I assure you it is just a coincidence that I've been in 3 airports this past week! I just finished visiting the men's room here at the Dallas airport (terminal C, near C8 by the way) and no, I did not tap my foot. In one short week the average American has been made aware of a so-called "underground" world they hardly even considered possible. One reporter shared with me how his male colleagues were sitting around talking about how jealous they were at how easy it might be to get off with another guy at a public venue if only they were gay. While Cruisers might have had cause for alarm earlier in the week, the truth is as the week of "The Great Toilet Scandal" winds down, it seems we've actually made some progress. Given there actually is virtually no "movement" representing our interests, this is all the more remarkable.

Just look at the print media editorial pages which to some degree, tend to reflect where a sizable part of the population at large tends to be on a position. It got a good start when the LA times printed a piece called Get Government Out of the Bathroom by Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie. It isn't really a surprise that a Libertarian magazine would take this position, but that one of our more influential media outlets published it is a big deal. And then today on my flight, as I'm looking at the Sunday New York Times, I see another guest editorial, America's Toe-Tapping Menace from Laura MacDonald, a Canadian author in which the she points out the harm caused to the larger society by "criminalizing consensual acts" even if society may be uncomfortable knowing this is happening.

To my delight, this guest editorial gives added attention to a key point I've emphasized all week to reporters in explaining this underground world: the Cruiser does what they do, including foot-tapping, precisely because they wish to not come in contact with an uninterested public and as important, the very fact the larger culture seems surprised to learn of this actually well-organized and long-standing sub-culture is validation of just how Cruisers have succeeded for the most part in keeping cruising limited just to those "in the know." The only reason Senator Craig got in trouble was because a cop trained himself how to entrap Cruisers and then set about spending god knows how much tax money sitting in public toilets to arrest men for doing nothing more than moving a foot or sliding a hand under a stall.

Frankly that cop is one of the few players from this past week who comes across looking bad. After a slow start in understanding critical elements of the story, even the media was able to grasp many of the critical issues.

Over all, it could be this week will come to be viewed as a positive turning point for attitudes about cruising for sex. As we all should have learned from the gay lib movement, there is a good deal to be said about being honest about who we are, about "coming out." This was our coming out week and I think we did pretty darn good guys!