01-28-2007, 10:35 PM
I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of exhibitionosm; that is, the classic opening of a trench coat for the purpose of satisfying a craving to cause public imbroglios. While the abnormal psychology textbooks that tell us that football training and the humiliation of sexual identity that is used to motivate better sports performance is a major cause of this peculiar behaviour, and that is interesting, to me, what is far more interesting than the pathology of the "flasher" is the pathological reaction of the community. Study it and it astonishes us at how pathological and violent a community can become over the minor nuisance of a flasher. (I suppose that if there is a penalty imposed by the law, the severity of the penalty should increase from a small fine to a larger fine if the flasher has an ugly Budweiser blimptitude.) Police in the state of Delaware have a policy that the compromise to public safety of operating police cars in excess of 100 mph to persue a "flasher" is justified. Beating flashers so badly that they end up in the hospital will never result in charges being filed against the assaulters. One man in Milford Delaware was registered as a sexual criminal on four counts of "indecent exposure" just for flashing a moon. (We can only conjecture that there was a one to one correspondance between the counts and the number of anatomical entities those who witnessed it saw.)
Suppose that the exhibitionism took another form, for example, tormenting someone with Asperger's condition by exposing that person to some form of abnormal noise that causes pain and suffering and it is done as a deliberate hate crime just for fun to show who is boss. That is far more vicious a form of exhibitionism than the mildly pathetic man who opens a trench coat because he is fool enough to believe some football coaches unattainable definition of what you must beat everyone else in before you can call yourself a man. Society is considered normal and even healthy when it has an obviously pathological reaction to the man with the trench coat while the lady who is put in such discomfort that she throws up when her neighbors spitefully turn up their ugly music is dismissed as sick and needing to be cured and taught to adjust to her neighbors' bullying hate crime form of exhibitionism.
It proves that whether or not something is considered normal and legal is determined by only one criteria, the arbitrary exercise of power by the majority, the strong in numbers, the collective biggest bully on the block to define themselves as unconditionally right and normal and those who cannot knuckle under and conform as diseased and evil. This is the lesson an examination of the whole picture of the phenomenon of exhibitionism teaches us; that normal is not always good, that the requirement to be unconditionally normal is often morally inferior. Like all bullies, society can dish it out but cannot take it.
Finally, I could never be an exhibitionist because the capacity of the "flashed" to react to nudity with violence and horror offends me too much. I prefer not to be bothered by other peoples imbroglios just because I am not wearing a burqua to humour the superstitions of my cultural inferiors peeping through my back yard fence when I use my swimming pond or mow the lawn. I am a nudist and prefer a community of people who display no diseased reactions to that nude beach. But that is another subject.
Suppose that the exhibitionism took another form, for example, tormenting someone with Asperger's condition by exposing that person to some form of abnormal noise that causes pain and suffering and it is done as a deliberate hate crime just for fun to show who is boss. That is far more vicious a form of exhibitionism than the mildly pathetic man who opens a trench coat because he is fool enough to believe some football coaches unattainable definition of what you must beat everyone else in before you can call yourself a man. Society is considered normal and even healthy when it has an obviously pathological reaction to the man with the trench coat while the lady who is put in such discomfort that she throws up when her neighbors spitefully turn up their ugly music is dismissed as sick and needing to be cured and taught to adjust to her neighbors' bullying hate crime form of exhibitionism.
It proves that whether or not something is considered normal and legal is determined by only one criteria, the arbitrary exercise of power by the majority, the strong in numbers, the collective biggest bully on the block to define themselves as unconditionally right and normal and those who cannot knuckle under and conform as diseased and evil. This is the lesson an examination of the whole picture of the phenomenon of exhibitionism teaches us; that normal is not always good, that the requirement to be unconditionally normal is often morally inferior. Like all bullies, society can dish it out but cannot take it.
Finally, I could never be an exhibitionist because the capacity of the "flashed" to react to nudity with violence and horror offends me too much. I prefer not to be bothered by other peoples imbroglios just because I am not wearing a burqua to humour the superstitions of my cultural inferiors peeping through my back yard fence when I use my swimming pond or mow the lawn. I am a nudist and prefer a community of people who display no diseased reactions to that nude beach. But that is another subject.