Grope a Dope

The conversation over Barney Frank’s “hands on” nature is highlighting the gay Gen X tendency to minimize sexual bad behavior

I’d made a conscious decision this week to stay out of the public commentary about the impending death of former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank. I don’t have a problem speaking ill of the (soon-to-be) dead — public figures with long records of good and bad acts are fair game to my mind. I didn’t have super-strong feelings about Barney, a man I only ever had brief and few interactions with. I knew his reputation as a bullying asshole, which, surprise for some folks I suppose.

My problem was more that, if faced with a choice between saving a baby that’s hanging over a boiling cauldron and saving face for the Democratic party, well, get ready for baby stew because we all knew where Barney’s true loyalties were. That’s why he’s been devoting some of his last moments engaging in hippie-punching to the left on trans issues.

Then Bil Browning published his recollection of Barney — namely, being groped by the congressman as a young, gay political activist. When I saw that Bil had posted it to Facebook I immediately dove into the comments to confirm what I suspected would be there: a horde of my fellow Gen X gay men defending Barney’s handsiness and dismissing any concern over unwanted groping as whining over something that they believe was actually common and fun and expected back in the 1990s.

Bullshit.

Bil has followed up with his own post on this (and he was nice enough to quote me) that I think fairly makes the point that this is crazy talk. But the whole idea has really stuck in my craw now for a couple days.

This is super simple. Keep your fucking hands to yourself, especially if you’re a man in a position of power over the people around you. I’m not just saying that because I had my ass grabbed by anonymous hands so many, many times while making my way through the Sunday night crowd at JR.’s, or working my way to the bar at Tracks, or trying to force my way through that stupidly-narrow hallway between the front and back bars at Badlands.

To be clear, lest someone accuse me of hypocrisy: playing secret grab ass with strangers is a different thing than engaging in some flirty, face-to-face physicality. I did a lot of the latter and had a lot of it done to me. The thing is, those were situations where you could say no.

The fact that I rarely said no does not change the ethical calculus here. That still was true back in the 90s even if we were all acculturated to just accepting it as the way things were.

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And, getting back closer to Bil’s story of Barney, it is harder to say “No” or “Stop” to someone who has power over you or influence over your desired career. I’ve spent my time around rich and powerful gay men who take more liberties than they should and, as a twink in my twenties, I let things slide because I didn’t want to rock the boat, I didn’t want to do something that would keep me from moving up whatever ladder I was focused on at the time.

But that’s not the only reason I keep coming back to those Facebook defenses of bad behavior like I’m picking at a wound.

Around 1993, I sliced my knee open on a car license plate while running around clubbing. Probably should have gone to the emergency room but Tracks was calling and I wasn’t gonna miss it. So I patched up with bandaids and promised my friends I’d go to a doctor later.

I hadn’t found a regular doctor at the time, so I chose one from an advertisement in the Washington Blade. I got a quick appointment and couple days later I was sitting pantsless on an exam table as Dr. S— stitched up my knee and gave me my tetanus booster. Then, during the “all done” portion of the visit, he fondled my genitals and gave me a kiss on the cheek, telling me I was so “beautiful.”

It happened so fast. It stuns you.

And I convinced myself that it wasn’t a big deal, I was misinterpreting what had happened, he was just being a little overly friendly. So when I came down with a case of strep throat a few months later, I went back. And I got fondled and kissed again.

That time, I stopped convincing myself.

This wasn’t the first time I’d run into inappropriate behavior in a doctor’s office. The whole reason I went to Dr. S— in the first place was because of the initial doctor I saw in D.C. on Q Street. Or, more specifically, the young physician who did my full body examination there and then pulled my home phone number from my file to call me and ask for a date. Another incident that creeped me out but I declined to do anything about.

A large part of the reason I didn’t report these guys is because, yes, at that time, we were telling ourselves that it wasn’t a big deal. Plus, my highly active sex life was no secret in D.C. and I figured it would hurt me more to report it than it would to just ignore it. Which means other guys probably had the same sexual assault experience I did because I chose not to speak up.

Too many people are still saying it wasn’t a big deal, that it was all in good fun, and everyone actually enjoyed it. As Bil notes in his piece, that’s the sound of older gay men rationalizing their own bad behavior.

I may be getting older but I’m still a fan of forthright sexual antics, of intense flirting, of slutting out to your little heart’s content. None of that is incompatible with keeping your hands to yourself until you know they’re welcome. It’s not incompatible with being respectful of people who are younger than you, who depend on you for their job, who look up to you as role model.

My generation of gay men needs to finally learn that enough is enough.