A friend and I were talking about flashers this morning. Odd conversation for two women to have? True. But flashers are odd people, aren’t they? They stand at street corners, station platforms and outside schools and public parks, seemingly nicely buttoned up, all set to flip open their clothes and show off their masculinity.
I remember one such chappie outside my school when I was very young – a friend who appointed herself local dragon dragged me away even as I, curious as ever, wanted to know what the man was doing…But kids today are not so innocent, or ignorant. They know what is being shown them and why, without really being told – it is almost osmotic, the way in which they imbibe knowledge from those around them, television, books, magazines and more. They are shocked, however, at the reality of it all, when someone waggles a weenie or shows off their (and I especially hate this euphemism) family jewels in public.
Maybe it is the unexpectedness of the situation. When someone has peered into the window of the car or train compartment I am in and said something salacious, I have usually been shocked into stillness. This morning I was more reactive. On the crowded platform at the station, waiting for my morning train to work, I felt a man brush past my behind. Thinking that he was in a rush and so squeezed past a little too close by accident, I did nothing beyond glower in his direction. A minute later, it happened again, same man, same bottom. I moved faster this time, and more aggressively, swinging my fairly heavy bag in his direction. It did make contact, but perhaps not at the point I would have liked – he was not left writhing in agony, soprano, sadly enough.
What is the cheap thrill (an Indianism I have always wanted to use, forgive my plagiaristic instinct there!) that men get from this sort of behaviour? Don’t they get any at home or with girlfriends or significant others? Or is this an extra? Cop a feel and get energised for the day ahead? Waggle your bits and pieces at young girls in school uniforms and then go home feeling fulfilled? Is this the functioning of a sick mind or a sicker society that allows it to happen?
My friend was telling me about the time her daughter came home and told her about a flasher in the park. He was from a respectable family, she said, and of the North Indian community that has a tradition of honouring women. But he was a sheep of the blackest hue, standing on his corner of pavement and lifting his lungi to expose himself when a girl walked past. That story ended with a certain triumph, I heard – the man was caught, beaten up by irate locals and then handed over to the police. Mental disturbance was the excuse, when he was sent home. Is this the kind of behaviour that, if left unchecked, spawns rapists and child sex abusers? That would be an interesting and valuable study to make, wouldn’t it?
Which leaves me with another question: Why don’t women behave this way? Do you know?
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