Letters

Fair Game
The beating goes on:What utter self-righteous crap in the March 1 issue! First, Greg Hall gushes about a kid who plays football -- deliberate ritualized combat ("Tank Full"). Then the Pitch whines about the terrible, terrible NASCAR people and their discretion about injuries and accidents, and pretends to know something about crash barriers (Kansas City Strip). And then, Joe Miller writes a gushing article about boxing, where the object is to deliberately cause someone else physical harm ("Hard Knocks"). I know boxing is supposed to be "in" among pseudo-intelligencia back east, but really ... does Miller think they'd ever talk to hicks like him?

Watkins Glen and other road tracks have different types of safety walls and barriers because they're ROAD tracks, not banked ovals. It's a different kind of racing, and it requires a different kind of restraint. In high-oval races, when a car hits the wall, most of the energy is parallel to the surface, and a soft surface would actually "grab" the car and cause a harder impact.

I suspect the whining is probably because nobody reserved a press box with the Pitch's name on it. Sour grapes, boys?
Jonathan Hutchins
Kansas City, Missouri

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Husker do:I'm glad to see that "Husker" is back doing what he does best, and he does make a good point about WHB 810 simultaneously "raising the bar" for taste while awarding dates with Hooters girls as prizes (Off the Couch, March 1).

But ... isn't this the same Greg Hall whose radio show always kicked off with a parody of Lou Gehrig's farewell speech; who assailed our ears and our taste with those "interviews" with "Tanner"; and who eventually did himself in with an even lamer and more tasteless Bill Grigsby parody? As an arbiter of airwave propriety, Hall is a bit suspect.
Name Withheld Upon Request
Kansas City, Missouri

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Rear View
Sins and needles:Regarding Tony Moton's article "Crack Down" (March 1): These jerks will try to shut down anything that they think isn't conservative. How can so many close-minded fools live in the same area? They're always trying to close bars, nightclubs and now tattoo parlors.

They managed to rid the city of all-ages clubs. It's so nice to know that Kansas City is safe from ever existing in modern times.
Name Withheld Upon Request
Long Beach, California

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Tootsie's Role
The het offensive:Regarding Deb Hipp's article, "Body Snatchers" (February 22): I know it must be terribly difficult for heterosexuals to understand why not all gay men and lesbians adequately appreciate their presence at gay bars. After all, many media sources tell hets that gays want nothing more than their acceptance. And what better gesture of acceptance -- or at least toleration -- than to frequent a gay bar?

However dirty or disgusting it might be, a gay bar is an oasis from the oppressive heterosexism that gay men and lesbians confront on a daily basis. Gross displays of heterosexuality in a gay bar constitute the supreme demonstration of straight privilege that many gay people resent. If the highway of public sexuality were truly a two-way street -- that is, if a gay couple could walk hand-in-hand into, say, the Granfalloon without fear of personal insult or injury -- then this point would be moot. Until that time comes, I only ask that if straight couples must party at gay bars that they not flaunt their sexuality. I don't mind heterosexuals as long as they don't act straight in public.
Randall Griffey
Kansas City, Missouri

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Immoral majority:Imagine if I, a forty-ish, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant of straight sexual orientation, had written the following: "I am a straight man and have been a regular at Joe's Bar and Grill for ten years up until now. I am saddened to see the one place that straights have to go is turning into a meat market for homosexual couples and men wanting to fulfill their fantasies."

Aside from changing the sexual orientation and swapping (no pun intended) "Joe's" for "Tootsie's," the above text is taken from a lesbian letter writer in the Pitch's March 8 edition. Can you imagine the outrage at my intolerance? I would be labeled homophobic.

Aside from exposing the intolerance of some lesbians toward some straight men, bisexual women and lesbians who don't defend the lesbian orthodoxy, the story and subsequent letters have been instructive in the relative morality of different sexual groups. The lesbian letter writer clearly sees her lifestyle on a higher moral plane than the bi chicks cruising the lesbian bars for "tricks." Letter writer Jennifer Freely expresses the view that swinging sex is a part of a greater package that involves relationships and mutual respect. Finally, there are just those crass swingers, trolling Tootsie's for, in the words of the male letter writer, "a little pussy." It's the swinger's view of sex in the last case that has bamboozled the straight prudes -- and maybe even some gays and lesbians: There is no morality to it. And so when the teetotaling straight set looks at homosexuals -- or a dedicated lesbian looks at swingers? -- all they see are people craving sex all the time, with "their own kind." And of course, this view couldn't be farther from the truth.