exhibitionism and crime
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EXHIBITIONISM
may reduce violent crime!
I have read numerous reports, both articles and news items, about exhibitionists, and one thing that keeps surfacing again and again and again is…people are worried that exhibitionism may lead to more serious crimes. They for the most part are not overly concerned with the actual act of exposure, but rather what it may lead to.
Graham Rooth tackles this issue in “Exhibitionism, Sexual Violence and Paedophilia” (British Journal of Psychiatry, 1973, 122, p.705-710). Specifically, he tries to ascertain whether exhibitionists are likely to go on to more serious crimes.
He notes firstly – and this should come as no surprise – that professional opinion is divided. He then goes on to say that the traditional view, dating back to Lasegue (1877) and Krafft-Ebing (1893), has been that exhibitionists are not sexually aggressive. However, studies have now emerged linking some exhibitionists (between 10% and 25%) to crimes of violence, sexual or otherwise.
Rooth however examined the records of a group of thirty persistent and well-documented exhibitionists treated by himself or colleagues and notes that of the several hundred sexual offences of which these men were convicted, only five were for indecent assault, and only one of those five incidents was accompanied by “some use of force”; the others were “probably confined to touching”.
That is a remarkably low incidence of violence.
Moreover, all these five offences took place early in the career of the offenders concerned, at the ages of 15, 16, 17 and 20. The evidence, says Rooth, “gives no support to the idea they (persistent exhibitionistic offenders) have any particular tendency to develop aggressive sexual behaviour. On the contrary,” he says, “the low incidence of such (violent) behaviour in this group suggests that a well-established pattern of exposing may reduce the likelihood of serious sexual assaults.”
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This rather indicates that we have it back to front, so to speak. The evidence, while not conclusive, suggests that exhibitionism may actually reduce violent crime, rather than instigating it. The tempting conclusion here is that legalising exhibitionism may lead to a reduction in sexual assaults.
To conclude, we believe that the laws relating to exhibitionism should be re-evaluated in light of present-day research (and because of changing sexual mores) and we submit that there may be some merit in legalizing exhibitionism, at least to a limited degree, as they have already done in some North European countries.
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Afterword: To explain the discrepancy between this finding and the finding that some exhibitionists do carry out more serious crimes, Rooth makes a clear distinction between persistent exhibitionist offenders and occasional ones.
He says: “The ‘typical’ confirmed exhibitionist may well not be a danger, but (serious assaults) tend to be dominated by single-offence exposers who need not necessarily share the same characteristics (as persistent exhibitionist offenders); and it may well be that the violent minority will prove to come from the ranks of the incidental as opposed to the habitual exposer”.
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4 Responses to Private: exhibitionism and crime
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andrew says:
Kevin, I have had to edit this comment for the purposes of the comment section. However you do bring up some worthwhile perspectives and I will publish a longer version of this comment on the actual website, probably under “essays” in the literature section.
While the videos are an important research and study tool, I am also hoping that this website can generate some thought-provoking and insightful articles that will help us to better understand the situation facing exhibitionists. -
Kevin says:Where you edited was where I originally intended to stop, but I got thinking about the broader implications and continued onward. I agree with your edit.
With respect t criminality, I got thinking about some years I spent working in Russia for my national government. As you probably know nudity is not such a big deal there. In the main city park where I lived in a large city I quite often saw topless females. Most people didn’t mind if the females were under 30 years old [topless babushki are a friggin nightmare]. I saw the occasional sausage in the park and people were always cool with it.
I spent many summer weekend afternoons tanning my anaconda in the park and many cold weather occasions window flashing. Not once did I see a female of any age (5-40 years old) become mentally scarred, upset, afraid, or negatively perturbed in any way. I was always greeted with smiles and gazes, and if often created an opportunity to strike up a friendly conversation to do the cultural exchange work for which I was paid to be there.
The Russian banya (sauna) was a place I often took various females [14-25 years old] to talk to them about life in my native country [they were very curious right after the Soviet breakup]. Without exception we walked into the dressing room, we all stripped naked in front of each other, and proceeded to the sauna where conversation generally moved from consumerism to my obvious blatantly displayed excitement from their gazes, smiles, and their attempts to accidently brush or touch my anaconda.
So I conclude that negative female responses to publicly exposed penises are definitely conditioned by western societies. Females are not naturally offended by the sight of penises, but actually enjoy the sight of a penis in public, just the same as males enjoy the sight of a naked female. Negative female reactions are not reactions at all, but are an artificial exaggerated displays by pathetic females to create attention to exert power over the male gender. Compare the negligable negative response to the much more prevalent female flashing.
Law making bodies pander to this melodrama because legislative and law enforcement bodies look for boogiemen under every bed to justify their existence. That is why flashing at various degrees is a crime.
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Good one again, Kevin. This contains some solid information that flashers are likely to be interested in, namely the response to male nudity in various parts of the world, in this case Russia.
It might interest you to know that for a number of months the highest number of viewers (per head of population) came from Croatia, where my site ranked at 12,107, whereas worldwide it was only 736,759 (it ranks higher than that now). Not sure if there is a connection to what you said, but there may be. At any rate it intrigues me why there is such a high level of interest in flashing in Croatia.
Anyway, I will be posting this comment in the experience section.
thanks
Andrew, the idea that the sight of male genitals is mentally scarring to any female is a hoax perpetrated by ball-less legislative and judicial bodies that pander to the mis-androus (male hating) elements of society. Consider the fact that commercial TV advertises Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra 24/7, placing the images of erect penises in the minds of ALL viewers including adult and child females.
Yes, having taught 12-15 year old kids in public schools I can definitely say that virtually ALL girls are well familiar with the male anatomy even in a puritanical environment where I live. Internet censorship doesn’t work on these girls as their male friends share block bypasses with them. Anyone objecting to those facts is living in a fantasy world. The majority of girls enjoy asking their male family members “What is ED?” just so they can exert control over their male family members. Yes, this power struggle happens in nearly all families and the males are oblivious to the power take-over they didn’t even know was occurring. When they think they are outside the hearing of any male, these girls laugh about how stupid males are when these girls are deliberately embarrassing them. And that behavior continues into adult life.
And yet with ALL of the erect penis imagery that is generated by constant bombardment with Erectile Disfunction medication advertisement, not one of these sensitive females ever complains about the mental scarring from ED commercials saturating the airwaves. Oh, its not in-your-face penis imagery. As females always claim, they are not as visually oriented as males. Yet, the mental manipulation utilized by the ED commercials appeals precisely to the female mental process to satisfy their prurient interests. In fact, these commercials, like the daytime programming so prevalent in the US, is nothing more than female pornography.
So why isn’t this sort of media communication classified as female porno resulting in the criminalization of broadcasting?