It’s amusing how much people can dissect the actions, intentions, and explicit or implicit permission involved with something as inherently reckless as crowd surfing.
If a girl, underage or not, jumps on top of a crowd of young, excited, possibly drunk, mostly young men, isn’t it a given that someone will touch her in a naughty place? Being in physical contact with the crowd is what it’s all about – being held aloft and moved around by the many hands, willing or not. Do people really think they can toss their bodies on top of a crowd and demand that no one touch them except in the designated safe areas? That smacks of an immature attitude of “I want to do what I want without any consequences.”
I’m not saying that excuses sexual assault, but are we really discussing that or someone innocently, or even not so innocently, making contact with a girl’s breast, ass, or groin? My experience at concerts suggests the latter, and if that’s your definition of sexual assault then we need to light a lot more bonfires to burn the child molesters. (How do we know the alleged pedophile men weren’t minors themselves? Complicates matters a bit.) There seems to be a lot of high and mighty claims that any physical contact with a girl – and god help us, an underage girl – amounts to sexual assault unless she gave you written permission to do so. If I’m standing in a crowd and a girl comes surfing overhead, do I have to ask to see her driver’s license or do I just let her drop to the ground so I’m not called out as a child molester? I’m not going to intentionally grab a boobie or yank her jeans down to go all molesty on her, but I also won’t feel like a lowlife creep if I happen to touch her there. Now if she were just enjoying the show and I walked up and grabbed her crotch, then yes, I’d be a criminal creep.
But if the girl was underage, which we have absolutely no evidence of, then she can’t give permission to be touched sexually. That would seem to incriminate the touchers even if she was foolhardy enough to submit her body to the crowd, right? So what’s the solution? Ban underage girls? Make them wear a t-shirt with their age prominently displayed? If my son were old enough to attend a Staind concert, I’d have to warn him that he should not make any contact with a female there lest he be accused of molestation.
And I really doubt the girl was shocked and appalled at having strangers touch her. This discussion seems to assume that an innocent young nun wandered away from the convent and ended up on top of an audience at a Staind concert. Doubt it. Would that make it okay for an adult to take advantage of her sexually, by having intercourse with a minor, for instance? No way. But if she throws herself on top of the crowd, it seems like a huge overreaction to call people pedophiles because they touch her.
I think the singer gets off on being the big hero every time he does this.