Exhibitionism can refer to a wide range of behaviours, ranging from fun with a willing partner, to a crime when done to the unsuspecting and unwilling. As a clinical matter exhibitionism is a sexual paraphilia in which a person (usually a man) obtains sexual pleasure from exposing his or her genitals to strangers, usually in a public place. Prevalence of the condition in the general population is not known, but approximately 30% of sex offenders have exhibitionistic tendencies and it is one of the most common sex offences. Some argue that for people with this paraphilia "it should be a possible to exist happily as an exhibitionist and still stay within the boundaries imposed by our legal systems." While often the belief is that they are harmless, research is indicating that they may progress to more serious crimes. Others note that "exhibitionism...is dangerous in that it can produce traumatic experiences within its victims."
posted by never used baby shoes on Nov 15, 2007 - 34 comments

Did the clients [at the brothel] realize that they were in fact getting an orangutan? “Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orangutan.” Via.
posted by jonson on Nov 15, 2007 - 110 comments

The Work of Carol Rambo. (Warning, these articles are all PDF or .doc format.) Carol Rambo is a professor of sociology who paid her way through school by working as an exotic dancer. Rambo has written articles on the sociology of strip clubs, drawing upon her own experience as an exotic dancer. In one article, Rambo writes about "the discourse of deviance" that exotic dancers use to "organize their identities" in a process Rambo calls "narrative resistance." In another article, she writes about the concept of old age as it affects exotic dancers. In a third article, drawing upon her own experiences as a "table dancer," Rambo writes about "Interactional strategies that table dancers use to cultivate counterfeit intimacy," and she concludes that dancers manage to "carve out an autonomous niche in an otherwise oppressive context." Also interesting is her article on growing up as the daughter of a mentally retarded mother, "On Loving and Hating My Mentally Retarded Mother."
posted by jayder on Oct 4, 2006 - 54 comments