Masturbation in Public?
Ran across this the other day. It's a news story from the local college paper about libraries, masturbation, and possible consequences. I wouldn't normally reprint the article, but as I fear it'll disappear off their site soon I wanted to get it down:

Man Ejaculates in Library, Witness Says

By Vimal Patel
February 06, 2006

A man who allegedly masturbated onto a computer screen, keyboard and chair in Morgan Library called the accusation against him a "witch hunt" by overzealous library officials.

A witness says he's sure Fort Collins resident Larry Holgerson, 48, is the man who ejaculated in Room 165 in the library late last month, according to a police report.

Police last week ordered Holgerson to appear in court. They issued him a court summons after library employee Robert Cerda identified him as the man who had used the allegedly semen-spattered computer, according to the report.

Holgerson says he was in Room 165 of Morgan Library on Jan. 27, but denies masturbating and says the accusation against him is ridiculous.

"For him to conclude that I have the ejaculatory capacity to hit the screen is ludicrous," he said in an interview with the Collegian on Friday afternoon. "At 48, I don't have the distance."

Holgerson, who moved to Fort Collins from Denver about a year ago and does not attend CSU, said he often uses Morgan Library to edit articles for a magazine.

"What a nightmare this is," he said. "This whole thing is turning out to be a nightmare for someone who just wanted to use the library."

Cerda, a junior animal sciences major, is the only witness to the incident, police say. He did not see Holgerson commit the alleged act.

Cerda was contacted by the Collegian on Saturday but declined to comment, saying he'd rather not speak to the media about the matter.

At about 7:15 p.m. on Jan. 27, Cerda claimed he saw a man making strange body movements, but didn't think much of it at the time, the report states.

However, when the man left, Cerda walked over to where the man had been sitting and saw the sticky mess.

Cerda said the man making the strange body movements, who he would later identify as Holgerson, was the last to leave the room.

Police weren't contacted about this incident because Holgerson had already left and his identity was unknown at the time, Cerda told police.

At about 3 p.m. on Jan. 30, Cerda spotted Holgerson in the library again and alerted police that the man he saw masturbating three days ago had just exited the library, the report states.

Police caught up with Holgerson while he was walking north on the Plaza east of the Lory Student Center, and escorted him back to the library.

"(Cerda) never claimed to see me do anything," Holgerson said.

Police issued a summons ordering Holgerson to appear in court for "disposing bodily waste," a Fort Collins municipal code law that mandates all "human bodily waste" to be disposed of in "a toilet, urinal or other receptacle designed, intended and made available for such use."

The officer who wrote the report, Ed Bozic, declined to comment, referring the case to CSUPD spokeswoman Yvonne Paez.

Paez said she has heard of masturbation in the library before and even responded to a case in December. But it wasn't to this degree, she said.

"There wasn't stuff all over the place," she said.

Student reaction to the alleged incident ranged from shock to amusement.

"I've heard weirder," said freshman Zach Weeks.

However, he had a theory as to why someone might splash semen all over the place.

"Maybe he ran out of Kleenex that day," Weeks said.

Another student lacked such a theory.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Jon Mohl, a graduate student studying microbiology.

Lt. Mark Childress took a sample of the white substance, Bozic wrote. Childress was not available for comment late Friday afternoon.

However at this point, according to Holgerson, he has not been asked to provide a semen sample. But if he does provide one, Holgerson said, he's completely confident it won't match.

Holgerson says his summons is the result of a "witch hunt."

The university, he says, has a problem with pornography, which visitors are allowed to view in Morgan Library, and that he's just a scapegoat to show they're cracking down.

"They're overzealous about it," he said.

George Jaramillo, assistant dean of the library, said library officials are not cracking down on viewing legal pornography.

"We only have the authority to call the police if they're viewing child porn," he said. "Other than that we haven't done anything to crack down. That would be a violation of student rights."

Holgerson denies viewing pornography in the library. He said he will fight the masturbation allegation in court and will clear his name.

The Fort Collins resident is set to appear in court on March 13.

But no matter what deed anyone did on a library computer, it's not the worst thing in the world, Weeks said.

He added: "I'd rather have him be indecent to a computer than to other people."

* Article reprinted from the Colorado State Collegian. Like I said, it's not with permission, but I don't think it'll stay online long.

What gets me about the whole discussion is that while the event is frowned upon, the real "illegal" issue here is that bodily wastes weren't disposed of properly. It's not something the average person can ask: "Hey, is it okay to masturbate in public?" and normally get a reasonable answer, because too many people would get all caught up in the idea that masturbation is either immoral or obscene. It's nice to have a straight-faced report that it's okay, as long as 1) you dispose of the waste and 2) nobody sees you, or those that do don't think it's obscene enough to bother complaining.

Obviously I gotta say in this case it's pretty gross to splatter a whole computer with semen. That just seems uncalled for. Honestly, I can't even imaging what the appeal would be. Guess maybe whoever did it is into cumshots?

Did you also notice that if you read in between the lines a little, the police are practically inviting you to sit down at the nearest toilet and have a good masturbation session? And here all these years I've been feeling bad for jerking off in the library bathroom as a study break, back when I was in school. Guess it was an okay thing to do after all.