The advice my mother gave to me on what to do should I encounter a flasher, was to find the biggest stick possible and hit his erection with it. “They look hard”, my mother said, “But actually they’re very fragile, even when aroused”. I assumed at the time that this was standard advice, the kind of instruction all mothers were giving to their daughters, but upon reflection, it seems that other girls were just told to point and laugh.
I guess my mother expected me to encounter a flasher in a park, or other wooded area. Perhaps she herself had an experience in the woods; maybe she even meted out her own rough justice against a vulnerable, exposed penis one day when she was out getting some fresh air.
This advice morphed into a kind of instinct, lying dormant, waiting for the eventual unexpected, uninvited penis. As it turned out, the first and only surprise penis I’ve seen was in an urban area, and not intended for me; however, I responded in the spirit of my mother, stick or no stick.
It’s December, and a remarkably cold winter, even for this corner of north-east China. The streets are crusted with compacted ice and snow, the pavements are slippery, and the air is so sharp that it feels that it will slice your lungs apart. I am on an errand, taking the bus, which is unheated and so cold that I disembark with no feeling in my fingers or toes.
I use the momentum from jumping off the bus to launch myself into a kind of walking-sprint. My only goal is to make it to the mall without dying of exposure; I am single minded and focused as I power away from the bus stop and towards shelter. But then, all of a sudden, an image flashes into my consciousness. Penis. A penis, turgid, and being masturbated in a twisting up and down motion. “Penis?” I ask myself. And then, in a moment of realization and fury, I turn back to the bus stop.
Two women are standing at the bus stop. They look unhappy and uncomfortable. They are looking down the street, scanning the road for an approaching bus. Next to them is the owner of the erect penis. In the freezing cold December weather, he has exposed his penis to the -20 degree centigrade air, and managing to get far more blood into his extremities than I can ever manage in this weather, he is masturbating his erect penis at these two, sad-looking women. My fingers are white and numb, my toes are by this point merely a concept. But this man, his penis is red and engorged, his circulation is something to admire, even if his penis isn’t.
I don’t have a stick, but I have a well-stocked handbag. Swung by the handles with the right movement of the wrist, I believe it could do some damage. “NO!” I shout, advancing towards the flasher. “Stop! Pervert!” I bellow, uselessly using my mother-tongue. The flasher gets the idea though. He looks in shock and horror at me, a young foreign woman, an angry, violent-looking foreign woman who is coming for him with her handbag held like a slingshot.
I’ve intruded on his assault, and he turns and starts to run from me. I give chase, shouting all the time, the straps of my handbag still looped around my fingers, ready for maximum impact. As I chase after him I begin to wonder what I am going to do if I catch him. My mother didn’t give instructions for this part. Do I tackle him to the ground, and then deliver serval sharp shocks to his probably now deflated penis? I’m not sure. Can one perform a citizen’s arrest in China? It’s tough to say. Keep your eyes on the prize, Rach, I tell myself, and keep running.
As the flasher tries to escape, he looks over his shoulder to check that I am still pursuing him. I meet his eyes and he makes a bold choice. Darting off the pavement, he runs into the road, moving through the traffic. The quickly approaching cars honk their horns; they swerve, he weaves, and he finds safety from me amongst the danger of the vehicles.
I stop. It is anticlimactic, although relieving in some ways, not to catch him, to be absolved of the responsibility to hit this rogue penis with a weapon, even if it is what my mother would have wanted.