On playing footsie with cops

Or, "But My Entire World is Like an Airport Men's Room in Minneapolis!"

I have several reactions to the soon-to-be-ex-Senator Craig "scandal":

(1) I don't like my news pre-Onionized for me. Really, I find it surreal and disconcerting to have senators talking about the width of their bathroom stances. Is it too much to ask for a sliver of a partition between news and satire?

(2) What did he do? Ok, he placed his bag against the stall door, which is, apparently, something "those intending to commit lewd acts" do. Also those who don't want to leave their bag by the sink, and have it stolen or detonated. It's a cubicle. He's supposed to maybe balance the bag on his head?

By the cop's own admission, he (the cop) "pumped his foot slowly up and down in response." In other words, Craig asked for sex using an arcane code extremely unlikely to "alarm, anger, or disturb" -- according to the the equally arcane code defining disorderly conduct in Minnesota -- an uninitiated fellow-lavator, and the cop knew what it meant and said yes.
Where's the victim?

(3) What I find more astonishing is the definition of "disorderly conduct." By this reckoning, ten years and thirty pounds ago, I had disorderly conduct foisted upon me approximately...let's see...15,923 times.

Per week.
Give or take.

But, even if they're unwanted advances, that's the natural order of things, right? Whereas men have to be protected from the unwanted advances of men at all costs (why? because they're worried they just might succumb to a particularly persuasive piece of foot telegraphy?).

Given the constant, daily harassment women endure (come on now, don't tune out; stay with me, here) -- harassment that makes us compress our daily activities into daylight hours, that circumscribes where we go, who we go with, and even what we wear; intrusive harassment, ruin-your-day, make-you-feel-powerless/angry/depressed harassment -- the overzealous prosecution of the toe-tapper really pisses me off. It's like those sophomore discussions one has of human trafficking, in which someone invariably says "but what about the men?", and then the rest of the discussion, in some form or another, is overwhelmingly preoccupied with those minority cases. Heaven forfend we don't keep men front and center, even if it makes lousy Bayesians of us all.

Look: if there'd been groping, a physical risk, or even just a persistent advance in the face of a single "no" (which doesn't seem to have ever been uttered), I'd be supportive regardless of the gender base-rates involved. But "he tapped his foot and looked at me funny"? Please! Men! Grow a pair!

(4) However.

(5) In much the same way that it's a shame the OJ case involved framing a guilty man, it's unfortunate that they're unjustly smearing a guy who so richly deserves to be taken down.

I derive comfort from the way the cop's meticulous narrative continues: "he exited the cubicle...without flushing."

If they want to arrest, sentence, and bring him up on Ethics charges on that basis, I'm cool with it.