In 1957, Brian Epstein, a Jewish man from Liverpool, wrote an eleven-page account of what had led up to his arrest by two plainclothes policemen in a public toilet outside Swiss Cottage train station in London. Epstein was a 21-year-old Royal Academy of Dramatic Art student at the time, and he had been arrested according to Section 32 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, for 'persistently importuning'.

According to Epstein's account, he had found himself irresistibly drawn to a man upon leaving Swiss Cottage station, and had warily started talking to him, and they eventually agreed to use the public toilets near Swiss Cottage station as a place suitable for what they wanted to do. Upon entering the toilets, according to Epstein's account, he was arrested by the man he was drawn to, and another plainclothes colleague. The police drew up trumped up charges of Epstein propositioning four separate people, which Epstein denied while pleading guilty to propositioning the original man.

In Epstein's account of what led up to his arrest, written a few days later, after he was released on bail, he says that:

I am not sorry for myself. My worst times and punishments are over. Now, through the wreckage of my life by society, my being will stain and bring the deepest distress to all my devoted family and few friends. The damage, the lying criminal methods of the police in importuning me and consequently capturing me, leaves me cold, stunned and finished.

Mark Lewisohn, writing about these events in the Beatles biography The Beatles - All These Years - Tune In, because Brian Epstein later became the Beatles' manager, and guided them on their ascent towards worldwide fame, sees Epstein's account of his actions as having a distinctly 'suicide note' tone. Epstein clearly decided to continue living; he was over 21 and his parents would not have to be told.

In the end, pleading guilty in court in Bow Street in London, a month later, Epstein was sentenced to two years' probation and directed to have medical treatment (which might have been Freudian psychiatric analysis or electric shock therapy, given the times).

The next year, while still under probation, Epstein did something quite honourable, at considerable risk to himself. In May 1958, cruising along the Strand in Liverpool, Epstein had tried to pick up some 'rough trade', which turned out to be much rougher than he bargained for; he got beaten up, and then blackmailed. Epstein couldn't hide this one from his parents, and they demanded that he go to the police and report the blackmail. Epstein did - which was the brave thing, knowing that he might get charged too. The police chose not to charge him for admitting to 'persistently importuning' this time, but they did arrest his attacker/blackmailer. With Epstein being referred to as "MR X", the case was headline news in Liverpool.

Lewisohn very much portrays this as the lot of a homosexual man in Britain at the time.

Forty years later, in April 1998, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, an Englishman in Beverly Hills, California, was arrested in much the same way in public toilets across the road from the Beverly Hills Hotel. According to a report in The Independent, at a press conference the police spokesman said that a 'pretty police'

went into the rest room area and did observe Michael engaged in a lewd act. He was by himself. The officer observed the act and arrested Michael.

This was worthy of a press conference because Georgios was better known under his stage name George Michael, famous for songs like 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go', 'Faith', and 'Too Funky'. 40 years after Brian Epstein, perhaps, toyed with the idea of suicide - after the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK, after Stonewall, after AIDS, after Philadelphia, etc - Michael's response was the polar opposite to Epstein's anguished, ashamed account of himself. Instead, Michael burst out of the closet with all guns firing: his next single, 'Outside', celebrated the joys of having sex in places that were not the bedroom.

The video for 'Outside' featured George Michael dressed as a policeman in some drab public toilets, where suddenly mirrorballs descend, and the toilets are replaced by shiny metal ones. Dance moves utilising police truncheons were the order of the day. It was a hit. It was also an obvious and very unabashed reference to his arrest, and in fact the arresting officer, one Marcelo Rodriguez, (unsuccessfully) sued George Michael over how he was portrayed in the music video.