Ah… spring is once again approaching Eugene. This is apparent by the flowers delicately poking out of the ground, warmer, sun-soaked afternoons, children playing
in the park and last — but definitely not least — the return of the campus masturbator. Nothing says spring quite like some guy walking around campus doing himself in public.
This phenomenon is quite curious, to say the least. I have been wanting to write about this topic for a while but didn’t want to give this sick guy the satisfaction of reading about himself. But, what the hell.
The “campus masturbator,” or whatever you want to call him, has been around for a while, at least four years. I know this because a friend and I had a run in with the guy when I was a freshman. I’m not saying that it is the same guy now as it was then, but it could be.
When I was a freshman, my roommate and I used to do laundry at what was once Club Wash. It was on the corner of 13th Avenue and Patterson Street, and is called something else now. There is a back door, which leads to a parking lot (a poorly lit parking lot, I might add) and a front door, which leads to Patterson Street. My roommate and I were killing time and were going to take a walk to Little’s Market.
We exited the building using the back door. We were in the parking lot for less than a minute when some guy (approximately 20, medium build, stylish haircut, clean clothes — the kind of guy you wouldn’t really peg as the type who likes to do the five-knuckle shuffle in public, but I’m no profiler, obviously) approached us and did his thing.
Of course we were shocked to see some guy about 15 feet away from us masturbating. We stood there frozen (the deer-in-headlights cliché comes to mind) unable to move, watching this creep show perform some “manual labor.”
The funny thing about stress is that everyone has different ways of dealing with it. This situation was definitely stressful, and the way my body chose to deal with it was by laughing. I laugh in situations that are the most inappropriate — in church, at funerals and, apparently, when strangers masturbate in front of me.
So there we all were standing in the parking lot: me, my roommate and a sexual predator. Minds are supposed to be programmed with “fight or flight.” I’m pretty sure mine is lacking that function because I just stood there like a complete idiot, hysterically laughing.
After about a minute, he spoke the words of a true gentleman, “I’m sorry if this offends you girls, but this is the only way I can get off.” An apology and an explanation all rolled into one. What a guy.
After his beautifully articulated declaration, he simply turned around with his pants around his ankles and ran off into a nearby alley, his white ass shining in the moonlight. In and out of our lives in less than five minutes.
I tell this story for two reasons: 1. It’s a good story and applicable to what is once again occurring in the campus area. 2. For the next female that encounters this guy… mace him! Don’t stand there like a dumbass, laughing like I did. Do something. Run, call the police, spray him in the face with noxious chemicals, do anything in your power to escape.
I feel that I was lucky when faced with this situation because I wasn’t alone and the guy was non-violent. Who is to say that the next person is going to be so lucky? If a person’s bold enough to masturbate on the fourth floor of the library, chances are he’s bold enough to do something violent.