More Arrests At Theatair X

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The police promised they'd do this. The arrests happened last Friday, but I, in my sinus-medicine haze, didn't hear about them until yesterday when my boyfriend casually mentioned seeing something about it on the news. In fact, the raid was coordinated with one of the local television stations, and the dudes were filmed coming out of the store in handcuffs.

All four of these guys are familiar-looking to me. They were regulars. I've done at least one of them. Could have been me.

So what happens now? TheatairX is done as a cruising spot, at least for the next little bit (as in: year or two or three). I can't imagine anybody going there now.

It's a good thing I had this cold. I had started to think that TheatairX might be on-limits again -- had even gone back there once, as you know if you've been following the blog -- but no more. The evangelical organization that is driving this harassment is peppering the police with complaints, and even setting up their own investigations. They're getting funding directly from the state of Indiana, via the sale of specialized licence plates! That's not cool. The police have decided it's more important to appear to be listening to them, and to help them achieve their agenda, than to accept payout money from TheatairX (I'm just guessing here, but come on -- the place has been around, with its dozens of gloryholes, and remained mostly undisturbed, for about 40 years; there has to have been a relationship of some sort with the police). I guess I don't blame the police. Defending a gloryhole playground is difficult, politically, anywhere, but especially in a small southern exurb.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other places around, and, even more fortunately, all of them are in a different police jurisdiction than TheatairX, so one police department living in fear of one crazy right-wing Christian hate group can't ruin everything everywhere. Most of the other places are in Louisville proper -- a much larger city, with a much more politically and religiously diverse population, where it will be far more difficult (but not impossible!) for one little group of assholes to bully the police into servicing their radical anti-sex agenda. None of the other places are as clean or as active as TheatairX was, though. I'm pretty sure I caught my cold sitting on a nasty leather chair in a theater at one of the places in town. But that's the way it goes. I'll take hand sanitizer.

So that's what happens. Most of the activity will simply migrate over the bridge, but not all. I'm sure some of those southern Indiana guys are scared to death to drive in Louisville (it's hilariously a common thing among people I know who live there -- they think that they'll get hurt in "the big city" just by virtue of crossing the bridge; they have fantasies of getting lost in Louisville's vast and violent traffic patterns, I guess), so they'll just have to figure out some other place to go. I guess Bloomington? There's one bookstore there. It's okay, especially during exam week. It's pretty far to drive, though. As for the original primary clientele, the truckers, I'm sure they'll just hang tight until they get to the ABS near Horse Cave, Kentucky (if they're going South), or the ones close to Chicago (if they're going north). A few hours isn't that much of a delay if you're driving for several days already, as part of your job. I'll miss them, but ah well. They weren't my favorites anyway.