by Tristan James
The Swedish man got the charge lifted, after a woman accused him of masturbating in front of his living room window.
Personal expression is a powerful part of the way we live our lives. Whether it’s wearing sandals with socks or airing your silk wizard in a public forum. It’s an important self-defining act that few can justifiably criticise, except maybe the law, and except maybe if you’re masturbating in a window.
A Swedish man, who remains unnamed, has been charged with sexual assault after he allegedly, and as he claims, accidentally, exposed himself to several women from the comfort of his own home. Police were called after a woman in her 30s reported seeing the man standing at his window, rocking his Pinky and the Brain look, on four separate occasions. She claims that he has masturbated in view of her on more than one occasion, saying; “[I] got scared and felt great discomfort of experiences”
“A rattlesnake loose in the living room tends to end all discussion of animal rights.” – Lance Morrow
In a bid to bring the cold unfriendly talons of justice down on the man’s genitalia, she even went so far as to film him as he supposedly walked around a lightened room, talking on the phone, possibly to his mother, naked.
The women that reported him to the police demanded 9,000 krona in damages (almost £900). The police charged the man with sexual assault, a charge that usually involves physical contact or violent, intimating sexual behaviour. The charge was later dropped in the district court.
The man claims that he frequently strolls around his flat naked, but denies doing so deliberately or as a means of lewd exposure. The district court included in its acquittal that the woman’s view of the man is partially blocked by a hedge, and so the act of masturbation could not be grasped firm-handedly. In short, if you feel confined by clothes, feel free to abandon them, but perhaps draw the blinds first.
God bless the Swedish, pioneers of liberal ideology and flat-pack furniture. No longer is space the final frontier. It’s flashing your groin finger at strangers on the street, all from the comfort of your nearest Swedish living room.
