Had an incident last night at work that I found interesting.
I had a customer come up to me and complain that he had encountered a couple of guys more than once in the store who were engaging in exaggerated kissing (his phrase was "Sticking their tongues down each others throat."), in addition they more than once made rude and sexual gestures toward this customer. After assuring him that this behavior was not normal for this part of the world, and pointing toward what he needed, and away from the couple who had upset him. I thought things were done. I was wrong. I guess there was at least one more encounter in which the customer asked the couple to tone things down, suggesting that this wasn't appropriate behavior for a public place where children are present. The couples response was to continue to make gestures and comments of a sexual nature ( at one point they suggested that he perform oral sex on them), to this customer. At this point the customer went to the store manager and complained. The manager confronted the couple who admitted that their behavior had been wrong and apologized, don't miss this part, they admitted that they were wrong. At this point they were asked to leave and escorted out. Their response was to threaten a complaint to our GO about the manager.
This brought up a couple of thoughts/discussions between those of us involved.
1. At some point PDA becomes inappropriate no matter what the orientation of the couple/group involved.
2. I suspect that when/if there is a complaint filed that it will indicate that the manager escorted them out because they were gay. Not because of their behavior.
3. I'd be shocked if there isn't some sort of "XYZ company is homophobic" social media commentary floating out there already.
4. What ever happened to people actually acting like adults.
But the one thing that struck me is the fact that these guys apparently presumed that they could be provocative with no consequences. Seriously, if you engage in behavior designed to provoke, don;t be surprised when it actually provokes someone and that there are negative consequences for those doing the provoking.
I remember years ago, when the refrain from those who supported "gay rights" was "Why do you care about what people do in the privacy of their bedroom.". The answer was then and still is, what people do in private is between them and God, I really don't care that much. Where I have a problem is when it goes from the bedroom into the "pride" parade or into a home improvement store. At that point it ceases to be private and you have involved everyone who sees you. Again, much of this behavior is intended to be provocative, yet they always seem surprised when their provocative behavior provokes and results in negative consequences.
Personally, my thought is that more respect, and less intentional provocation is a good thing. But that's just me.
4 comments:
I would hope that their orientation had something to do with their removal from the store. It would be natural to assume that a hetero couple would have to be far more extreme in their PDA to provoke the same kind of response from onlookers. That is to say, simply kissing would not provoke a negative response when it is a normal couple doing it, whereas a homosexual couple doing the exact same thing would. This is because it is inherently unnatural for two of the same sex to be engaging in such a manner.
So, getting back to my first sentence, I fully support this "double-standard", as it is past time that honorable people of character push back against the public acceptance of immoral and unnatural behaviors.
I don't think that the orientation was the issue as much as the exaggerated (stick their tongue down their throat) kissing and the gestures directed to the customer. I would hope that if a hetro couple had acted the same way the response would have been the same.
For me it's more about acting like adults and not being provocative then pretending to be shocked when your provocation has negative consequences.
While I agree there are far more appropriate places for such engagement, and certainly many that are inappropriate, my point is that for normal people, a normal couple engaging in over the top PDA would not be as off-putting. There are limits to everything, but I would wager that even for those who claim to be supportive of LGBT sufferers, there is a point at which a hetero couple could go beyond before offending sensibilities of others, that is the same point at which a homosexual couple would be asked to stop or find a room. I don't have a problem with this double standard, such as it is, and would grieve at it no longer existing. The double standard is a good thing.
I guess I'm seeing it more from the perspective of the store. While I am sympathetic to your comments, I would think that from the perspective of the management that a couple of any orientation who went as far as these guys did would get tossed for being inappropriate.
Personally, I'd argue that a hetro couple doing what these guys did should/would be tossed as well and I'd be OK with it.
Post a Comment