A cock-and-balls story

Whodaho? Idaho. No, no. Larrycraigdaho.

I know, I know, I know. I've become something of an alternative, public-access, cable channel devoted solely to the surreptitious movements and incendiary TV appearances of America's Poster Boy for Repressed Sexuality, U.S. Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

Call me tacky, call me obsessed, call me easily amused--but watching Larry Craig on TV is a bit like watching Dancing with the Stars. You know you should be spending your time in more productive ways--but it's just so darned entertaining! What will the dance consist of this night--a tango? a foxtrot? a hustle? What will La Larry dance to? "I'm in the Mood for Love"? "It's Raining Men"? The world's smallest violin playing "Nobody Knows the Troubles I Seen"? More importantly, will his leg (third or otherwise) fly off in the middle of a particularly exuberant herky-jerk?

Ah, think big, dear ones! Tonight it will be a choice of all three plus a wildcard--meet number four, a new dance partner!

This week, in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, Mrs. Larry Craig, aka Suzanne "Bearded Lady" Thompson, appeared side-by-side with His Lechness to refute the incessant accusations that hubby is a dyed-in-the-pink-wool homo.

Matt did a good job with the interview, but as is to be expected, Larry stonewalled (no pun intended) rather well. Then again, he's had several weeks and a few court appearances behind him, so surely he's practiced and perfected his denial and outrage by now.

Still, there were some surprises (and by surprises I mean out-and-out howlers) in the interview. Such as when Laddie Larry played the victim card, told how awful it was to be ridiculed and derided before the nation at large, wished ill, wanted gone, etc., etc., all for political gain.

Yes, yes, I quite agree. As a gay man during the era of politicians making careers and scapegoats out of us queers, I know just how you feel, Larry. It sucks (if you'll pardon the expression) to be judged on behavior deemed by some to be unseemly and immoral--although science strongly indicates its nature, not nurture, at work here. To have your private sexual life held up for ridicule and misrepresented in the media. To be paraded before an unkind populace and made to explain yourself repeatedly. It's so unfair to be treated such, rather than being credited for your record of good works and exemplary behavior.

Oh yes, my heart goes out to you. My pure, unironical heart.

But by far the best moment in the interview had to be when the Missus denied claims by someone (unnamed, probably reported on by that little-newspaper-that-could back in Idaho) that they had seen and could describe the Craig Family Jewels. *Shudder.*

And that's a shudder felt so deeply as to be mistaken for amoebic dysentery, because not only did Mrs. Craig bring this tale to our attention (an area of knowledge I had been quite comfortable living without, thanks all the same), she also added in a significant, I'm-fresh-from-coaching-by-her-husband's-chief-of-staff tone, that she should know what her husband's bits and pieces look like, having examined them and all, and they didn't look at all as they had been described.

Please. Let's all take a moment to let this sink in. Then let's all pull out our imaginary icepicks and stab ourselves in our mind's eye until the image fades from view. There. Better now.

I actually blushed at this detail. Not because I'm a prude and shocked by the reference to the pater genitalias. (I've seen a few in my time, but thankfully none of which belonged to ol' Larry.) No, it's more that I was embarrassed for the both of them, especially Mrs. Craig. That she would go on national television to defend her husband from (repeated and loudly repeated at that) charges of sexual misconduct with other men in public places by discussing this cock-and-balls story . . . well, I just feel ashamed for the both of them. Clearly they'll do anything to stay right where they are, no matter how humiliating and tawdry.

I mean, honestly, just how big a pair of whores are the both of them that they're willing to do not a tell-all but a tell-a-lurid-some to the world at large about the Senatorial Box? All this for what exactly? To be the Power Couple of Idaho in the post-Demi and Bruce era? For the chance to discuss, ferchrissakes, policy all day in a room full of aging, gray-suited men? (Whatever floats your dinghy, Larry.) For the opportunity to have an impact not on war and peace, healthcare, education, and social welfare, but on more pressing matters--like ads by Moveon.org, gay marriage, and Terry Schiavo? To continue to inhabit the power-mad but ultimately unsexy world of Official Washington, a construct so goyische that you'd swear the Capitol was made out of Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip?

It hardly seems worth it. But then owning a McMansion in the Virginia suburbs, having an entourage of sycophantic Young Republicans to guide you through every political landmine (although apparently not through the Minneapolis Airport), and getting to vote against other people's happiness is just too perverted a fantasy even for a known homosexual like me.

I'm not being fair here. I do a disservice--to whores. 'Cause whores at least have an honorable way of life. They avail themselves and their privates to others, make others happy by doing so, and don't deny it all when the going gets rough. They even do it for free! All very unlike a certain Congressman and his wife.

However, despite my rantings, the interview was successful in that it finally obliterated from my thinking that Loose Lips Larry is gay. I truly believe he's not. Labeling someone gay (in a post-Stonewall, pre-South Park way) implies that they have an affiliation with and understanding of homosexuality as not merely a sexual proclivity but a social and cultural alignment. In other words, there's more to homosexuality than just sex--but "homoculturality" won't make it past your spellchecker. And calling it "homosocialism" is just asking for trouble from the punditards on Fox News and CNN.

Oh, I'm still not convinced that Larry Craig hasn't at some point engaged in some form of same-sex sexual activity, whether in an airport restroom of his choosing or in some pup-tent-on-the-range, Brokeback Mountain fantasy style, acted out possibly with Dick Cheney. Or Karl Rove.

Possibly. Probably. Who knows? But even all that doesn't mean you're gay, as "expert" authorities like Dr. Drew--who, best as I can figure, represents some sort of Malibu Buddhist pinnacle of better sexual enlightenment through tanning and Botox--keep reminding us on the Larry King Show. That just means you're a man who has sex with men.

In other words, as they say in the vernacular of the sexual underworld, you're nothing more than a cocksucker.

And, Larry, I suspect you're the biggest one of 'em all.