Nov 09, 2007  |  By: CHRIS CRAIN  | COMMENTS     

THE BLACKMAIL SEX scandal that cost Richard Curtis his seat in the Washington state Legislature is shaping up as a real classic and the gay blogosphere was more than happy to pass on every juicy detail. There are some interesting twists, however, that are showing the predictable pack of salivating bloggers themselves are guilty of “the big H” — that would be hypocrisy.

Curtis, a conservative Republican two-term lawmaker, reported to police that he was being blackmailed by a male escort he met in an adult video store. Though Curtis has since denied it in interviews, he told police he had sex with the escort, who then stole his wallet and later called demanding $1,000 or he would expose Curtis’ double life to his wife.

Curtis went to police with the hope of making the whole thing go away, but that decision backfired. Police asked him to share everything about his encounter with the escort, 26-year-old Cody Castagna, and all the details wound up in the police report, and hence the public domain and (inevitably) the blogosphere.

The information in the police report was particularly juicy, considering Curtis apparently dressed in women’s lingerie.

Gay bloggers had a field day, giving us permission to revel in every salacious detail of this private, consensual sexual encounter because Curtis is “very anti-gay,” as one gossipmonger put it. In blogger-speak, that means Curtis voted against two gay rights bills, though no one has yet produced homophobic rhetoric or evidence he played a leadership role on the issue.

NEVERTHELESS, A COUPLE of votes on the wrong side of gay issues is all it takes these days to expose every detail of an elected official’s sex life to public dissection on the blogs, with no detail too private or too embarrassing.

If the police report is accurate, the really serious hypocrisy is a personal one, between Curtis and his wife, assuming she does not know or approve of his man-on-man adventures. Hence his vulnerability to blackmail.

The criminal part of this story has gotten almost completely lost in all the joyous reveling in the salacious personal details of this man’s private sex life. The only reason we know anything about any of this is that Curtis alleges he was blackmailed and went to police for protection. Doesn’t that matter?

Only passing reference has been made by bloggers and their “amen” chorus of commenters to the felony unpleasantness that had befallen poor Rep. Curtis. Apparently the revelry isn’t as much fun if we’re reminded that the target of our snickers is himself the victim of a crime.

And fun is the theme here, especially for Dan Savage, the gay advice columnist who has made his entire career based on other people’s sex lives, though usually at the stranger’s (anonymous) request. “I spent the last hour wading through the 15 page police report. Holy crap!” Savage reported excitedly on his blog. “Curtis, hoping to keep this whole thing quiet, called the police himself. And when the police asked him what happened, Curtis told them everything.”

Isn’t that hilarious? For all we know, Curtis is the victim of blackmail, but it’s a real knee-slapper how Savage and company have picked up right where the blackmailer left off, exposing every private sexual detail they can get their hands on, and with giddy commentary to boot.

IT’S ALL JUSTIFIED, of course, because there’s no crime more serious to the sex police of the left than hypocrisy — which is why it’s interesting to see how these same bloggers have reacted to news that Curtis enjoys wearing women’s lingerie.

Cross-dressers and transvestites (who have a sexual fetish for clothing of the opposite sex) are both examples of transgenderism, the “T” in our happy GLBT community.

We certainly have no business disparaging cross-dressing since we were reminded again and again in the debate over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that we queers are all gender transgressors of one form or another. It’s a surprise, then, to see how cross-dressing is being treated by the leftie gay blogosphere.

Not only are we now enthusiastically finishing a would-be blackmailer’s work for him, but we’re betraying the “respect” we claim to be demanding from society at large to a part of our supposed community. The politics of personal destruction show no signs of letting up.