My morning was ruined by a public masturbator on the Red Line!

My morning (it was a gorgeous morning too) was ruined today by a public masturbator on the Red Line train. He got on around Thorndale, sat toward the back of the train facing me, before moving to the seat diagonally across from me. He was a tall black man who wore sungalsses, a beige baseball hat, black t-shirt, and shorts. Listing blissfully to Mika on my ipod, I didn't really pay attention to him, even though his movement struck me as strangely stealthy.

A stop later, I glanced casually over to my left and realized that he was furiously jerking off! Feeling disgusted and angry with his behavior and for attempting to get off through my discomfort, shock or fear, I decided to not pay attention to him at all and give him the satisfaction of getting a reaction from me. He kept wanking off as we passed Granville, Loyola, and Morse. I didn't want to get up and press the stop button on the train because I knew that as soon as the doors opened, he would have just bolted out of the car (this happened to my friend), but I didn't really want to confront him either. I sat there looking out my right throught the window while keeping him out of the corner of my left eye, just in case he wanted to try something funny (which would have led to me kicking his ass).

Finally, he put his penis away and got off at Jarvis, avoiding the possibility of getting arrested at Howard when I would have called the police on his sorry ass.

Looking back, I should have whipped out my cell phone and took a picture of him (too bad he was careful to wear his sunglasses) so that I could have posted his picture on the web for the world to see. A girl did that on a NYC subway train and the NY Post put his picture up on their front page, which led to his eventual arrest. I probably should have also said something to him in order to let him know that this type of behavior would NOT be tolerated by women in general. I should have said "Sir, put your PENIS back in your pants! Or I will have you arrested!" I am now practicing this in case I bump into another pervert.

It's important to realize that resisting these public offenders is essential because indecent exposure usually degenerates into other acts of sexual assault. If you look at the rap sheets of many rapists, they usually have prior offenses such as being a peeping tom, breaking and entering, or public exposure. Who knows if this pervert I met on the train decides that next time it would be acceptable for him to sit down next to a woman and masturbate, and then even try to touch her or assault her?

And in case someone out there thinks that this type of behavior is harmless, imagine if it happened to your mom or your sister? It would not be funny if they were distressed by this type of encounter.

The next time I will be more prepared. I am now ordering pepper spray online and practicing talking loudly for the next time some weirdo decides to use me to fuel his sick fantasies!

~Submitted by Jennifer