Does my disapproval of weenie-waggers make life miserable for you? Why is that?
Should mooning be a sex offense? What if you get a little fruit bowl in with it?
If you agree with those who would want to criminalize this act, yes. Your (a nationwide your, not any one single person) lack of a sense of perspective leads to a system which treats a mostly-harmless, dumb-as-shit prank the same as truly criminal sex acts. Zero tolerance needs zero intelligence and makes zero sense.
I’m far from puritanical, but when you get things like grown men openly and deliberately flashing their genitals at strangers in the park, yes, that it sexual behavior and yes, it should be illegal. Do you really think that when a stranger draws attention to the fact that he’s looking at you and stroking his dick that there isn’t a sexual component?
The kid in the picture wasn’t looking at an audience, he was looking at a camera. And I suspect the appeal was more in being naughty and flaunting social norms than as a “sexual act”.
See, that’s the thing - a visible penis is not an inherently sexual act. Sometimes it’s just a penis. A fleshy appendage that 49% of the human race has between their legs. Sometimes it’s used for sex but far more often it’s used for pissing and sometimes it’s just hanging out waiting for something to do.
Now, some people expose it in public to get a reaction out of folks, but part of that is seeing their reaction, which the kid in the photo in question won’t. And even when it is a sexual act I don’t consider it in the same league as, for example, rape. It definitely is a lesser offense than some others.
I was responding to the comment that exposing oneself should never be considered a sex crime. I think there are times when it very much is.
I’m sure he’s failing to notice all of these reactions and is not getting off on it. And he’s not a “kid” he’s an adult.
It wasn’t a sexual activity.
Yes. My wife and older son would just laugh at him. My younger boy would ask “why is that man doing that” and I’d say “to be silly”.
Some of us aren’t prudes.
Do you really think after 15 years and 12,000 posts I’m going to fall for this sort of bait’n’switch? Seriously? Give me *some *credit.
It makes the world a worse place, yes. It teaches people to be ashamed of their bodies. Rather than actually focus on actual sexual acts, you pick a non-sexual one, which has the same effect as D.A.R.E. did for drugs–making people ignore the actual problems.
It’s the type of argument that is leading to those bathroom bills–people thinking the penis is so horrible they have to protect women from accidentally see one in the bathroom. Because the penis is inherently sexual, trans women with penises must be perverts.
There are times where exposing oneself is actually a sexual act. There are other times when it isn’t. And, given the evidence we have, this wasn’t. He’s just a childish dude trying to get something naughty past the censors at his school.
The reaction he wanted was “Cool, man! You really got them!” Hence calling it a “prank.”
Doodle?
Homer, I can see your doodle.
Shut up, Flanders.
Yeah, I’ve been a high school teacher since 1985. I’m pretty well acquainted with high school pranks. They do not typically run to public exposure of the genitals. It takes a very sex offenderish mindset to come up the idea that exposing one’s penis to unconsenting people is “cool.” Sex offenders seldom just go straight to being full-blown molesters and rapists. They start with lesser offenses and escalate over time. This guy decided that exposing his penis to others without their consent was something he would enjoy doing. That flags him, right there, as one who should be treated with caution. What would seal the deal for me is to talk to him for five minutes. If he considers himself the victim in all this, I’d say he belongs on a Megan’s Law website right away. That was one of the unifying themes among the adjudicated sex offenders with whom I worked. The only thing they were ever sorry about was getting caught and getting punished.
OK, you say this is typical of how sex offenders start out… but how many people who have mooned someone or flashed their dick in high school later became sex offenders? Your attitude still seems to smack of guilty due to penis possession.
It’s like saying that being sexually abused is a common backstory to pedophiles so sexual abuse victims should be flagged as potential pedophiles, but most victims don’t become abusers. I’m not convinced most high school dick flashers become sexual offenders down the road. Do you have something to support your position other than your opinion?
Is this something we can look up in the DSV or is it just one of those “I have a feeling” type things? Can you maybe tell by the shape of their skull or by seeing if they float like wood when you throw them in a pond?
Did you know more or less every hard drug user started out drinking milk?
Another vote for stupid, but not sex offender behavior. He should be punished in some way, but this was just a prank.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this. I disapprove of weenie-waggers and that bothers you. The end.
kid was an idiot and it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but man, those charges are like burning your house down to kill a spider.
Yep, he got away with this one, who knows what exciting new things he will get away with in college.
Probably wake up in a drunken stupor after a frat party with a dick drawn on his face.