Moon Over Port Townsend

by Scott Hogenson

The Battle of the Sexes has reached new depths of confusion. Not a day passes without some person being accused by some other person of some form of unseemly behavior, invariably linked to sex or something like sex. Some cases are very serious, like the rape charges against Bill Cosby and former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Others may involve retaliation against an accuser, as was alleged by a staff member of California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who is accused of firing a male aide for refusing to play spin the bottle with her. 

Most of what we read about involves people in positions of power exploiting those with no real means of fighting back. This power dynamic makes such harassment far more pernicious, but it can also distract us from other misconduct that does not involve famous, powerful people. Some complaints ring true and terrible while others suggest false outrage. In some instances, what used to be called flirting is now called harassment. What are we to think?

Some of this confusion came to Port Townsend May 11 when police responded to a report of a woman exposing her buttocks from the window of a truck. The term of art would be ‘mooning.’  According to Port Townsend Police Public Information Officer Keppie Keplinger, the 26-year-old mooner and the driver, a 42-year-old woman from Port Hadlock, were cited for not wearing seat belts. The woman exposing her rear end was also counseled against displaying her derrière from a moving vehicle. And that’s it. 

One could be forgiven for wanting this woman frog-marched into the Jefferson County Courthouse, pants tightly cinched around her waist, and called to account for her behavior. I mean, we’re talking about the public display of one or more butt cheeks and God Knows What Else. If harassment is harassment no ifs, ands or buts (no pun intended), why should this woman be excused for exposing herself?  

On the other hand, the response struck me as somewhat nostalgic, harkening back to a different time in America, when mooning was a prank for teenagers of all ages meriting little more than a stern finger-wagging. It turns out that exposing one’s buttocks and whatever lies between them is just fine. “It’s not a crime,” said Keplinger. Indeed, mooning has been adjudicated in numerous courts as a form of expression protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

We’re left with something of a conundrum. The Pound Me Too Movement (I refuse the made-up word ‘hashtag’) has made expressing admiration of a woman’s appearance tantamount to second-degree murder while a woman displaying her rear end at a stop light in Port Townsend gets a pass. 

For those who say admiring a woman’s appearance may be uncomfortable for the recipient of the compliment, I submit that a full moon could be quite uncomfortable for its recipients, not to mention a dangerous distraction if you’re behind the wheel. But we who were not at the stop light on the corner of Haines Place and Sims Way on May 11 can never know how it felt to be on the receiving end of this display of female flesh.  

Don’t get me wrong; this is not to conflate mooning with the behavior of Harvey Weinstein. There is no place for sexual harassment or assault - ever. But cultural norms and social mores are always in flux, and the very real risk to my wife and daughter and every other woman is that we’re defining deviancy down while defining the innocuous up. What once was taboo is now ordinary; what once was mundane is now criminal. It is the criminally mundane that marginalizes truly egregious conduct and the victims of it. 

In the case of the Port Townsend Moon, the mundane is just that. It is no more a threat to society than winking at a member of the opposite sex across a crowded room. Rather, it is the cacophonous indignation over perceived slights and micro-aggressions that pose a greater threat to us. There’s a big difference between a moon from a passing truck, leaving one speechless, and being forced into speechlessness by the censorship that attends manufactured outrage.

Scott Hogenson is a resident of Jefferson County. His column will appear Wednesdays.  Responses, no more than 700 words, may be sent to ptfreepress@gmail.com.