Man rides bicycle (and not in the usual way)

Friday, November 16th, 2007

You just can’t make up news stories like this one. A man has been sentenced to three years on probation and put on the Sex Offenders Register because he was discovered by cleaners having sex with a bicycle at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr.

Robert Stewart, 51, admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.

‘In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind,’ said Sheriff Colin Miller, who presided over the case. ‘But this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a cycle-sexualist.’

The bicycle was not charged.

categories: news and politics

Comments to “Man rides bicycle (and not in the usual way)”

Howard says:

November 16, 2007 at 5:06 pm

That last line killed me.

Howard’s last blog post..Roundup – Week Of Nov 9

Spicy Cauldron says:

November 16, 2007 at 7:04 pm

It was meant to. Well, not literally of course.

Tallis says:

November 16, 2007 at 8:54 pm

At first I thought this was hilarious, but then I read it again and realised he’s now a registered sex offender as a result of masturbating, on his own, in a locked room. No underage porn, no offensive pictures, no audience. Was the bicycle underage? Maybe it didn’t consent?

In fact it’s not stated that he was actually having sex with the bicycle, he was only ’simulating’ sex. (Too much alcohol perhaps?)

It raises some scary implications on the legal precedent front. Especially if you have a kink or two, in the privacy of your own home.

Even if you don’t, even if you’re as vanilla as custard, are you sure you’re not on dodgy ground? If you’ve ever had a private play with yourself, you’ve put yourself at risk. This case implies that the social and sexual rules that apply in public, can be applied to you in private, if someone decides to be pedantic about it.

From a Pagan perspective, if a man can be charged for masturbating, (or even simulating masturbation,) in a locked room, is a skyclad coven safe meeting in their own indoor covenstead or could they be charged for indecency? This poor chap was done for simulating sex, a symbolic Great Rite simulates sex too. Maybe I’m just overly paranoid, but then again, if you’d asked Mr Stewart if he realised he could end up as a registered pervert for his solo activities in the privacy of his own room, he’s probably have thought you were being paranoid too.

The idea that I can be arrested and convicted for something I do in private, that harms no one and nothing, when I’m alone, behind a locked door, is worrying.

Spicy Cauldron says:

November 17, 2007 at 10:56 am

Tallis, an excellent response! I didn’t go into that but that doesn’t mean I’m not in total agreement. I think you’re right. A number of things struck me about this story…

Yes, it is undoubtedly funny simply because the idea of sex with an inanimate object (okay, in this case only inanimate if you’re not, er, riding it anywhere) is kind of insane to my thinking… Just like the woman in the US who left her husband for her washing machine (yep, that’s true). Apparently there is a name now for the mental disorder (so it’s called) where people fall for machines, but I can’t recall what it is…

Second to that, the guy was not doing this out in the open. He was disturbed by cleaners entering his room, so he was in private. So he shouldn’t have been prosecuted. Had he been with a man or woman having sex, the cleaners would probably have left it with rushed apologies and lots of blushes. But because it was a bike, they reported him and he was charged.

Third, the Sex Offenders Register is a thing not everyone agrees with but was set up for definitely the right reasons. But it isn’t right that a man who has sex with a bike can be made to go on the register. It is supposed to be rapists, child molesters and other people who commit violent and non-consensual sex acts against other persons.

While I personally think putting those twisted types on the register is appropriate, I don’t think putting a man on there who had sex with a bicycle is. He harmed noone; he wasn’t corrupting minors; he was and is no rapist or molester.

As for the ‘idea that I can be arrested and convicted for something I do in private’, sadly that’s been the case for, well, nigh on forever. Think of the terms introduced when homosexuality was first legalised, after a fashion, in 1967. It was only legal between two men, no more than that, and not two women at all, and then only in a house where nobody else was resident or present at the time even in another room. And the room in which homosexual activity took place was, on top of being in an otherwise empty house, meant to be locked.

Anything else was illegal. So I can certainly say for the first ten plus years of my coming out, living in shared digs, I was effectively criminalised despite having relations in private. Because the law’s view of private at the time wasn’t the view of private held by most reasonable people.

I think most Pagans don’t consider the ways in which the law may impact upon their rituals or lifestyle choices. Of course not all of us by any means go sky-clad or perform the Great Rite (I myself don’t, and the Great Rite isn’t part of my practice or belief system) but that doesn’t mean I don’t ever consider that for some Pagans their own ways of invoking the Sacred and the Divine are capable of being challenged in ways patriarchal mainstream religions are not.

Yes, this story is funny–no doubt about it–as so many kinks are when they are notified in the media to those who’d never consider them, but it also raises questions. Is it appropriate for courts to be taking on people who have sex with bicycles when our prisons are overcrowded, our justice system overwhelmed, and killers and rapists are out there on the streets doing what they do? I think not. x

Spicy Cauldron says:

November 17, 2007 at 11:02 am

On a lighter note I think we can all be grateful that computers have only small USB and FireWire ports. I can certainly imagine there are geeks out there who might get ideas otherwise!

And on a more serious note, as an aside, only this week a British actor who was imprisoned for SIX MONTHS ONLY for downloading and viewing child pornography got out of prison after FOUR months.

So, a man who had sex in a private room with a bicycle gets three years’ probation and on to the Sex Offenders Register; a man who downloaded and viewed images of child abuse–thereby encouraging the abuse of those children, by being part of the gross market for such images–gets far, far less.

Where’s the justice in that comparison? It’s easy to see which of the two cases merited what kind of sentencing. I mean, do all bicycles now need to check the Sex Offenders Register just in case there’s a cycle-sexualist (as the Sheriff described the guy) living on the same street as them? I don’t think so. Do you? x

The Web Pen Blog » Blog Archive » Roundup - Weeks of Nov 16 & 23 says:

November 30, 2007 at 8:03 am

[...] finally this bi-polar section: Andy told us the story of a man arrested for consensual sex… with his bike! However, life throws many curve balls and he got another one with the loss of he and D’s [...]

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