By Sukie de la Croix

Italian gay activists have got their panties in a wad over two gay men who were arrested for having an “oral relationship” at the Colosseum in Rome, i.e., they were caught kissing. The two romantic finocchios face up to two years in jail. Meanwhile, up the street at the Vatican, it’s perfectly acceptable for pious cross-dressers to dip 12-year old altar boys in honey and lick them all over. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world we live in.

So if you can’t kiss at the Colosseum, what European places of historical interest can you kiss at? And, more to the point, is it OK to suck cock up the Eiffel Tower? Wouldn’t it be a good idea if each European country’s tourist board gave gay visitors a list of what they can do or can’t do at the tourist sites?

I do know that in Britain it’s perfectly acceptable for gay and lesbian couples to kiss outside of Buckingham Palace, but the Royal Guardsmen draw the line at fisting because if the Queen happens to glance out the window it might put her off her hot buttered crumpets.

The problem is that fisting reminds the Queen of a recent ugly incident involving her gynecologist—apparently he slipped on the rubber elbow gloves but forgot to remove his Iron Maiden skull ring. Oh, yes, Dr. Womble of Harley Street took a nick out of the reigning monarch’s hoo hah, which is not something you want on your resume.

Most British tourist sites are tolerant of gay and lesbian kissing and a certain amount of fondling: Stonehenge, Loch Ness, Jane Austen’s grave, Shakespeare country, Penny Lane and the bus tour of George Michael’s arrest sites.

In fact, apart from Rome, most of Europe seems to be fine with gay sexuality, especially Amsterdam, where anything goes in public, including bondage, tit torture and flagellation. Although, a warning to gay tourists—this is not written in law, but gay men dropping their pants, bending over and rimming each other in the Anne Frank house is definitely browned upon…sorry, that should be frowned upon.

Just giving you the heads up.

I used to board planes and do my own ethnic profiling—I’d check out where the Arabs were sat just in case they were crazy Arabs. You politically correct hypocrites reading this can make of that what you will, but the twin towers weren’t hit by a planeload of church hat-wearing African-American grandmothers—with hobbies knitting and baking—from Grand Rapids.

Or so I thought. Now I’m not so sure. I’ve just read that U.S Homeland Security and the European Union have agreed to extend their security program to share personal data on airline passengers to the U.S. to include religion, trade union membership, health and sexual orientation.

I don’t know what being gay has to do with crashing a plane into a tall building. Are gay people more lightly to crash a plane into a tall building or less likely?

Unless, of course, U.S. Homeland Security knows something we don’t know about the religion, trade union membership, health and sexual orientation of the 9/11 suicide bombers.

Could it be they were not Islamic looneytunes after all but Pentecostal lesbian teamsters with migraines? Or leather queens with an embarrassing rash that happen to be members of the Airline Pilots Association? Or were they limp-wristed Scientologist members of the Screen Actors Guild with a bad cough?

Next time I board a plane I’ll be on the lookout for Hari Krishna lesbian members of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen with cramps. And I don’t care if that’s politically correct or not.

Email Sukie de la Croix at

delacroix@chicagofreepress.com.