The group of cops surrounding me remained stoic, listening to my husky groans and moans taper off. With my eyes trained on my crumpled shirt lying on the floor next to my pants, I shuddered in one last spasm of awkward and grotesque ecstasy before slumping over in quiet exhaustion.
This was the fifth, and hopefully last, time I had had to convincingly perform some type of public debasement before clocking out for the day.
As I got dressed, the crisis de-escalation instructor I worked with asked the group of officers how they would assess the situation if confronted with this scenario.
“He’s obviously pleasuring himself in public, so he might have a hypersexual disorder or be on drugs,” a young, muscular man with a buzz-cut chimed in. “I would limit pedestrian access in the area because I’d be concerned about weapons and contamination from the... hazardous remnants from his activity.”
A timid collective chuckle momentarily lingered in the air as the instructor used the dry erase board to jot down “hazards — weapons and bodily fluids.” Then, she asked for additional class input.
