More than one in eight women will have experienced indecent exposure and or flashing before the age of 16, making it an incredibly common form of sexual harassment. Off the top of my head, I could easily list a dozen or so stories relating to this form of violence—from friends, family members, and colleagues. Plus, I’ve also been through it myself. Last summer, I was flashed while walking home one Saturday night, and while it took me a good couple of months to properly process it, I’ve now got some thoughts I’d like to share.

Flashing is an incredibly violating and degrading form of sexual violence. Yet, for some reason, it still manages to exist in social commentary and pop culture in the form of a punchline, skit, or farce. The truth is, when you think about it, there’s absolutely nothing funny about flashing.

Women and girls experience ‘indecent exposure’ as a the targeted act of sociopathic sexual aggression it is – wrongly regarded as neither criminal nor problematic. Here are some sex offenders I have met, a panel from a double page essay, drawn for the Guardian in 2005 pic.twitter.com/nxx54kal8v

— Jacky Fleming (@JacksterFleming) October 2, 2021

How many times do we need to witness a case of indecent exposure escalate to a fatal attack before we finally take this issue seriously? As someone who’s had to run down the road in order to escape from a man who was aggressively and purposefully exposing himself, I’d argue that change couldn’t come soon enough.

As defined by Rape Crisis, flashing or indecent exposure is when someone shows their genitals to another person for sexual pleasure and/or to scare or upset them. But, as I’ve seen time and time again on social media, these terms don’t accurately or effectively communicate just how debasing this crime is.

Currently, if you’re arrested for indecent exposure in the UK, the sentencing guidelines are up to two years. However, in most of these cases, the defendant will be subject to a summary conviction in Magistrate’s Court, which carries a maximum prison term of six months, a fine, or both.

That being said, almost all of the people I’ve spoken to over the years who have been victims of flashing didn’t report it, myself included. Similarly to downblousing, upskirting or receiving unsolicited nudes, flashing has unfortunately become a crime accepted by so many women and femmes as an unavoidable experience. Why bother shouting and complaining about something that is regularly used as a part of a running joke on our TV screens, right? Why would we expect authorities to take something seriously that’s so often depicted as light-hearted in shows and films?

In 2015, there was an opportunity to flag Wayne Couzens as a highly dangerous offender after he was involved in an alleged incident of indecent exposure. Despite this, no proper investigation took place, and in March 2021, Couzens raped, strangled, and murdered 33-year-old Sarah Everard.

So many missed opportunities to save a young woman’s life. How is that bearable? If you flash somebody in the street, or online, you are dangerous. pic.twitter.com/XDMJAzeEeX

— Emily Atack (@EmAtack) February 14, 2023

And Couzens’ case is not an isolated incident. A new review published in August 2024 on sexual exposure suggested that there is a definite pattern of offenders who expose themselves going on to escalate to contact crimes. What’s even more alarming is the fact that most sexual exposure crimes and offenders do not come into contact with the police.

The report also recommended that proactive policing responses which respond to sexual exposure as a serious offence should be explored.

In an article published in December 2021 titled Flashing is a serious sexual offence: treat it as such, reporter Julie Bindel made an astute observation, having looked at all of the previous studies and commentary on flashing. The journalist noted: “Most of the existing literature focuses on indecent exposure as an individualised mental problem and (as the word ‘indecent’ suggests) a matter of public morality, rather than a threatening form of male behaviour, primarily targeted at women and girls.”

“In addition, men who flash women are considered to be a bit weird and pathetic, often eliciting an unearned degree of sympathy that can confer upon them something close to victimhood status,” she continued.

Some people seem to think indecent exposure is funny. Well, it wasn’t funny when it happened, or when I had to give a 2 hour statement or when I had to try and ID him. These offences are often a precursor to serious sexual assault. Not funny at all

— Ｓｕｅ Ｖｅｎｅｅr XX 💜🤍💚 (@sueveneer) February 4, 2022

When I was flashed, some of the people I told trivialised the event—whether purposefully or not. They suggested that the man might have been drunk or high, that he likely had “no idea what he was doing.” Is that supposed to make me feel better? Or make me feel more safe? Unsurprisingly, these comments just reaffirmed to me that this wasn’t a crime worth dwelling on.

I would like to note that there is such a thing as exhibitionistic disorder—a condition marked by the urge, fantasy, or act of exposing one’s genitals to non-consenting people, particularly strangers. I’m not denying this disorder exists, but it also doesn’t diminish the experience of victims.

Most of us who have been flashed or victims of indecent exposure don’t confront our emotions or feelings about the event until months later. It feels silly to dwell on something that society categorically doesn’t take seriously enough. For victims of flashing to pursue police intervention more regularly, we have to feel as though there’s going to be a supportive and tuned-in voice on the end of the phone.