What is "A Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy"?

If you and your significant other were to visit a state park, pitched your tent and decided to get a little frisky, your actions would be considered perfectly legal. However, if you were to engage in the same activity on the outside of the tent, you could be arrested. This is because a very thin sheet of canvas allows you the reasonable expectation of privacy.

This is no different than using a public restroom. When you go into a stall, close the door and pull your pants down to your ankles, you have the reasonable expectation of privacy while you do your business. If you go into the woods, however and urinate on a tree, even if you were far off the path behind a bush or a copes of trees, and you were observed doing so by a law enforcement official, you could be asked to leave the park or even be arrested. It doesn't matter that you have tried to ensure a reasonable expectation of privacy by going somewhere that you would not expect to find other people; you are still urinating in public.

It is perfectly permissible to stand at a urinal in full view of the person next to you with no privacy whatsoever, particularly when there are no dividers between the urinals. While you are standing there completely exposed, you are not in violation of the law, but if you turn even slightly to allow the person next to you to get a better look you are breaking the law.

If you are in a stall in a public restroom and you are joined by another person, you should have the same reasonable expectation of privacy while engaged in sexual activity as you would if you were going to the restroom.

Mature, responsible adults who meet for sex in public restrooms are considered perverts, sexual deviants and even a danger to other people. This is patently absurd. People, mostly men, actually go out of their way to avoid contact with other people who are not involved in the act. The lengths that guys go to in order to ensure that the other person in the restroom is interested in the same thing can reach ridiculous proportions.

Men who are involved in mutual, consensual sexual acts are very aware of their surroundings and they know when someone is approaching. When there is a danger of being caught, they will disengage and act as though nothing more going on. If these men were perverted or sexually deviant they would continue the act regardless of who was around.

Even just "making out", depending on who you are, can result in vastly different actions by law enforcement. A man and a woman making out will garner very little attention. Two women making out will attract a great deal of attention but no action, at least on the outside of the cruiser. Two men making out, however, can expect to face vicious harassment by the officer. While the other two couples will be left alone, the two men will be ejected from the park.

Furthermore, if a man and woman engage in sexual activity in a public restroom, although it may not be tolerated, they will simply be scolded and allowed to go on their way. Two men engaged in the same activity can expect to be led away in handcuffs.

Increasingly, doors are being removed from the stalls in public restrooms in state Parks. This is a direct attempt to remove the argument that being in a stall with the door closed allows for a reasonable expectation of privacy. Now, you can sit on the toilet, doing your personal business for all the world to see with no privacy, yet to do so deep in the woods is still considered illegal, although every other mammal in the woods does the same thing every day.

Obviously, then, the phrase "A Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy", is not one that can be quantified but is open to interpretation by biased individuals. In other words, if you were a man having sex with another man expect to be harassed even if you're in the privacy of your own home.

LegionXXXVI
Servicing men since 1972

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