We live in a big city and, as such, we are witness to a lot of things we’d rather not see. Some of them can’t be avoided—like, say, rats and trash and too many bros. But some of the things we don’t want to see are actually illegal, like lewd exposure of body parts—say, for example, testicles. In an ideal world, when such things are exposed, NYPD would aggressively prosecute the gross bastards who let it all hang out, so that a trend in testicle and other kinds of unsavory exposure doesn’t get worse and overtly harass our eyeballs in highly public places. Again, in an ideal world, this would happen.
As you might know, that is not our world. Moreover, it was not our world last night, when a tipster reported this precise scenario to the 9th precinct, and then to Gothamist (warning, if you click on this link, there are extremely NSFW photos of the incident): a man, wearing aggressively short jean short cut offs on the 4 Train between Grand Central and Union square, let his unclothed testicles fully rest on the open subway bench—sort of like they were just another limb—and, when said tipster reported this display to the police, he was told, in fact, there was “nothing they could do.”
The incident happened last night around 7pm, in plain view, including that of children. And yet, despite NYPD’s recent claims that they are making it a priority to crack down on subway sex crimes (they had a Times reporter accompany them on a subway trip) by deploying plainclothes police officers onto especially crowded subway commutes, they apparently are not cracking down hard enough to think blatant testicle exposure falls under this effort.
Per New York penal section 245, Gothamist reports: “A person is guilty of exposure if he appears in a public place in such a manner that the private or intimate parts of his body are unclothed or exposed.”
And, furthermore—relevant to the fact that the person who reported the testicle incident believed the pervert “cut his shorts to permit the exposure”—the law on public lewdness continues:
“A person is guilty of public lewdness when he intentionally exposes the private or intimate parts of his body in a lewd manner or commits any other lewd act (a) in a public place, or (b) in private premises under circumstances in which he may readily be observed from either a public place or from other private premises, and with intent that he be so observed.”
If the picture provided, and this account is not intentional—especially in this supposed world in which NYPD are aggressively pursuing a crack down of subway sex crimes—then, really, nothing is intentional. No living male, alert enough to hold and apparently read a newspaper like this unfortunate soul, could possibly be unaware that his naked testicles were not safely stowed in his shorts, but instead that they were taking a nice little nap on a cold, cold public subway bench.
So, good on you NYPD. With your version of an aggressive crack down on subway sex crimes, I can say with complete assurance that I expect to see more unwanted testicle, in the near future.