h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Discussing a story from another MB, Mrs SWL told me of the times she's been flashed. Once in a park by an old man when she was about 8, (it looked like a wee mouse) and once when she was collecting for charity door-to-door. A young man in a bathrobe invited her in 'cos it was raining. When she went in, he let his bathrobe fall open to reveal his "excitement". She totally ignored it, talked about the charity, got a donation and left.

She tells me the first time wasn't scary at the time, but she did have nightmares later. The second time, she just found it funny.

Has anyone else ever been flashed?

Why do guys do it? Is there anyone here willing to admit to it? We won't tell anyone, but can you give us an idea of what you get out of it?

I was flashed as a kid (and molested by a babysitter, but that's another, completely undamaging story). I've never flashed (it'd only lead to laughter).

I know this all seems highly amusing, but if I remember correctly from a TV programme, of those who do this some are very likely to go onto carrying out physical sexual attacks.
I think if anyone finds anyone doing this should tell the police as soon as possible.

Sorry, I'm not downplaying the seriousness of it. One aspect of posing the question is that, if we get a lot of posts it might help people cope if it happens to them.

Perhaps I should elaborate on why my babysitter's molestatio wasn't a big deal. I think it was because my parent's explained it to me in a low key way so I didn't become scared by the thought of intimate contact. I was about six years old and got fiddled with. No big deal really. I have no desire to fiddle with kids but am glad that I didn't get dragged in to a tabloid-style 'look what you've done to my son!' outrage. I think that would have done more harn than the fiddling.

We had a flasher/dirty old man in the undergrowth when I was at Primary school; On the way to Primary school from one direction which a lot of us went, we would walk off the pavement and down a unkempt path that then went aisides a large forrested area/overgrown area, other side of which was wher ethe playing fields started, anyhow, a few kids got flashed and some of the parents got a bit concerned naturally, and contacted hte police, but after a while the police hadn't done anything and som oef the parents were still notciign this guy about. A few of the Fathers at the school (mine included hence how I know) got together, and waited for the flasher to appear, having set themselves up in the area early in the morning, after a few days he again appeared, and they 'approached' the guy. He wasn't seen there again

There was once a thread on here where a girl in Florida was being stalked. People from all over the world talked her through it - I like to think that hootoo really helped her.

I haven't been exactly flashed but I had a similar nasty experience once. It never really bothered me deep down, though.

I was about 20 at the time and living in Madrid. On a very crowded Metro one day I was standing reading a book, and noticed out of the corner of my eye some movement nearby. It involved the bloke standing opposite me - his beergut was against the other side of my paperback.

I never looked up at his face, I kept looking at the book. When my stop approached, I closed my book, and underneath it he had been (and still was) ... well, masturbating. It didn't look as if he'd got very far, mind - I don't know how many more stops it would have taken, if ever, for him to have finished (and I hate to think what direction it would have gone. And I don't mean the train).

This was back in the days of a suppressed, prude, right-wing régime in Spain, although I don't doubt this sort of thing still happens.

On telling the other English girls (au pairs, nannies, etc) about it, it turned out they had had similar experiences - but nobody seemed terribly disturbed by it. We had a giggle and continued as we were.

What goes on in these people's heads - or even in their lives - to make them do it? We probably all have a morbid interest in this sort of thing happening; sometimes it turns out that the culprits are quite normal people on the face of it.

Why is it such a big deal? I really do think that the compulsory indignation makes these things much worse than they need to be.

Well, I have to be honest here, to me someone who does that must have something wrong with them, quite apart from the higher likelyhood of them going on to attack someone physicaly, I would have no hesitation in calling police immediately. To not call police could put someone at risk.

Because, I guess of the belief, that such people as whom might do 'flashing' will or may, go on to comitt crimes of a more serious nature. Of course, it did never used to be the case that a 'possibility' that one nmight comitt a crime was enough to treat it the same as if a crime had been comited. However, thanks to the United States of America and their collective paranoia created by President Bush following that thing with the plains and the twin towers, and also thanks to our 'special' relationship with the States, it seemsto be the case that banging people up for crimes they've not comited is fine, just so long as somwehre, someone, with scant or no evidence 'thinks' there might* potentially, at some point maybe be a crime comitted by that person.

I agree that there's obviously something up with someone that'd do that but, really, it's not that big a deal! It's only the hyperbole of the general public that elevates it from being the deranged act of a deranged individual to being something truly damaging.

Simul.

I am sorry 2legs, but to bring Sept 11th into this is frankly absurd, this is abnormal behaviour that NO person should have to put up with, to try and justify this sort of thing is just not logical, no woan or child should have to be upset and frightnd by this sort of thing.

Nobody should have to put up with it but it's not the end of the world if a kid or woman sees a bloke's todger, unless that kid/woman is made to think it is.

I am unsubscribing as to me to try to defend such people is at the very least strange...
and a little disturbing.
.
(unsubscribe)

I think the humour comes from hearing how women cope positively from the situation. It is undoubtedly deviant behaviour. If it happened to Mrs SWL now, I'm sure she wouldn't feel threatened and we would laugh about it. If it happened to my very young niece, I would go ballistic.

It's a question of context. Flashing kids is paedophilia. Flashing granny's is upsetting. Flashing grown women, I find bizarre. Do they think the women are going to be overcome with desire ?

And what about women who flash? Why is this seen in a totally different light?

Well, if someone is unhinged enough to do something not normally accepted in society (i.e. expose themselves to complete strangers) they most likely have something wrong somewhere in their psychological make-up. Whether the next step is of a worse kind of criminal nature is not ours to decide, although it is likely that someone who doesn't feel obliged to stick to the normal rules of decency will break taboos in other ways, too. There's no way of knowing how far they'd go. Probably better to nip it in the bud.

My children are all boys, but I do know people who have daughters - I often find it over the top the way they react to things like this - it could easily develop into a form of hysteria. If you had an eight-year-old daughter who was flashed at, you would probably react quite vehemently. Only parents of small girls can understand this. (You can't blame them, really, especially in the light of recent events in Belgium).

Making a fuss about it is probably not going to stop this sort of thing happening all together - what Roymondo is getting at, maybe, is that more publicity possibly even encourages others to join in.

Not to mention the effect it has on children whose parents react hysterically - perhaps the child would have forget the whole thing if the parents didn't go on about it.

"Nobody should have to put up with it but it's not the end of the world if a kid or woman sees a bloke's todger, unless that kid/woman is made to think it is."


Compare F19585?thread=1488591.

TRiG.

SS - in response to that (and I've responded elsewhere) I'm saying that the hyperbole is more damaging than the flashing.

Actually, if you've missed my point so far I doubt that my repeating it IN A SHORT SENTENCE will help your objectivity much. Enjoy your paranaod world.

Oh great, while I was composing all that you all went and said it for me.

Very interested to see Strangely's reaction.