Just catching up on back issues of the SGN when this headline caught my eye…
Assault near Tribe men’s club investigated as a bias crime
First: I didn’t know that Basic Plumbing—the gay-and-bi-and-closeted-and-ordained men’s sex club wedged between the Comet and Elliott Bay Books—had changed its name to Tribe. Good to know. And now for the alarming details of a anti-gay bias crime that happened steps from Stranger HQ…
An October 30 assault on a Gay man in the heart of Capitol Hill is being investigated as a bias crime. The victim, Dustin Hamm of Seattle, was injured in the assault, but did not require hospitalization. The assault took place in front of Tribe (formerly Basic Plumbing), at 1505 10th Avenue.
“I guess it was 3:00 am,” Hamm told SGN. “I was standing by my car in front of Tribe, waiting for a friend to come out, and I see this man—clearly intoxicated—peeing on the front door.”
“So I said, ‘Hey, that’s a business. You’re peeing on the front door of a business,'” Hamm continued. “And he said ‘Oh,’ and he went over and peed on the dumpster next to it.”
Things went downhill from there, Hamm says.
“Then I said, ‘You could at least have shown me your cock.’“
“I guess I shouldn’t have said that,” Hamm added.
I’m a very bad homo, I guess, because I found it hard to sympathize with Mr. Hamm after that “[show] me your cock” business. I do not approve of what happened to him—the guy who failed to show Mr. Hamm his cock attacked Hamm (with an assist from two friends), but Hamm managed to escape into Tribe and avoided what could’ve been a much worse beating—and I’m terribly, terribly shocked that anyone besides me would use the f-word right here in the heart of Capitol Hill. But while we would all like to live in a world where, say, women were free to wear whatever they wanted to in public without risking verbal harassment and/or physical assault and gay men were free to ask strange men to show us their cocks without first verifying sexual orientation and/or attraction, we don’t live in that world. So I found it hard to get worked up over this:
Hamm told SGN that he was impressed by the officer who responded to the scene. “He was so kind and nice,” Hamm says. “He told me he has a sister who is a Lesbian.”
He is not so pleased with the detective who is handling the investigation.
“She called me a week later and said not much is going to come of the investigation,” Hamm said. “She told me, ‘Look, Dustin, you shouldn’t have asked to see his cock. Those are fighting words.'”
I think we can all agree that drunk men shouldn’t punch strange men who ask to see their cocks. But men who ask strangers to show them their cocks shouldn’t be that surprised when they do get punched.
This is Dustin Hamm and I feel I need to rebut the plethora of comments and lip service that my incident has attracted. I won’t be too wordy or lengthly because there isn’t a need. It needs to be put on the record that I NEVER ASKED to see the perpetrator’s cock. My exact words, as SGN quoted correctly, were, “You could have at least shown be your cock!”. So to the woman who exclaimed “Fuck Dustin”, likening my incident to one of a straight man asking to see a chick’s tits, I say simply to you, “You wish.” I admitted in the article that I should not have said what I said. However, it was not sexual harassment nor were my words ‘Fighting Words’ that warranted a quasi beat down that incurred after the words were jokingly uttered. This was a hate crime through and through. There’s no ‘bias’ about it.
@53
“However, it was not sexual harassment nor were my words ‘Fighting Words’ that warranted a quasi beat down that incurred after the words were jokingly uttered. This was a hate crime through and through. There’s no ‘bias’ about it.”
Dustin, I think it’s possible that ALL these things are true. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that your words “you could have at least shown me your cock” aren’t insultingly intimate to say the least. Was it sexual harassment? Well, it depends on how you choose to define the term, but I think we can all agree that it was the kind of remark anyone (straight or gay) might take great offense to.
With that said – the physical beating you got was probably a hate crime, in that this guy was especially angry at such a remark coming from a gay dude. The guy sounds like an asshole, but remember that the fact that there are people worse than you does not make you good. He didn’t deserve it, you didn’t deserve it, and both of you probably need to control yourselves a bit more.
The guy was PISSING on the front door of a business. Asking to see his cock seems a far lesser crime in this scenario. He already had his dick out and was already using it the spread his urine – it would appear that he isn’t all that shy about it. I have no problem with what Mr. Hamm said, and don’t think in this situation it would automatically follow that he should expect a punch.
@53 You know, after reading your comment, and thinking about how you said what you did (in a joking way, not in a demanding, aggressive way), I definitely agree with you that this was a hate-based crime, not just a drunk guy reacting to someone. I think if you had been a woman, and had said that to him, I seriously doubt he would have reacted the way he did. Which goes back to my first comment: That the man’s reaction was based on his own insecurities, which a lot of straight men probably have, and not because the comment was “douchy.”