An English woman named Caroline Cartwright has been arrested multiple times for having noisy sex. Her neighbors have smacked her with an “Anti-social behavior order” because she supposedly made too much noise. Now it’s illegal for her to shout during sex. Not illegal to do so at certain times of day, not illegal to do so in certain places, not illegal to disturb the neighbors. It’s simply illegal for her, anywhere in England.
Now as we have a a crowd here who support privacy in sexual matters, I imagine most of us would agree that legal involvement here is wrong. But out of curiosity, does anybody feel that this sort of thing is justified?
I do. If she liked to play her stereo too loud, to the point where there were repeated complaints from neighbors, I wouldn’t have any problem with a judge telling her to turn off her stereo.
Not my country, not my rules. Anyway, I’m not sure that loud noises and banging the bed against the wall she was exactly going for privacy. Maybe they were just showing off?
I think it’s her neighbours’ privacy being violated here!
Actually I’m not a big fan of the ASBO as a method of social control. Warning this woman about keeping down the noise level in general seems fine. Specifically banning her from ‘shouting during sex’ is silly.
Yea, doesn’t really sound like its any different from any other noise complaint. I don’t think a right to sexual privacy extends to the point where the noise is bothering the neighbors.
Also I don’t think this is correct
The ban was just against her making excessive noise, there isn’t anything in the article about it being specifically about her shouts during sex being banned, though presumably they’re included if the noise is “excessive”.
In Turnip World, they’d have clamped her ears with non-removable headphones blasting a (barely) sub-deafening loop of her own “performance” for at least 30 days.
Why? What does this have to do with sexual privacy? AFAICT, nobody has been snooping around trying to find out private information about this woman’s sex life. Rather, the neighbors have simply been trying to avoid finding out more about her sex life than they ever wanted to know.
I have no problem with a court ordering her to refrain from disturbing the peace by making too much noise, whether she’s playing the radio too loud, cussing out her kids, or shouting in sexual ecstasy. Keep it down, lady.
Now, if the court were requiring her to have an audio transmitter chip implanted or something so that they could monitor her noise level at all times, irrespective of where she was or whether anybody else could hear her, I’d totally be up in arms about that as a gross violation of human rights. But in this case, I’m unable to detect any way in which her rights are being violated at all. Nobody’s entitled to make all the noise they want at the expense of other people’s peace, no matter what they’re being noisy about.
I guess this comes down to how to treat misdemeanor repeat offenders. Individually, the offenses are pretty minor, but if they’re repeated and the perpetrator shows no interest in stopping, what’s a judge to do?
The noise ordinance where I live says something like you can’t make any noise that can be heard by someone in their home 50 feet away. All the judge had to do is tell her that she’s in jail the next time she violates it for any reason whatsoever.
Problem neighbours should be made to spend 3 months on an estate with others of their ilk. Perhaps then they’d recognise what a pita an anti-social neighbour can be.
I’m not seeing why legal involvement would be wrong in this case, to be honest. If she is having sex loud enough to disturb the neighbors and if this has been a recurring incident then what recourse exactly do her neighbors have here?? As others have said, she is disturbing the peace whether she is playing her radio or TV to loud or being particularly noisy during sex…it really amounts to the same thing.
Which part? The sex loud enough to disturb the neighbors or the neighbors having to go to the law to resolve the issue? I think the latter is justified, to be sure…don’t you?
“Privacy” has a weird double meaning when talking about legal issues. One meaning is the one you refer to, not having information about one’s private life snooped on by the gov’t or public. The other is freedom from having matters that are generally considered to be private (such as one’s sex-life) regulated by the gov’t. I think Iter is refering to the latter meaning, that a law that keeps a woman from yelling as loud as she likes to during sex is gov’t regulation of what should be a private matter, and hence a violation of her “sexual privacy”
I still disagree with the OP, if you yell loudly enough for the neighbors to hear, it’s obviously no longer a private matter. But I don’t think he meant a violation of privacy in the sense that your talking about.
How one earth are they going to (and how did they) prove she’s making the noises during sex? Yeah, we can all guess what it sounds like, but where’s the actual proof? If another neighbor complains about noise, will they go in there and search the place for used condoms? What about loud masturbation, does that count?
I see it’s an ASBO – I’m convinced those were created specifically for tabloid fodder.
It’s absurd to forbid her to make noise during sex, or it would be in my country. She lives in the UK, though. UK concepts of privacy and speech are apparently different.
The link you gave says the Asbo banned “her from making excessive noise anywhere in England.” This is quite different from banning her only from yelping and thrashing only during intercourse. I don’t think she can holler even if she is self-pleasuring or just happy her stocks went up. As I read it, she is banned from creating a ruckus of any type, anywhere, because she has abused the privilege of when, where and how to make it once too often–“three breaches in just ten days” even since the ban.
I see this ban as her ticket to fame, for what it’s worth, with fortune being only a good handler away.
If she and Steve are this good at 48, I see nothing but a bright, albeit noisy, future.