Paul1405,

I am beginning to understand why so many socialists are bisexual. It is just that they constantly miss the target.

As shown here, their partners duck which wouldn't help.

Hi Foxy,
A funny story, "T" and I like to go out to listen to bands, there are a couple of Island bands we particularly like, they do reggae etc. There is a group of girls we meet up with from time to time at these nights, 3 or 4 work at the hospital with "T" (they call her Mumma), we sit with our friends, we are all good mates, they drink, dance, have a good time together. Some of the girls are knock out gorgeous. One night we were at a club, the Kami's, a Tongan band who do a mix, were playing, the girls were there, we all love that band and they draw a crowd. This bloke "Charlie" from Cronulla, we didn't know him, he had been buzzing around all night, uninvited joins our table, trying to pick up one of the girls. Helen, who's blond and near 40, Charlie don't know that all the girls, except "T" are lesbian, after much trying without success to pick up Helen he leans across the table to me and moans about his lack of success, I said something like "Now girls its time to tell Charlie here the truth." "Yeah tell him Paul" "Sorry Charlie, yum, well, we all belong to the religious cult 'The Little Children of God' and these women are all my wives, a bit like the Mormons, only more wives, I only have 8, if I had 12 I would let you have the pick of crop, that's our rule, isn't that right my wives!" That's right husband!" "Sorry about that Charlie, you miss out," He was a bit off his face by then, and put out by all that.
Charlie, had the perfect pick up line, he kept pestering Helen to come back to Cronulla with him and see his vegie patch (in the dark!) Sad to say Charlie got no where and soon disappeared. one rule these girls have, no strange guys buy them drinks, they buy their own. I find lesbian women far more uninhibited than gay men.

Foxy,

Of course there were pay to enter cubicles in the men's but men didn't need to use one to urinate, they had the trough or individual 'free to use' urinals.

Whilst being so far off topic, I'll go a bit further.
At Churchgate Station in Mumbai, India, the men's literally has a trough in the floor along one wall and it was a most hygenic setup as there is swift running water in it (where it goes I know not).
It has now been modernized and individual urinals fitted, these empty into the aforesaid trough of running water but as there is no flush mechanism on them the odour that was lacking of old is now getting rather potent and this former jewel among Indian Railway toilets is fading into the usual pong.

Dear Is Mise,

Thanks for that.

Females had even better advantages - especially in
the heart of the big cities. They were able to access
for free the lovely toilet facilities in all the
major Department Stores - like David Jones, Anthony
Hordens, Mark Foys, to name just a few where I'm told
there were even attendants that handed you hand-towels.
Females were certainly spoilt for choice in those days.

Dear Paul,

It sounds like a great night.
I wonder how much Charlie remembered the next day?

I've worked with both male and female gays and can't really
say whether females were less inhibited than males or not.
The people that I worked were very outgoing and very
professional in their work. And when we
socialised - it was still with work colleagues -
so perhaps that was restrictive for them to behave
any differently.

I do remember visiting a gay male neighbour while we
lived in Los Angeles on a Friday evening - to deliver a
message that I had taken while he was at work. I
rang his doorbell and when the door opened I was quite
taken back to see quite a few guys dressed in all kinds of "female
attire" and full make-up. My neighbour looked quite embarrassed.
I delivered the message and fled.
I think we both felt quite uncomfortable. Neither of us ever spoke
about that incident. By the way - he was a psychologist
by profession.

Dear Paul,

I forgot to add that I did learn a great deal from
working with and socialising with Gays both in
the United States and here in Australia - especially
when confronted with my own set of stereotypes that I
wasn't aware I had.

I came to slowly realise that if we are serious in our
society about equality this should mean that an
individual's rights and opportunities including those of
democratic participation should not depend on their
sexuality. We are all supposed to be treated fairly
under our laws.

And that is why I object so strongly to the arguments put
forward by certain posters on this forum - that Gays are
somehow lesser citizens and therefore deserve to be treated
differently. People who feel that their marriages will
somehow be demeaned if we allow same-sex marriage - then
their marriages could not have been that great in the first place.

To me it is simply wrong that despite being citizens,
voters, and taxpayers, Gay Australians did not have the same
rights (and still don't as far as marriage is concerned)
or in many cases had no rights - to those things in life
that heterosexual people take for granted.

After all Gays are people, first and foremost. They work,
they have lives, they love and have relationships.
They are family. They are someone's son and daughter.