Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

In some cultures, recipients of such pictures would probably just laugh and be at most confused. In others, the population is conditioned to be offended to the point of making it highly illegal. It doesn't even sound like this case is about mutilated or otherwise abnormally disturbing imagery; merely normal human anatomy.

View on HN

“Normal human anatomy” is what you say if someone’s swimsuit slips in the surf, not when a sex offender sends a child pictures with the intent of forcing them to think about him sexually.

The difference is intent: he knew it was unwelcome, and he didn’t care about that lack of consent. Now might be a really good time to think about why your first instinct is to defend the guy committing mid-level sexual assault rather than the child he targeted.

sends a child pictures with the intent of forcing them to think about him sexually

That's entirely the result of a cultural construct.

about why your first instinct is to defend the guy

Trying to turn this into an "us vs. them" situation? I was just pointing out the huge cultural differences that exist in the world beyond Western puritanism.

It’s not just “Western Puritanism” to recognize that a photo of genitalia usually has a sexual context – the point of cropping it so tightly is to focus on that aspect! – but it’s also distracting from the real reason this is a crime: a convicted sex offender did it, by his own admission, with intent to cause distress to an unwilling participant. No matter how body positive you are, lack of consent to be part of someone else’s sexual gratification matters a lot. Even if the images were totally non-sexual in purpose - say pathology case studies in a medical textbook – consent still matters and you don’t go shoving them in other people’s faces without asking first.

You’ve been conspicuously non-specific about the other cultures you’re claiming would be okay with this, perhaps you could give an example and explain why it’s better?

So you think sending dick pics to a 15 year old is chill in other cultures?

I'll keep my western puritanism, thanks.

> So you think sending dick pics to a 15 year old is chill in other cultures?

Not what they said.

The suggestion was that they'd laugh, make a joke about stupid men, tell them to put their dick away.

The most probable response to a real life flasher in this part of the world would be a little finger wiggle and the expression "ahh, winyarn" with a lot of mocking laughter.

Needless to say, not very many actual flashers .. but you can see plenty of near and fully naked men (and women) briefly changing in and out of wetsuits down the car park at the beach. There's more on show at the various nudist beaches.

You keep your puritanism by all means, it's no skin off my western nose.

I’m very curious if you have heard about the murder of Sarah Everard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sarah_Everard

Her murderer, Wayne Couzens, had on multiple occasions “flashed” various women before kidnapping and murdering her. These prior offenses were reported to the police but the police failed to investigate them properly. If they would have they would have recognised the escalating trend in his behaviour and perhaps could have prevented her death.

While I’m not saying that every flasher will “graduate” to become a murderer, this is the context this crime is viewed today in the UK.

In some purely academic sense you are right. What displaying any body part means is culturaly coded. It could mean anything. But in the context of the relevant culture sending someone a dick-pick like this is clearly about power, and forcing one’s self on someone against their will.

No, I haven't.

In the context of a thread branch stemming from: "huge cultural differences that exist in the world" it's not clear how the evolution of a London flasher to murderer relates to sub tropical girls laughing off idiots that walk about with their dicks out.

Given specific cultural attitudes in the UK, in Saudi Arabia, in India, one could posit several different behaviours that might be expressed and evolve from fetish to committing murder.

The interesting question is how this occurs and what attitudes might prevent this.

Part of the problem with the cultural differences claim is that it’s only mentioned enough to function as an excuse. Even a single culture mentioned specifically would allow people to evaluate things like whether that culture has rules about unwanted attention, or whether it’s generally considered desirable. For example, the traditional Hawaiian culture certainly had a very different attitude about nudity but they also focused their sexuality on mutual pleasure, not to mention having an absolute monarchy with the death penalty for things like women eating pork - cross-cultural comparisons are always a mixed bag like that.

The essential part of this particular cultural differences claim is that several cultures aren't intrinsically offended by "dick pics" - this results in a different reaction to flashers and people sending dick pics, near zero reaction based purely on the genital nudity aspect, almost entirely on whether it's welcome or not.

The other cultural aspect that results is incident of bothers; the UK has a much higher incidence of dirty mac flashers than either Australia or Papua New Guinea.

> Even a single culture mentioned specifically

I've just mentioned two and I heavily hinted at one of these in prior comments in a manner that many would have easily read in.

Australia has a strong beach | rural culture; few that surf or work the land would be shocked by a penis, having seen dogs, horses, bulls, and humans (getting changed outdoors) since before they could walk - the very few people that might try flashing or masterbating in public get pretty rapidly told to jog on and bugger off without causing much in the way of distress or embarrassment to their intended "victims".

PNG, of course, still has cultural groups sporting the Koteka .. why on earth would they be sending pictures of a nude, bare, undecorated penis when it's been all about the penis bling for generations?

Can you provide specific examples of cultures where targeted dick pics are shrugged off and nobody cares? That’s distinct from general nudity because it’s sexually focused and targets someone who is not a willing participant.

For example, despite your comments about Australia having tolerance for beach conditions (which as a north Southern Californian I approve of), it’s not like “laugh it off” is the government’s official position:

https://www.esafety.gov.au/young-people/receiving-unwanted-n...

I’m not sure PNG is a great example (https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1117642) but a quick search confirms that their 2016 “cybercrime” law covers both harassment and child grooming so it again appears that people recognize the distinction between traditional culture and targeted harassment like the case in question.

Look at the law in Vermont. There's no law against nudity (there are local laws in some places, though!) but there is a law against undressing in public. Nudity legal, flashing is not. This guy was flashing. I think Vermont got it right. I believe your right to dress as you want exceeds my right to dictate how you dress. But that does *not* mean you get to involve me in your sex games.

Would you have a similar opinion of someone exposing themselves in person to your children? It's just human anatomy, after all.

Did you mean "subcultures"? Can't remember any modern culture which would generally see it as a confusing joke.

how many pictures of genitals did you receive when you were 15?

I can't tell which direction you are going with on this because the honest answer is a lot, and all my friends too. I remember a girl friend of mine in high school (we were 15) showing me a video of a grown man jerking off and she said he was married but they'd been cheating together.

Sadly, not terribly uncommon

Um. To a fifteen year old. Who distinctly did not want to receive such.

Notably, the guy was already a registered sex offender.

Sure this is the hill for you?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com