Flashers and its effects, non-issue/big issue??

[Deliainthemaking]

I really didnt know where to put this and I thought it realtes to mainly female victims and thers alot of interesting discussion on here

I've always been curious why would anyone do this and what are the effects on victims.
This stirred from a jeremy kyle episode (I know, I know blush)
and a womans boyfriend had been exposing himself to her Mother! under the guise of flying low.
If someone flashed at me I'd probably be more bemused. like wtf just happened? sort of reaction.
there was one lad at school who just got out his BS over his jeans, not sure if that counts lol.
Just wondering if anyone has had this experience??
how did you react??
I'm geniunely curious, would you feel intimidated, or a bit bemused??

Im sorry it happened to you

one of my mates got flashed , the old long coat routine and laughed.

I'd be too scared incase they responded violently

I've been flashed at several times and have been bemused as much as anything. The first time I was a school kid and as well as thinking the guy was somewhat crazy I was also a little excited - not in a sexual way, just in a "OMG I have to tell all my friends at school" sort of way. The last time was over a decade ago and I was more irritated than anything because by that point I'd come to realize it was about someone trying, however ineffectually, to be nasty to me. And even if the person trying to be nasty to you is a sad git it's still annoying that someone who doesn't know you at all would decide to try and play power games just because of your sex.

Some people feel really intimidated by flashers and suffer anxiety and other effects. It can stop them going places they think they might be flashed. When I was in the police (many, many years ago) we took reports of flashers fairly seriously in large part because (we were told) virtually all stranger rapists start out flashing.

When I was a child I came across several flashers but I was always with a group of friends and it was in daylight. It wasn't at all threatening and we used to stalk one of the flashers for a laugh [Embarrassed].

As an adult I've also been flashed and it was much more threatening because it was usually at night when i was walking home or on a train or bus with few people about.

I would be bemused

when I was flashed it put me off sex for ages because every time I thought about sex the image flashed up of this awful man in sunglasses stroking his willy while watching me . Luckily my boyfriend of the time was in America so I wasn't having sex anyway.
I still believed in those days that the best thing to do was to ignore it but now I think that is nonsense, because he knew I had seen it, I'm sure an experienced flasher gets his kicks out of the subtle start you do when you see it and the attempt to pretend nothing has happened; they probably think it is quite funny when women try to ignore it when they have obviously noticed. In a similar situation (daylight, cars driving past, built-up area, so not unsafe) I now think the best thing to do would be to shout and possibly even try to flag down a car, or call the police immediately if you had a phone.
Pretending to ignore is basically a passive reaction, I think. I also didn't know then what I do now about the fact that many more serious sex criminals start off flashing. (I found that fact out from a police letter on a different occasion informing us of a flasher in the area and asking people to report it.)

I reported it when I got home and the police were helpful.

I'd be too scared incase they responded violently

this is exactly the reason you SHOULD report any 'flash'

it's a highly aggressive act, which is just a step away from a physical rape

i have very close-hand knowledge of a school-mate who repeatedly flashed, in school.

it was seen as a joke, by staff and pupils.

he's in jail now for rape. hindsight is a bit of a bastard at proving instinct to be the truth in this case

definitely big issue.

every woman with whom the subject has come up has experienced it in some way - flashing, wanking in public etc. it happened to me so many times as a teenager and every time I was scared, embarrassed, and said nothing. a couple of times I was with friends and we just looked the other way and walked away and never discussed it - i think we both felt it was our fault in some way

I would challenge it now, but I wonder if 'they' know that, because it hasn't happened for years

It's happened to me loads overseas for some reason. The weirdest place was the man wanking ('at' us) in the gardens of Yad Vashem - the holocaust museum in Jerusalem

if it happened to me now I'd definitely report it.

A girl I used to know responded to a flasher by saying "If that's all you've got you might as well put it away"

(I think she was in a group at the time though)

I was very shaken by it. I was a student, walking to my pub job. It was close to a pretty quiet area and he was very intimidating, shouting really vile stuff. He's been jogging around me for a few minutes before. I assume that he jogged about like that looking for a victim. I felt very alone and vulnerable (and I was not used to feeling like that) and it put me off walking to work. Later I felt angry that he had made me feel that way.

David, thats how i'd thought most people would react, probably an effective method in putting them down.

I've noticed when I read alot of these forums this one in particular, the overwhelming amount of women who've had stuff happen to them.

I've always thought one of the very few benefits of me being ugly is that I can pretty much go anywhere on my own without in the dark and this stuff won't happen, but of course thats weighed out with physical violence, spat on ,deliberately waliking into ,getting your face smashed off sinks etc and verbal abuse frompassers by cars, limos are the worst,
pretty much sums up that being a woman you're fucked either way, no pun intended.

I have mentioned this on these threads before but the rapist and murderer Colin Pitchfork ("famous" for being the first person in the world caught through DNA testing) was a flasher, and raped and killed both his victims - according to him - because they did not react in the way he expected them to when he flashed at them.

IIRC he was not considered a suspect in the conventional investigation because he was "Only a Flasher" and the police believed that flashers were essentially harmless.

I didn't know that BalloonSlayer. How did he expect them to react?

Delia - I'm so sorry you feel 'ugly'; there is a whole industry devoted to making you feel as shit as possible about your appearance and I hate the strong effect it has. And I am so sorry - and angry - to hear what you have experienced from wankers who think they have the right to act like that.

It hasn't happened to me since I was a child and I was very, very frightened. I don't know why my mum didn't report it to the police :(

I lived in Asia when it happened to me; bloke had actually come of his motorbike and was standing at the doorway calling. At first I thought it was a friend of housemate and wondered why he was grinning madly. When I twigged, I grabbed a broom and chased him of the porch and out of the garden... Didn't feel shaky until afterwards.

I did report to the police, which I slightly regretted as they came by and hade me basically re-enact the whole episode (two police men in socks 'examining' the broom made for a slightly surreal experience). I'm sure the whole town's force took part in the subsequent few days of extra patrol, just to check out the foreign girl who hit a flasher over the head with a broom

seth it was a long time since I read the book about it (The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh) but I think he said that when he flashed he always stood somewhere that left the woman room to walk on past him and away. Both girls panicked and ran back the way they'd come. This he blamed for his subsequent actions.

I always think it worth mentioning, because it shows that these men have all kinds of bizarre things going on in their heads, they are not harmless, and one "wrong" move by the victim can provoke something a million times worse. It's really frightening.

Yes possibly. I think though that he was asked why in all his many years as a flasher, having flashed loads and loads of women, he raped and killed two of them quite a few years apart.

Obviously his offering any excuse or reason blaming the victims' behaviour is utterly vile. Although I am not sure that he did blame them, he offered it as an explanation.

I mention it as an example that all flashers - to my mind - are potential rapists/murderers and just because one of them has never done anything else it doesn't mean he won't next time.

Sethstar

thanks i've come to accept it now (sorta still have bad days) some people are attractive i'm just not one of them.However that does mean tirades of verbal abuse and wierd looks all my life.

I'm concerned about how young some people were whn the had been flashed at. disgusting