Pointing Pentax at the porcelain
/Johann Hari - Do the police still have a problem with homophobia?
After a complaint, the local police in Merseyside launched Operation Winchester. They have installed hidden cameras in public toilets, at penis-height and face-height**, to catch gay men who want to have consensual sex. I’m not a defender of cottaging – meeting in toilets seems to me a pretty depressing left-over from the closet – but at a time when the police often don’t send out officers to investigate burglaries, is punishing consensual sex a sensible use of police time and money? And why the focus exclusively on gay meeting-points, and never the ubiquitous rise of straight “dogging” sites?What about very short men, very tall men and men with very long legs?
