The curious case of the naked coffee maker

Michele Catalano:

You’re standing in your kitchen making coffee. You are naked, but no one else is home. It’s early in the morning and you are in the privacy of your own home. All right, so maybe you’re a little bit odd, and maybe not everyone makes coffee naked. But your house, your rules, right?

That’s probably what Virginia resident Eric Williamson was thinking last Monday morning as he made himself coffee while dressed in nothing but his birthday suit. Unfortunately for Williamson, he wasn’t quite as alone as he thought. Walking through his yard were a woman and her seven-year-old son, on their way to the son’s school. The woman — a wife of a police officer – saw Williamson’s naked torso through his window and called the cops. Williamson was arrested and charged with indecent exposure.

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Perhaps the fact that the mother is a police officer’s wife had nothing to do with the overblown reaction, including the arrest of the man and an investigation to determine if this has ever happened with Williamson before, but I think we can guess it was a factor. Something seems to have made the police department all too eager to arrest a guy for being nude in his own kitchen.

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What if the tables were turned? What if Williamson were a woman and a man walked by the house instead of a woman? What if that man happened to look into the window, staring long enough to see that the woman inside was naked? Would he call the cops to say he was flashed? Probably not, because he would end up in handcuffs for being a peeping Tom. A woman looks in on a naked man and thinks he is committing a crime. A man looks in on a naked woman and she thinks he is committing a crime. Weird how that works.

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I was once asked why there are no women exhibitionist. It is because women who want to show off can usually find a job where they get paid to do it. I personally am not offended by nudity. I wonder if the woman complaining is going to be concerned about what her son sees in the locker room.

There is a good rule of thumb used in the south that concerns the difference between being naked and nekkid. Naked means you don't have any clothes on and nekkid means you don't have any clothes on and you are up to something. Making coffee in your home does not qualify as being up to something.

I think this guy might have a suit against the woman and the police for invasion of his privacy.