In my project collecting data on the experiences of trans widows, women who divorced or left a suddenly demanding, crossdressing husband, the hazy grey area of consent/non-consent becomes larger and more nebulous. These psychiatrists who can't find the harm in "lonely" men exposing themselves to random schoolgirls on a path in the park also can't find anything wrong with a man demanding complete control, effecting a radical change in previously mutually satisfying intimacy. Coercive control of others during these ritual behaviors is the operative scheme, and equally ignored by law enforcement, even when it escalated to rape. Get loud, very loud, and get away, as far as possible. "They just want to pee," is a falsehood.
Hi Ute, A small point. Psychiatrists talk about 'disorders'. Maybe you could find a better word, one more in touch with the power pathology involved. That might help.
Anger arising in me reading this. If I knew then (aged 9) what I know now (at 65) it’s probably a good thing I wasn’t armed. Minor fun my arse. 56 years of staying on high alert.
One of my proudest moments: some time in the eighties, waiting for a night bus, I punched a flasher so hard he staggered back across the road. I was so enraged! I didn't even know I knew how to throw a punch.
I think we should all carry cans of spray paint, preferably the kind they use for cars.
“Flashing is an angry act. These men are so unskilled at communicating with women, they tell me they would find it easier to flash at a woman than to go up and say hello.” That has to be one of the most pathetic excuses for male behaviour. As a communication strategy, it's hard to think of anything less effective...and sounds like nonsense!
Police are useless . They issue fixed penalties at best for this dangerous offence . What’s wrong with men ? WTAF is wrong with them ! Women simply do not behave like this . We need a solution .. I can think of a few … 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
My gran advised carrying pinking shears in any bag I went out with. Usually some type of rucksack so with room. The sight of a pair of pinking shears has chased off many a disgusting man before the offending member gets out of the trousers. I stopped when I got to about 40 when I discovered my knee was not thought to be an offensive weapon and I always had it with me. Have used it a couple of times with great satisfaction. If men come at us in this way, we should be allowed to use any means necessary to get away.
Perhaps it will take enough incidents of women attacking flashers and maiming them Romans men think twice. Of course she'll be the one who goes to prison but if the story gets out surely it will reduce the future victimization of other women and girls. 4B movement is a start but honestly, so many men are becoming despicable human beings. Porn is the driver of this extreme behaviour and men need to start holding each other accountable since they don't listen to women.
I have learned something important today, as a result of reading this. I honestly did not know that men who do this masturbate whilst inappropriately showing their genitals. I thought it was "just" (not the right word, I know) the showing. This probably is a result of the depiction of flashers in the mac - two hands on the coat means none on the dick. Something else I need to prepare my daughter for...
It happened to me and my friends cutting through the bush after school. We were around 10 years old. I am 76 now and have never forgotten about it and how it felt.
I wonder if there is any woman older than 50 who hasn't been flashed. My impulse, after I experienced it for the first time, was to run in horror. Nowadays, after the initial shock, I feel like getting a knife out of my bag and cutting the "pride". Maiming, in any way, is what I would like to do to these imbeciles. I think we need to strategize with younger friends and with specialists and plan ahead. It just can't continue this way, something has to be done!
You're right Wen. It would be very good to have a plan in place to take immediate action to cause the terrorist flashers to regret their behavior. Yes, maybe spray paint, pepper spray a stink spray, stun gun?
I was 10 the first time I was flashed. I was walking around the block to a local grocery store to buy something for my Mum. A man called out to me from the open window of a house I was passing. When I looked at him, he was naked from the waist down and wanking. I ran home and told my Dad what I had seen. This was the 1950s. We lived in a neighbourhood of low cost housing constructed for WWII vets. Dad called some of the other men in the neighbourhood, and they paid the flasher a visit. In hindsight, I don’t condone this vigilanteism, but I wish more men would take flashing seriously, even when it doesn’t happen to their daughter or a young girl that they know. I’m 82 and I can still remember that man’s grinning face and the fear I felt. I’ve forgotten his cock.
Have just been thinking a lot how the traumatic impact of the sex crimes of both voyeurism and exhibitionism is scoffed at and massively unappreciated. It’s very real.
I was exposed to at age 8, totally transfixed to the spot absolutely petrified. It was outside public toilets. My friend and I managed to get away went home told my parents who were enraged. They caught the creep, I was living in a small town at the time and the police had an idea who it was. This image and experience has been with me all my life. My mother was so enraged I think if they put her in a room with him he would have come off second best. My mum always said if anyone ever touched her girls she would buy a shot gun and put them down !!! I’ve always thought of anything happened to my girl (pleas hid it doesn’t ) I would go the ends of the world to take the creep perpetrator apart and I would face the consequences!!!!
Men and boys exposing their penis to women and girls is definitely a terrorist act. It's meant to frighten/terrorized females; to show dominance and control, a threat of rape and contamination. Seeing an unexpected penis might seem like a trivial incident, but far beyond that, only females can get pregnant. Subconsciously or consciously, flashing is an ativistic, evolutionary threat of having your body taken over by someone else's genes. It's like (literally) the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to possibly be impregnated against your will by the sperm of a despised aggressor.
Thank you for your very astute comment. I was on a trail along the Charles River in Boston when I was in my 20s. I had hesitated to walk alone that day, but it was so beautiful outside that Sunday afternoon. I wanted my feet to touch the earth instead of the pavement that I typically walked on daily. I was enjoying my walk, but also had to be mentally vigilant because of the possibility of rape. A man coming toward me on a bicycle got off his bike, took out his penis and started to masturbate while staring at me. This is pure aggression. He was making that space and others like it places where I could not go and feel safe. I bent down and started to look for rocks to throw at him. He got back on his bike and rode away in the other direction. It's not the most frightening thing a man has ever done to me, but I still get angry every time I think about it.
What a horrid experience; I think I'm not the only man who has been ignorant of how often this occurs, as well as its typical effects on women.
But I've also been doing some thinking since writing my previous comments. I've come to think that the fact that most heterosexual men like seeing a woman's sexual parts, leads too many men to assume that women will enjoy seeing theirs. But as the responses here and data from Julie's original piece make clear, that seldom if ever is this the case.
Here's something men need to be taught, and then men who expose themselves unasked can be given serious prison sentences, maybe sign the sex register, etc.
< I've come to think that the fact that most heterosexual men like seeing a woman's sexual parts, leads too many men to assume that women will enjoy seeing theirs.>
That may be true for men sending dick pics to their gfs or wives. But in the case of the random man exposing himself to a female he doesn't know, I think the core motivation is aggression. They WANT to shock and to make the other person uneasy, if not fearful. Exhibiting the penis to a female who doesn't want or expect it, especially in remote locations, as well as voyeurism (peeping Toms) are indeed on the same continuum as sexual assault/rape, though at perhaps a more nascent level of sexual offending.
You ask why flashing is treated as fun - by men that is.
I think that there are at least two reasons:
a) they seldom ask women;
b) Men do not know women's feelings around these questions; whether women are as ignorant about men's feelings about say male sexual failure I can't judge.
I suspect that both women and men struggle to imagine the feelings of the other around sexual experience, as flashing is. It may be that women try harder to understand men's feelings than most men do to understand women's feelings. Whether women have more success I don't know.
What I wonder is whether there is some inherent difficulty in understanding across the two genders, or whether it is just a lack of education I also don't know. Are there one or more books that I could do with reading?
As you see I suspect that I'm very ignorant about all this. I'm also unclear as to how to move forward on all this.
Some help with this would be appreciated. Ian Mordant
'[Vera-Grey] recounts how a male journalist expressed surprise at being told that one in 10 women had been flashed .
'“He thought that was a lot,” says Vera-Grey,” but most women have beepn flashed. These men literally have no idea of how common it is because it does not happen to them."'
I would have thought more than one in ten women had been flashed. But she then adds "most women have been flashed," which doesn't surprise me.
However, "one in 10" is not "most women." Am I missing something?
As to the digital phenomenon of #DickPics, I've met hardly a single woman over the "digital years" who *hasnt* received several pictures of male genitals. Any dating site seems to be the place for this kind of sexualised violence. Yet comments I've heard range from annoyance to anger. No one finds it amusing. "Men" with juvenile attitudes find it amusing and suggestive of prowess; mature men consider the behaviour infantile.
Until now, I'm ashamed to admit, I hadn't considered how frightening or terrifying it might be to women. I have learned something important. Thank you.
Almost every boys first sexual encounter is now non-consensual via internet porn. This bodes very very ill for women. Hurt people hurt people. Porn targets teen boys. I don’t know why no one will stand up on their behalf.
In my project collecting data on the experiences of trans widows, women who divorced or left a suddenly demanding, crossdressing husband, the hazy grey area of consent/non-consent becomes larger and more nebulous. These psychiatrists who can't find the harm in "lonely" men exposing themselves to random schoolgirls on a path in the park also can't find anything wrong with a man demanding complete control, effecting a radical change in previously mutually satisfying intimacy. Coercive control of others during these ritual behaviors is the operative scheme, and equally ignored by law enforcement, even when it escalated to rape. Get loud, very loud, and get away, as far as possible. "They just want to pee," is a falsehood.
Hi Ute, A small point. Psychiatrists talk about 'disorders'. Maybe you could find a better word, one more in touch with the power pathology involved. That might help.
Ian Mordant
Anger arising in me reading this. If I knew then (aged 9) what I know now (at 65) it’s probably a good thing I wasn’t armed. Minor fun my arse. 56 years of staying on high alert.
One of my proudest moments: some time in the eighties, waiting for a night bus, I punched a flasher so hard he staggered back across the road. I was so enraged! I didn't even know I knew how to throw a punch.
I think we should all carry cans of spray paint, preferably the kind they use for cars.
You go girl!!
“Flashing is an angry act. These men are so unskilled at communicating with women, they tell me they would find it easier to flash at a woman than to go up and say hello.” That has to be one of the most pathetic excuses for male behaviour. As a communication strategy, it's hard to think of anything less effective...and sounds like nonsense!
Police are useless . They issue fixed penalties at best for this dangerous offence . What’s wrong with men ? WTAF is wrong with them ! Women simply do not behave like this . We need a solution .. I can think of a few … 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
My gran advised carrying pinking shears in any bag I went out with. Usually some type of rucksack so with room. The sight of a pair of pinking shears has chased off many a disgusting man before the offending member gets out of the trousers. I stopped when I got to about 40 when I discovered my knee was not thought to be an offensive weapon and I always had it with me. Have used it a couple of times with great satisfaction. If men come at us in this way, we should be allowed to use any means necessary to get away.
Perhaps it will take enough incidents of women attacking flashers and maiming them Romans men think twice. Of course she'll be the one who goes to prison but if the story gets out surely it will reduce the future victimization of other women and girls. 4B movement is a start but honestly, so many men are becoming despicable human beings. Porn is the driver of this extreme behaviour and men need to start holding each other accountable since they don't listen to women.
I have learned something important today, as a result of reading this. I honestly did not know that men who do this masturbate whilst inappropriately showing their genitals. I thought it was "just" (not the right word, I know) the showing. This probably is a result of the depiction of flashers in the mac - two hands on the coat means none on the dick. Something else I need to prepare my daughter for...
It happened to me and my friends cutting through the bush after school. We were around 10 years old. I am 76 now and have never forgotten about it and how it felt.
I wonder if there is any woman older than 50 who hasn't been flashed. My impulse, after I experienced it for the first time, was to run in horror. Nowadays, after the initial shock, I feel like getting a knife out of my bag and cutting the "pride". Maiming, in any way, is what I would like to do to these imbeciles. I think we need to strategize with younger friends and with specialists and plan ahead. It just can't continue this way, something has to be done!
You're right Wen. It would be very good to have a plan in place to take immediate action to cause the terrorist flashers to regret their behavior. Yes, maybe spray paint, pepper spray a stink spray, stun gun?
I was 10 the first time I was flashed. I was walking around the block to a local grocery store to buy something for my Mum. A man called out to me from the open window of a house I was passing. When I looked at him, he was naked from the waist down and wanking. I ran home and told my Dad what I had seen. This was the 1950s. We lived in a neighbourhood of low cost housing constructed for WWII vets. Dad called some of the other men in the neighbourhood, and they paid the flasher a visit. In hindsight, I don’t condone this vigilanteism, but I wish more men would take flashing seriously, even when it doesn’t happen to their daughter or a young girl that they know. I’m 82 and I can still remember that man’s grinning face and the fear I felt. I’ve forgotten his cock.
Have just been thinking a lot how the traumatic impact of the sex crimes of both voyeurism and exhibitionism is scoffed at and massively unappreciated. It’s very real.
I was exposed to at age 8, totally transfixed to the spot absolutely petrified. It was outside public toilets. My friend and I managed to get away went home told my parents who were enraged. They caught the creep, I was living in a small town at the time and the police had an idea who it was. This image and experience has been with me all my life. My mother was so enraged I think if they put her in a room with him he would have come off second best. My mum always said if anyone ever touched her girls she would buy a shot gun and put them down !!! I’ve always thought of anything happened to my girl (pleas hid it doesn’t ) I would go the ends of the world to take the creep perpetrator apart and I would face the consequences!!!!
Men and boys exposing their penis to women and girls is definitely a terrorist act. It's meant to frighten/terrorized females; to show dominance and control, a threat of rape and contamination. Seeing an unexpected penis might seem like a trivial incident, but far beyond that, only females can get pregnant. Subconsciously or consciously, flashing is an ativistic, evolutionary threat of having your body taken over by someone else's genes. It's like (literally) the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to possibly be impregnated against your will by the sperm of a despised aggressor.
Thank you for your very astute comment. I was on a trail along the Charles River in Boston when I was in my 20s. I had hesitated to walk alone that day, but it was so beautiful outside that Sunday afternoon. I wanted my feet to touch the earth instead of the pavement that I typically walked on daily. I was enjoying my walk, but also had to be mentally vigilant because of the possibility of rape. A man coming toward me on a bicycle got off his bike, took out his penis and started to masturbate while staring at me. This is pure aggression. He was making that space and others like it places where I could not go and feel safe. I bent down and started to look for rocks to throw at him. He got back on his bike and rode away in the other direction. It's not the most frightening thing a man has ever done to me, but I still get angry every time I think about it.
What a horrid experience; I think I'm not the only man who has been ignorant of how often this occurs, as well as its typical effects on women.
But I've also been doing some thinking since writing my previous comments. I've come to think that the fact that most heterosexual men like seeing a woman's sexual parts, leads too many men to assume that women will enjoy seeing theirs. But as the responses here and data from Julie's original piece make clear, that seldom if ever is this the case.
Here's something men need to be taught, and then men who expose themselves unasked can be given serious prison sentences, maybe sign the sex register, etc.
Ian Mordant
Hi Ian. Thank you for responding.
< I've come to think that the fact that most heterosexual men like seeing a woman's sexual parts, leads too many men to assume that women will enjoy seeing theirs.>
That may be true for men sending dick pics to their gfs or wives. But in the case of the random man exposing himself to a female he doesn't know, I think the core motivation is aggression. They WANT to shock and to make the other person uneasy, if not fearful. Exhibiting the penis to a female who doesn't want or expect it, especially in remote locations, as well as voyeurism (peeping Toms) are indeed on the same continuum as sexual assault/rape, though at perhaps a more nascent level of sexual offending.
Hi Susan, Thanks for your reply. I suspect you're right in what you wrote. Leaves me a little less ignorant than before. Ian M
Hi Julie, Thank you for your piece.
You ask why flashing is treated as fun - by men that is.
I think that there are at least two reasons:
a) they seldom ask women;
b) Men do not know women's feelings around these questions; whether women are as ignorant about men's feelings about say male sexual failure I can't judge.
I suspect that both women and men struggle to imagine the feelings of the other around sexual experience, as flashing is. It may be that women try harder to understand men's feelings than most men do to understand women's feelings. Whether women have more success I don't know.
What I wonder is whether there is some inherent difficulty in understanding across the two genders, or whether it is just a lack of education I also don't know. Are there one or more books that I could do with reading?
As you see I suspect that I'm very ignorant about all this. I'm also unclear as to how to move forward on all this.
Some help with this would be appreciated. Ian Mordant
'[Vera-Grey] recounts how a male journalist expressed surprise at being told that one in 10 women had been flashed .
'“He thought that was a lot,” says Vera-Grey,” but most women have beepn flashed. These men literally have no idea of how common it is because it does not happen to them."'
I would have thought more than one in ten women had been flashed. But she then adds "most women have been flashed," which doesn't surprise me.
However, "one in 10" is not "most women." Am I missing something?
As to the digital phenomenon of #DickPics, I've met hardly a single woman over the "digital years" who *hasnt* received several pictures of male genitals. Any dating site seems to be the place for this kind of sexualised violence. Yet comments I've heard range from annoyance to anger. No one finds it amusing. "Men" with juvenile attitudes find it amusing and suggestive of prowess; mature men consider the behaviour infantile.
Until now, I'm ashamed to admit, I hadn't considered how frightening or terrifying it might be to women. I have learned something important. Thank you.
Almost every boys first sexual encounter is now non-consensual via internet porn. This bodes very very ill for women. Hurt people hurt people. Porn targets teen boys. I don’t know why no one will stand up on their behalf.