Posted by SarahQ/Adm./Tim on August 9, 2005, 4:32 am, in reply to "Insight, please?" Thanks for your reply. This has been a hard week for me because of this subject, as I’ve been told in no uncertain terms to steer clear of one of my best friends because of it... not because of any danger he represents to me, but because of the risk of scrutiny by law enforcement that my family fears he brings by his presence. Is this fair? Is it even true? I don’t know and I can’t ask... the handful of people who need to know are directly involved... but I feel sick and sad that it has strained the friendship we had. I wish he hadn’t done it; I’m angry that our state’s legal system makes this a felony—you know, like murder and rape—and basically wrecks someone’s life forever. I am a strong, decisive person who takes care of her friends; the frustration of being completely unable to fix something, the doubt of being in a quandary about what to do and the nagging angst that whichever way I turn I’m doing wrong by somebody has me very stressed. On another subject, to take the time to answer the question you inquired of me: the details on the exhibitionists I ran across years ago. Both were strangers, people I’d never seen before and never saw again. Neither I perceived as threatening. Both events happened to occur in broad daylight in mid-afternoon. The first one, which would’ve been when I was about 12, I encountered as I walked up to a public library near where I lived at the time. I vaguely remember him as youngish and badly dressed, standing by the low wall near the front door with his penis out of his pants. Very nervy, in retrospect, because at that particular library, he was just a few feet from the double glass doors. Anyway, I remember thinking something like, ‘whoa... there’s a guy with his thingy hanging out... why is he doing that?’ It honestly never occurred to me until eons later that he was doing it because I was there. I just figured that I was interrupting something that wasn’t really my business, so I just looked away or looked down and kept walking. I’m not sure if I told anyone inside what he was doing; there’s a decent chance I didn’t. He wasn’t there when I left and I didn’t think much more of it. I would’ve been 13 or 14 when I ran across the second one. In that case, I was walking down a residential street near my house (different neighborhood from the first incident). This particular street, if followed, leads eventually to a small shopping mall. A black Lincoln (which are not common then or now where I live) pulled up next to me and a nicely dressed man asked me where this mall was. So I explained, pointing, that you couldn’t miss it if you kept driving down this street. Even as I was saying this, I couldn’t help noticing that he was playing with himself as he continued to ask me about various local shopping malls. I pretended not to notice and actually answered a couple more questions before ending the conversation by saying something like, “Sorry, I don’t know that one; you’ll have to ask someone else,” and coolly walking off. He drove off on his way, in the direction I’d pointed. I knew by his questions that he certainly knew where the local shopping malls were, anyway, and wondered who he thought he was kidding. That one I found amusing and I told some of my friends about it. (As it turned out, the general consensus was that my friends would’ve done about the same, except they would’ve lied.) The only unusual item in my background that I think might affect anything regarding the subject—and it could well have been after the black Lincoln incident anyway—was an occasion when I went with my best friend and her mother and a friend of her mother’s one night to a nudist colony place near where my friend’s family lived. (My parents knew about this and didn’t object.) It was such a nonevent—perfectly ordinary people casually hanging around naked—that I took away a sense of merely being unclothed not being all that big of a deal and certainly nothing to get excited about. (Rather as in Ed’s narration on the same subject.) Hope this sheds some light on the matter. _________________________ Yes, I think this does help shed a little light on what you were wondering about yourself (“Was I an exception in not being particularly shocked or frightened... and therefore unable to appreciate the anguish caused in normal people? ...And I find it hard to believe that today’s kids would be shocked by anything I thought was humdrum.") As for parents who don’t object to their adolescent-aged children having the experience sometime of being taken to a nudist gathering, versus those who would consider it a terrible breach of morality, I’m not really certain what the percentages are in our society today, but I know there are many more today who would be less vehemently opposed to the idea than there were even as much as one generation ago. I’ve heard arguments made for and against the idea by the experts, and I confess I am at a loss to come up with a solid idea as to whether such an experience may play a part in leading to a healthful or unhealthful development of thought-patterns in adolescent-aged children. If anyone were to ask me, all I’d be able to say would be that it would have to be left to each couple to decide that for their children, since it’s so difficult to find a solid answer. (Encyclopædia Britannica says the experts are split down the middle on that one.) But what does seem obvious to me is that when parents are less worried about it, the children tend to come out being less worried about it too, either because of having been taught it that way, or merely because of unconsciously emulating the attitudes of their progenitors. You mentioned that your parents approved when your best friend’s mother and her friend took you and your friend to a nudist colony once. So I gather that during your upbringing, your parents weren’t among those who were vehemently opposed to it. Someone I know who is a school teacher told me once that sometimes when a few students in the class voice an outspoken opinion on a subject and all the other students remain silent, it tends to project the idea that everyone in the class agrees with their viewpoint. But then, as in one particular case when they took a vote of everyone in the class, it turned out that most of the students had no strong feelings about the subject, and the few who were the most vocal about it turned out to be a minority after all. No doubt this happens in society in general too. When people don’t care about something, they usually remain silent about it, and those who are vehemently opposed to it, whatever it may be, by being so vocal tend to project the idea that their viewpoint is the norm of society. Those who are ambivalent about the naturism/nudism issue, and who aren’t as worried about the display of the human body are also the ones who tend to be silent about it—but not necessarily a minority. I wouldn’t worry about not being worried about it. You may be part of a larger category than you think. (I have an appointment I have to go to right now; I can’t continue on this right now. I’ll have to deal with your other concern later, maybe tomorrow or Sunday.) David Parker _________________________ Or perhaps it’s the county or township? I’ve heard of it being a felony in Florida and a few other states, but that’s the first time I’ve heard of the lifetime probation. Where would that be? _________________________ I had my doubts too—couldn’t help wondering if maybe something more serious was being omitted from the story—but that’s what the Arizona revised statutes say. Here’s an article about it from the US News and World report of a few years ago. Link: Post a response
Message modified by board administrator August 9, 2005, 4:39 am
Posted by SarahQ April 26, 2001, 1:57 am
Vocal minorities, silent majorities and society sometimes divided evenly
Posted by David Parker April 27, 2001, 9:03 pm
Sarah: May I ask, what state is it where it gets a felony conviction and lifetime probation?
Posted by Tim circa April, 2001
Posted by SarahQ circa April 2001
sarahq70@hotmail.com
Arizona, Maricopa County in particular. It’s a class-6 felony if the other party is under 15. Depending on exactly what was done (and how many times they’d gotten caught doing it) it looks like it could be a class 5.
Tracking sexual impulses
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