Illegally Spanking The Monkey
Despite the rather amusing nature of this story, it hides a deeper and extremely unpleasant Orwellianism.
“A Florida inmate convicted this week of masturbating while alone in his jail cell is reportedly only one of eight targets—along with state taxpayers—of what a Miami Herald columnist describes as “a spectacular case of selective prosecution.”
Given the likely prevalence of such commonplace behavior in state prisons (not to mention boarding schools, seminaries and military barracks), criminally charging any Broward County inmate with masturbation represents a major waste of prosecution dollars.” (ABA Journal)
Yes, it is a waste of money to prosecute for it. But the issue goes deeper. First of all, the female deputy who complained was watching him on a monitor - he was alone in his cell - and has done the same for seven others. It sounds almost like she was channel-surfing for Onanists - and must pay quite a deal of attention to them wanking, since in court she “managed to describe [the] offence in startling detail, eight times, once with… approximating the action with arm motions.”This deputy definitely seems to be on some sort of crusade against bishop-bashing, money-spanking, etc.
That it is - or could be - illegal to masturbate whilst alone is quite disgusting. Had the deputy been visible to the prisoner, then that would be a different story, but since he was alone in his cell, then why should he be prevented from pleasuring himself? It is natural, after all.
This story does give me a great opportunity to post this hilarious video though…
[Warning: Mature content]
via Iain Dale, Tim Worstall, and Caroline Hunt
