Sep 21, 2007  |  By: ELIZABETH PERRY  | COMMENTS     

Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-Idaho) arrest last June for allegedly soliciting sex from another man in an airport restroom and his insistence that he is straight has reawakened the debate over sexual behavior, identity and orientation.

“I am not gay. I have never been gay,” Craig said at an oft-quoted Aug. 28 news conference. “I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis Airport.”

Craig made a surprise visit to Capitol Hill Tuesday, where he apologized to his colleagues for “any embarrassment” at a Republican Senate luncheon, according to media reports. He said it is still uncertain whether or not he will return to political office. Another hearing is set for Wednesday on charges filed against him in the bathroom sting charges. He pleaded guilty on Aug. 8 to a disorderly conduct charge and said he planned to resign from the Senate Sept. 30. He filed papers Sept. 10 to withdraw his guilty plea.

Craig’s arrest has sparked debate about what it means to be straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual, or more specifically, how a self-identified straight man can have feelings of attraction for another man. One of the first people to scientifically study sexual orientation and identity was sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.

In his 1948 book, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” Kinsey introduced his Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, which ranged from zero, meaning a person was exclusively heterosexual, to six, meaning a person was exclusively homosexual.

According to the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, Inc., almost half of the male population studied by the institute engaged in sexual activity or were attracted to both sexes at one time or another over the course of their lives. On the Kinsey scale, they rated a three.

“Kinsey estimated that nearly 46 percent of the male population had engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, or “reacted to” persons of both sexes, in the course of their adult lives (p. 656, Male).”

In an opinion column published in last week’s Blade, Alexander Robinson, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, suggested gays should use the incident to talk candidly about the fluidity of sexual orientation and its effect on gay identity.

“First, we must learn how to distinguish the differences between sexual behavior, sexual identity and sexual orientation,” he wrote. “Craig has vehemently denied that he is a gay man and I believe him.”

Robinson and therapists Paula Rodriguez Rust and Joe Kort agree that while life would be easier if sexual identity, behavior and orientation all lined up neatly in a row for men, that’s often not the case.

“We point to the hypocrisy of Sen. Craig and we are quick to condemn it and make excuses about repression,” Robinson said. “The reality is that sexual orientation and identity run along a continuum. We need to accept that and liberate people from that.”

Kort, a gay therapist who specializes in gay affirmative therapy, said it is possible that Craig might well be homosexual in terms of orientation, but not identity. He said being “gay” is an identity, while being “homosexual” is an orientation.

“I treat many men who are homosexual and do not wish to be gay,” Kort said. “They cannot and do not change their orientation, however. For these men, and Larry Craig may be one of them, being gay is the furthest from how they see themselves. He may be a straight man who enjoys occasional sex with men or he might be a homosexual or bisexual man, but would never identify this way because it is an affirmative identity that does not fit for him.”

That view is controversial among many gays who reject the notion that “gay” is an identity. Some scientists and researchers in fields ranging from psychology, AIDS research, blood donation and more, use the term “men who have sex with men,” or MSM, for their purposes. It’s useful to them because it removes the stigma associated with terms like gay or bi and while questions of the latter terms raise a bounty of identity issues, MSM is more concrete and quantifiable.

Rust, a therapist with the International Academy of Sex Research, said issues of sexuality are still highly stigmatized in Western culture, where people are expected to fit into categories. She said those who find it difficult to fit into cultural norms sometimes have a hard time expressing themselves in socially acceptable ways.