When Dumb Crime and Sex Collide

When Dumb Crime and Sex Collide

– Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com Porn For Women

Outside of ‘news’ stories about people who say they’ve been having sex with ghosts, aliens or demons (or that they cure people who have done such), my next-favorite brand of oddball news story is probably the “stupid criminal” genre.

After all, how can you read about something like two guys trying to disguise themselves by scrawling lines on their faces with sharpies and NOT laugh until you’re short of breath? And then there are criminals whose crimes are less dumb, perhaps, than they are careless or equal parts senselessly cruel and inexplicable.

To Be Fair, As Mugshots Go, This One Was Reasonably Flattering

Of course, for pure, unadulterated dumb, it remains hard to beat Mack Yearwood, the recipient of “Best in Show” at the annual Calico Rudasill Dumb Criminal Awards. What distinguished Yearwood, you ask? Well, he’s the fellow who decided it was a good idea to use his own wanted poster and mug shot as his Facebook profile picture, while he was on the lam.

In retrospect, I probably could have justified awarding Stuart Police Department Corporal Brian Bossio with Understatement of the Year at the same time, following his comment on Yearwood’s arrest: “Facebook is a great way to communicate and connect with old friends and family. If you are wanted by the police, it’s probably not a good idea to use the ‘Wanted of the Week’ poster of yourself as your profile pic.”

Really? T-Shirts?

You might think that a report combining a dumb (or at least pointless) crime and sex would be something I’d read with particularly great mirth – and it often is that sort of cause for celebration for me. But the dumb and sort-of-sex-related crime that caught my eye this week just makes me shake my head and sigh.

The (thankfully) unparalleled New York Post termed the crime in question an “anticlimactic heist” – which is fair enough, but it still irks me to hear about shoplifters hitting any small business, especially one like New York’s Museum of Sex. Sure, the value of the t-shirts this bozo stole was only $60, but that fact only underlines the pointlessness and senselessness of his crime. 

But why target a place like the Museum of Sex? If someone wants to steal t-shirts, it’s not like New York City doesn’t have a thousand stores where you could steal one worth a lot more than $30. Shit, back in 2013 there was one on sale at Hermes on Madison Avenue for $91,500.00 – and with inflation the way it has been lately, just imagine how much that sucker must be worth now! Hell, steal that shirt, put it on ebay and you might just garner enough money to fill your gas tank a couple times.

How About Taking Home Some Newfound Knowledge, Instead?

The best reason not to steal from the Museum of Sex, or anywhere else for that matter, is that it’s wrong to steal things. The next best reason not to steal from the Museum of Sex, specifically, is that there are far better ways to spend your time there than pilfering t-shirts.

Right now, for instance, you can go see what sounds to me like a truly fascinating exhibition: Porno Chic to Sex Positivity: Erotic Content & the Mainstream, 1960 till Today.

According to the museum’s description of the exhibition, it “chronologically traces pornography’s permeation of mainstream culture over the last forty years through a presentation of media.”

“When the first motion pictures came out, they were attacked and deemed too titillating for the masses,” the description notes. “Since the first films appeared in the nineteenth century, pornographic content has moved slowly but surely from the edges to the center. While sex has always been culturally relevant, the creative revolution of the 1960s inspired a more open environment in which erotic material, called ‘porno chic’ was embraced. Today sexual material has seeped into all aspects of mainstream mass media, energizing a variety of cultural genres and sparking the sex positivity movement.”

Now, doesn’t taking in that exhibition – even if one has to pay for it, rather than tuck it into one’s shorts to scurry away with for free – sound better than absconding with a couple t-shirts? It sure sounds better to me.

So, if you ever have occasion to go to New York’s Museum of Sex, please remember this handy tip: It’s always better to leave somewhere with new knowledge and understanding than to leave behind your image on a security camera’s footage, stealing a goddam t-shirt.