One Thursday in early February, two trainers sit at the desk of the SRC weight room. It's a slow morning and to pass time one reads the police beat section of The State Press out loud.
"Dude, listen to this," he says to a colleague. "An 18-year-old male was arrested Sunday, January 29, at the Hayden Library and charged with indecent exposure and public sexual indecency. The suspect allegedly pulled his underwear to his mid-thighs to masturbate while watching pornography on his laptop."
The colleague stares back, aghast.
"No way," he says, looking shocked and mildly amused.
As State Press police beats go, the incident certainly caught the imagination of the ASU community.
But what actually happened on that infamous Sunday evening?
According to the ASU Police Department report, it started at 9:30 p.m., when a campus security assistant was walking through the third floor of Hayden Library. As she was doing her checks, she noticed a male at a desk who had pulled his pants down to mid-thigh and who had his hand on his penis, masturbating.
She proceeded to call 911 immediately, saying later in the report it was "totally gross" that someone was doing such an act in public. Within 15 minutes, a police officer had arrived on the scene.
By that time the student had stopped masturbating but the officer later wrote in the report: "I could see through his pants that the student still had an erection."
The officer asked the student if he had been watching pornography and masturbating. The student looked down and admitted, "yeah."
Searching for a motive for this bizarre act, the officer then asked the student why he had come all the way to Hayden Library to look at porn.
"To be honest, the Internet connection in my dorm isn't fast enough," the student said in the report. "It takes 30 seconds just to download a picture."
Unlike many public libraries which use Internet filters, students using computers at ASU are free to access pornography whenever they like. It is not even against University regulations.
According to Vicki Coleman, associate dean of Library Services, many students may have legitimate academic reasons for viewing pornography and therefore in the interests of "free intellectual exploration," library staff do not monitor what students are looking at.
But such an open policy can lead to exploitation. After two incidents of non-student patrons viewing sexual images of children at ASU libraries in February 2005, Coleman says the library was forced to install filtering software on machines that do not require a student login.
"Providing non-filtered access to unaffiliated students was creating an environment ripe for potential exploitation," she says.
But it's not just non-students that take advantage of unfiltered access. Late-night staff at the Computing Commons report three incidents from last semester alone where complaints were filed against students viewing sexually inappropriate material.
In one case, a staff member recalls, a chase ensued after a police officer climbed over the railing to arrest a student who was viewing inappropriate material.
According to Coleman, it is only when viewing pornography "interferes with the rights of other library patrons" that University staff will take action.
"Such interference may occur when explicit materials are plainly visible, or in direct public view, and the patron may be asked to move to a less public location," she says.
In the case of last month's incident the student's actions were far from discrete. The security assistant reported a female student with a clear view was studying just two desks away at the time.
Presented with these facts, the student admitted in the report, "I knew it wasn't right."
Some students say they feel an element of sympathy for the library masturbator. Christian, an ASU student who asked that SPM not use his last name, says he has also masturbated in public.
"I've done it in libraries, offices, department stores," he says. "It's something about doing the most private thing in the most public institution. The element of risk turns me on."
But Christian says he almost always resorts to private places within public places, like bathrooms.
"I'm not an exhibitionist, it's all about the fantasy in my head," he says. "I would hate for anyone to see me."
Despite the general disgust, Christian says he thinks the incident is not that unusual.
There are a lot of people who like to masturbate in public, and the key thing in this case is that the guy knew what he was doing was wrong, he says.
"It's easy for people to think this guy is some kind of psychopath, but in reality he just got it all wrong," he says.
