“A man exposed himself recently at Cincinnati-area Wal-Mart stores… In Dry Ridge, two girls, 11 and 13, said a man approached them and told them he was giving away free Bratz dolls to the first two children who got to the toy aisle. The girls’ mother said the 11-year-old went to the toy aisle, where the man walked up behind her and exposed himself. By the time the 13-year-old caught up to her, the man had begun stimulating himself. ‘When she saw that he had his privates out, she grabbed the 11-year-old and said ‘Freak’ and came immediately to me,’ said Michelle Chambers, the girls’ mother. Chambers notified store authorities, who checked the store for the suspect, but did not call police. When the search was unsuccessful, Chambers took it upon herself to call police. Florence police said the same man flashed girls at their Wal-Mart location. When police showed the Chambers girls video from the Florence store, they positively identified the man who had exposed himself to them, their mother said. The suspect was described as a white man in his 30s. He was wearing blue elastic jogging pants with a gray sweatshirt. The girls said he was very tan and had brown hair. Police say he appeared to be talking on a cell phone the whole time. But they now believe he was actually taking pictures.” —NewsNet5.com (US)

(Thanks to alanr for the link.)

“Freak.” You can just hear the thirteen-year-old telling the man where to get off, so to speak. “Freak.”

What she’ll learn as she grows up, however, is that this sort of behavior is too dismally common to be considered freakish. In fact, this particular story is utterly formulaic. It’s as if there is some weird Platonic ideal of exhibitionistic behavior, and this story is just one more incarnation of it. Man approaches schoolgirl in store, promises her a toy, then pulls out his penis. As a narrative, it’s so ho-hum that, unless it happened to you or to your own kids, it’s totally trite. You know that story already. Yawn.

That being said, you can’t let the familiarity of the story obscure the puzzling details it conceals. Why would an exhibitionist ever choose a Wal-Mart, of all places, to expose himself? The odds of being able to “stimulate” yourself successfully are pretty low, unless you can ejaculate in about 1.2 seconds. The risk of discovery or capture is extremely high in such a place. Why do it? Why risk whatever else you have in your life — a job, a family, whatever — for a nanosecond of perverted pleasure? Is it precisely that risk that’s appealing? But then again, how can such a small pleasure ever be worth such a great risk? It’s hard to fathom — so hard, in fact, that it almost makes you wonder if pleasure isn’t the point. Maybe the guy’s not really a wanker but rather some strange sort of ironist whose “pleasure” consists of subverting the trumped-up “family values” of the Wal-Mart chain.

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