The Time I Googled Indecent Exposure

Courtesy of Mama Kat’s Prompts this week, here is the one I chose.

4.) Tell us about the last thing you Google searched…what did you learn?

Please don’t judge me based on what I’m going to tell you. I had reasons.

I was writing a piece of fiction yesterday (not my forte) set in the mid-80’s, a time I happen to know quite well. I was living the Yuppie (Young Urban Professional) lifestyle in the City (Chicago, not New York) and the livin’ was “easy” if you know what I mean. The 80’s were all about MTV, rock music, smashing Disco records and carefree lifestyles, among other things.

But I needed some additional facts to support my plotline.

My question was…

If someone were caught in a park in various stages of undress, doing something that should probably (should be) done in a place of privacy, what, most likely, might the legal ramifications for them be?

Of course, I turned to Google and typed in:

“Is having sex in a park illegal”

The answer is YES. It is called “indecent exposure”.

Then, I wanted to find out what it meant exactly and legally.

So I Googled:

“indecent exposure”

I discovered it’s a Class A Misdemeanor and would require a court appearance more than likely. I also found out if you get caught three times indecently exposed, it becomes a Class A Felony. Apparently, some people don’t learn their lesson the 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd times. Otherwise, why would there be a law for it?

Having the facts, I began writing.

Only later did it occur to me that “Big Brother” tracks these kinds of searches, doesn’t he? Someone might think I’m contemplating doing the nasty in a park somewhere. Or worse that I did do something extremely inappropriate (which I never do by the way) and had reason for concern. 

There are some alternative, and scary, definitions for the term which have nothing to do with what I was doing. Was I going to get spammed by raunchy stuff like the time years ago when I, seemingly forever, got "enlarge your penis" emails? 

It boiled down to me beginning to worry about my search history. It’s not like I was surfing for porn but it kind of felt that way and it reminded me of the time about 6 years ago when I saw “naked boobs” in Google history. Hubby was not the culprit; he doesn’t have to Google them. My recently turned teen turned out to be the mortified yet naive criminal that time.

I was worried something similar would happen to me.

So I erased all search history from yesterday. It is a good thing because my husband sat down at the computer last night to do some Internet shopping.

I was NOT in the mood to explain anything.