbation and pooping. If you are a grown man in a suit and your closest analog is Beavis, you need to check yourself...
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance got flubbed by its proponents last year, who had a specific bathroom provision in it originally. They took it out, but then the mayor went running around assuring everyone that bathrooms were still covered under general public accommodations language.
Wow, the authoritarians really do like to find every loophole to exploit, and all just to oppress minorities and women.
One of the running gags in Beavis & Butthead was that Beavis always conflated masturbation and pooping. If you are a grown man in a suit and your closest analog is Beavis, you need to check yourself...
Relevant
Thank you for that blast from the past, B^4.
Now I suddenly remember MTV with music videos, living in Manhattan, only 12 blocks from MSG and Dead shows.
*sniff*
~
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