![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Weird news story of the week
Man convicted for sex with bicycle (BBC News)
The headline would grab anyone's attention. The charge, "sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex," makes it sound like he was in the middle of the street at the time, which would be a different matter entirely. This turns out to be far from the case.
The act itself doesn't faze me. I've learned well that people do some bizarre stuff with their genitals. No, what weirds me out and makes this entirely fucked up is that this "breach of the peace" was performed in the man's own bedroom, behind a locked door. And for it, this gentleman has been placed on a sex offenders registry for three years.
Three years. For fucking his own bicycle, in his own locked bedroom. The hell???
(In the interest of fairness, this was a bedroom at a hostel. There may be rules in place at hostels regarding what is and isn't private space, but somehow I suspect that if the cleaners had walked in on him with another consenting adult, there would have been nothing more than a few blushes and a quickly closed door. Feel free to correct my assumptions here.)
Sex offenders registries help no one, when the innocent bicycle fetishist and the high school senior that happened to turn 18 before his high-school-senior girlfriend are lumped in with the serial stalkers and baby-rapists. That's a big gap, here, but two years from now nobody's going to look at this guy and see a guy caught in an embarrassing, but harmless situation. No, they'll see a sex offender, and treat him accordingly.
Sense of perspective, anyone?
click
The headline would grab anyone's attention. The charge, "sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex," makes it sound like he was in the middle of the street at the time, which would be a different matter entirely. This turns out to be far from the case.
The act itself doesn't faze me. I've learned well that people do some bizarre stuff with their genitals. No, what weirds me out and makes this entirely fucked up is that this "breach of the peace" was performed in the man's own bedroom, behind a locked door. And for it, this gentleman has been placed on a sex offenders registry for three years.
Three years. For fucking his own bicycle, in his own locked bedroom. The hell???
(In the interest of fairness, this was a bedroom at a hostel. There may be rules in place at hostels regarding what is and isn't private space, but somehow I suspect that if the cleaners had walked in on him with another consenting adult, there would have been nothing more than a few blushes and a quickly closed door. Feel free to correct my assumptions here.)
Sex offenders registries help no one, when the innocent bicycle fetishist and the high school senior that happened to turn 18 before his high-school-senior girlfriend are lumped in with the serial stalkers and baby-rapists. That's a big gap, here, but two years from now nobody's going to look at this guy and see a guy caught in an embarrassing, but harmless situation. No, they'll see a sex offender, and treat him accordingly.
Sense of perspective, anyone?
click
no subject
no subject
If anyone clips the headline, he will be known forever as "Bike Sex Man."
Possible explanation for the ruling: He was living in a hostel. His room would not be considered his own property and might be considered a public location.
Still, compare this article from 2000 also from the BBC. Apparently, Bike Sex Man today gets more prejudice than Gay Sex Man did in 2000. (Who writes these headlines?)
Or... in this case, was there any ruling? The article says that the Sheriff placed him on the Sex Offender List. Is this just something he can unilaterally do without passing it by the courts?
no subject
Bike Sex Man and Gay Sex Man - superheros defending pansexual causes across the world!
BBC has bizarre headline conventions. The guy who got in trouble for a racy editorial cartoon about the Spanish monarchy was referred to as the "royal sex cartoonist".
no subject
That practically demands a Particle Man parody. :)
no subject
I think there should be a jury for all persons submitted to be on a sex offender list.
no subject