Monday, April 7, 2008

The Greatest Defense in Legal History - "This is how I chill, ma'am."

For those of you that didn't know any better, you may have been surprised to see yet another Collegian Story about Stanley Pringle's Pattee Stacks escapades. The public masturbation saga at Penn State roars on.

This particular story regards Pringle's response to the allegations. An excerpt:

"Pringle told police he has "a bad habit of putting his hand down his pants," and demonstrated for the officer by placing his hand down the front of his sweatpants, according to the complaint.

"Why would I need to masturbate?" he told police. "This is how I chill, ma'am."

I enjoyed Jim Tuttle's take on the circus surrounding the incident. He made some good points - a junior in college should know it's not OK to have your hands down your pants in a public place.

Somehow I don't think that "This is how I chill, ma'am" will go down in history as an infamously successful defense strategy, a la the glove not fitting OJ's hand or the good old fashioned insanity plea.

This leaves us with two options. The first is that Pringle was legitimately relaxing, hand wrapped around his little point guard, just chattin' up a fellow denizen of the Stacks. I have, in fact, experienced this happening with a certain person who sat next to me in Western Civ. freshman year. Strangely enough, he was a basketball player too. I have and will recount this story to anyone who brings him up in conversation. So let it be said that the explanation of his "bad habit" could be valid.

The second is that he simply could not think of a better excuse. "This is how I chill, ma'am" could have been replaced with any of the following:

1. I have contracted a venereal disease. I hope that you do not know first hand, ma'am, but it causes one's genitals to be quite itchy to the point where you don't even notice when you're scratching it instinctively. (You lose some dignity in exchange for sympathy here)
2. In the land of my father, clutching one's penis is a sign of heartfelt respect.
3. Has it ever occurred to the victim that this might be one crazy dream? Are we in a dream right now? (He would then go "bloobiddy-bloo, bloobiddy-bloo" and wave his arms like they do at the end of Wayne's World)
4. Yes, I did have my hand on my genitals. I had had it there since the previous Tuesday - I am raising money for Lance Armstrong's testicular cancer fund. It is much like the Relay for Life or THON - no breaks. It has made offseason workouts particularly inconvenient.
5. I was looking for my cell phone and something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Ok, so they're not much better, but I can't picture a crotchety (pun intended) old judge slamming his gavel to say "Case closed. It's just how he chills." I UNDERSTAND the whole junk-grabbing phenomenon (though I am not a subscriber), but most over 30 won't.

And for anyone hoping for this to go away (Pringle included) - it's not going to anytime soon. Why? Because Masturbation, like Laser Tag and Bubble Gum Cigars, is both awesome and hilarious. The whole concept of making love to oneself, alleged or not, is too entertaining not to milk (pun intended) for at LEAST five cover stories.

98% of all thoughts regarding Masturbation, at least in my case, are humorous. One masturbates because A) he is lonely, or B) he's lonely at the moment. It involves some of the same ingredients as sex, but is completely different. You can't equate two coworkers amorously making love in a forbidden area of the office in a fit off passion to any sort of situation for masturbation - if you do, you have a guy in a janitorial closet who loves himself a little too much. Sex doesn't even have a place in history - Sure, Adam and Eve had to bang senseless to populate the earth, but nobody ever stops to think if Eve was just "tired" some nights and Adam had to get down to funky town on his own. Even if you're not a religious person - which was first, caveman's first self-incited ejaculation, or the discovery of fire? I bet you a hundred dollars our earliest ancestors were whacking off in dark caves.

So, yes, it is unfortunate if Pringle was cradling his Johnson casually, and we're all orchestrating this masturbatory drama with a moustache-twirling point guard cornering an unsuspecting coed. But it is too damn funny not to do so.

As a closing note:

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