Indiana law allows men to publicly display sexual organs and promotes maternal preference in custody decisions

Imagine that everyday on the way to the courthouse the judge in your child custody case passes 100 men and each are yelling at, smacking around, or ignoring the pleas of a child for assistance. Also, imagine that while en route 100 women are simultaneously observed holding a child lovingly, emphatically listening to the child’s chatter, and providing guidance about safely traversing their course. If you think that may have a subconscious impact on the assessment by the judge about who you are as a parent then keep reading.

Indiana Code 35-45-4-1 defines "nudity" as “the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering, the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple . . .” [emphasis added]

It also includes “the showing of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.” This is what is called a “boner law” which makes it illegal for a man to obtain an erection while in a public place. [en1]

There are two conditions in which one can meet that statutory requirements for the offense of public indecency. The first is that if a person appears in a state of nudity with the intent to arouse the sexual desires of the person or another person. The second being that a person at least eighteen years of age who knowingly or intentionally, in a public place, appears in a state of nudity with the intent to be seen by a child less than sixteen years of age. The intent element is the pivotal factor in meeting the statutory elements of the offense but that is not my purpose in this rationation so I do not address that now. Rather, my intent is to demonstrate that there is a deliberate purpose in establishing a birth sex differentiation in defining public nudity and the offense of public indecency.

A study by the National Institute of Health found that “manipulation of the nipples/breasts causes or enhances sexual arousal in approximately 82% of young women and 52% of young men with only 7-8% reporting that it decreased their arousal.”[en2] Although I have not conducted an amount of research on this topic to make significant findings I do feel that men may under-report based upon the perception that the breast is a sexual organ for woman and thus being aroused by niple stimulation as a man may produce a sense of being feminine. Is there a biological basis for the perception that the breasts of women are sexual organs?

Fetishes are created by selectively hiding and revealing — making that which is hidden enticing.

Laws like Indiana’s public indecency statute are carefully crafted to develop a culture that views a women as a sexual being rather than a productive functional person. The result of the patriarchal dominance in the United States is that the female breast is portrayed not for its biological purpose -- producing nourishment for a baby or young child -- but as a medium of sexual gratification for men.

If you are a viewer of old films then you are familiar with the leading bombshell who would pull her dress up enough to show off her ankle or the more enticing calf. Through conditioning the exposed ankle or a calf of a woman had become arousing to men. This was a cultural development of the time as young men in our contemporary society experience no sexual arousal from the ubiquitous exposure of women’s ankles or calves and likely do not understand the basis of a gratuitous display of the lower portion of a woman’s leg in pre-depression films.

The sneak-a-peek excitement from seeing behind the abundant garb of a woman’s clothed body has not diminished in 100 years. In contemporary Islamic countries women may gracefully expose their hair or necks as a titillation to men. What is obscured or forbidden creates desire. This is much the same way that young gentile adults have been manipulated to desire alcohol.[en3]

Contrary to these puritanical cultures are the more enlightened and intelligent cultures that we observe in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and areas within the Australian continent and southern Asia. There they have evolved sufficiently to realize that the purpose of the female breast is for the production of milk to nourish the children. Thus, the female breast are openly displayed and the male members of the society do not experience lust or arousal from observing such.

The male breast, however, lacks the internal structures to produce milk and has only the observable external structure as a woman - cleavage, areola, and nipple. The majority of men also report that nipple stimulation produces or enhances sexual arousal. Clearly then the male breast only serves a sexual function and is therefore a sexual organ.

From a logical construct this practice of sexual discrimination is backwards is such arbitrary discrimination is to exist. The sex codes which distinguish the exposure of breasts as a criminal offense based on birth sex -- allowing men to expose their sexual organ while requiring women to obscure a means of producing sustenance for their children -- serves an obvious social agenda.

The intended outcome of this code is to inculcate gender based roles and hierarchy. Men, with their breast tightly draped over large pectoral muscles, demonstrate strength and are shown to be builders -- producers -- not objects of sexual gratification. Women, however, with their breast -- their most demonstrable means of production -- covered are shown to be meek, idle -- not productive -- and objects of sexual lust and fantasy. Therefore, when producer is contrasted to idle object of lust the producer must be granted elevated status and position of authority in the industrial or financial provider scheme.

Although distinct gender roles are largely being eliminated in the practices of child rearing as the various nurturing activities, emotional needs, and perfunctory duties are aptly tended to by me and women. One only need look to the baby changing tables in men’s restroom to observe the actuality of this social phenomena. Yet this paradigm shift has not been fully integrated into the courtroom setting.

Men who object to the maternal preference that largely still exist in child custody cases and the child support awards that accompany their diminutive role in the lives of their children need look no further than such a law as this which, while not part of the child custody statutes, serves as a constant subconscious guide to judicial officers making child custody decisions about the proper roles of mothers and fathers.

notes
1] Although removed from the books in many jurisdictions this element of an archaic puritanical code remains on the books in Indiana because men are not to be publicly seen as sexual aggressors aroused by the seductiveness of the covered woman.
2] Taken from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16681470 15 January 2016.
3] Jewish as well as some mediterranean children are generally introduced to alcohol consumption during elementary school age. Both populations have significantly lower rates of consumption and abuse of alcohol within countries or cultures that do not use alcohol as an enticement to display maturity such as the policies of the United States are designed to do.

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