THE NEARLY weeklong saga of Mayfair's "Swiss Cheese Pervert" is over, and the man allegedly behind the lactose lewdness was being grilled by police yesterday.
Chris Pagano, 41, was arrested outside his home on Noble Street near Airy in Norristown early yesterday by officers from the borough's police department and detectives from Philadelphia police's Special Victims Unit....
Pagano has been charged with stalking, indecent exposure and related offenses stemming from three incidents in Mayfair, police said.
In those encounters, Pagano allegedly approached women with his genitals exposed and asked them to perform sexual acts on him using a piece of Swiss cheese.
The rest of the article I will not quote -- it is a little too graphic. It is so weird that not many people will call this guy anything but a pretty messed up pervert. But what makes this perversion, while some of the other sexual deviations that used to be regarded as this weird are now generally accepted by Americans as normal, even praiseworthy?
I don't think it's praiseworthy, but the jokes practically write themselves. I mean:
ReplyDelete"THE NEARLY weeklong saga of Mayfair's 'Swiss Cheese Pervert' is over, and the man allegedly behind the lactose lewdness was being grilled by police yesterday."
The media has been having a field day with things like "lactose lewdness" and "grilled by police." It's hard to resist.
What about the sandwich shop sicko selling a sandwich profiting off of the nut!
ReplyDelete1. Self-actualisation.
ReplyDelete2. Identifying with the Other.
3. Critical Race Theory.
Cheers
Are there also vegetable perverts? "An attachment a la Plato to a bashful young potato..."
ReplyDeleteIn a word: "Consent."
ReplyDeleteA cornerstone of libertarian thought is that that a "crime" without a victim is no crime at all. If an action doesn’t violate another’s person or property, no crime has been committed. Therefore, when one or more consenting adults decide to engage in behavior you or some other third party considers lewd, icky, or just plain odd, as long as those acts don't harm anyone, who gives a fig?
Marko Kloos summed up this line of thinking pretty succinctly ( http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/my-guiding-principle/ ) in this post:
"If you want to know what I think of a certain law, or government action, or social interaction between people, my answer is very easy to predict. All you have to do is ask yourself whether that law or action or interaction is consistent with the NAP. Does it involve the initiation, or threat of force or fraud against someone’s person or property? Then it’s immoral. Does it involve consensual interaction between individuals, and no coercion is involved? Then it’s moral."
A woman rushing up to an unwilling person in the street and asking a man to do lewd things to you with a feather is an initiation or threat of force. A woman asking her boyfriend, in the privacy of their own home, to tickle her naughty bits with the same feather is just somebody's good times.
Freedom means that perverts get to be free too.
There's no evidence that this guy forced or threatened these women. He just made a weird sexual request while exposing his genitals. Why would a libertarian object to that? There's no force or fraud, is there?
ReplyDeleteI've got no evidence other than the snippet of the article you posted, as I'm not really all that interested in the affair to be bothered to read the whole news item. But let's look at what we've got:
ReplyDeleteIn those encounters, Pagano allegedly approached women with his genitals exposed and asked them to perform sexual acts on him using a piece of Swiss cheese.
Assuming these allegations are found to be true, we've got a couple of forms of harm.
Pagano exposed his genitals to multiple women without their consent. Forcing someone to do something against their will is harm.
Pagano demanded that they perform sexual acts on him. The snippet doesn't quote him, but even if he made no verbal threats, any reasonable person would sense a strongly implied threat of harm in this situation. A naked man demanding sexual favors from an unwilling woman can reasonably be assumed to pose a physical threat.
That is what makes this man's actions a dangerous sexual assault, whereas the consensual activities of LGBT folks are quite harmless.
And let's not be coy, when you mention "other sexual deviations that used to be regarded as ... weird" you mean homosexuals. Let's just agree to avoid the political correctiness and euphamism, eh?
You asked the difference between how society regards Pagano and LGBT relationships. The difference is consent, even among people that don't subscribe to libertarian thought, consent is still a pretty big deal. They may not frame it in those terms, but there it is.
What harm is caused by making requests? I actually agree that there is likely some emotional harm, but by a strict libertarian argument, the harm is entirely subjective. The lack of consent to the exposure is strictly a freedom of speech question, right?
ReplyDeleteThere are actually a number of other sexual deviations besides homosexuality that used to be regard with real disgust that aren't anymore: adultery and promiscuity being two examples.
"What harm is caused by making requests?"
ReplyDeleteNone. But you have to be deliberately blind to see these acts as a "request." Any reasonable person is going to see this as a threat.
There are no accusations of rape or threats in the article. Boorish, without question, but hardly a threat.
ReplyDeleteI think you have established that you recognize what this guy is alleged to have done to be immoral. But why? Boorish requests are not threats.