Should ‘Speedo Student’ Be Kicked Out of College For Jerking Off In the University of Hawai’i Classrooms?

Since at least January, Tim, a gay 22-year-old senior at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, has been recording himself masturbating, and uploading the videos to Xtube. He goes by the username “SpeedoStudent1,” which represents his fetish for all things Speedos, Lycra, and jocks; he got his first Speedo at age 19 and has been hooked ever since. The earliest video of him on Xtube is called “First load of 2010.” He is, plainly, an exhibitionist, and for the titillation of his fans (he has 2,286 on Xtube) and his own self-satisfaction, decided to traverse his college campus and record himself in Speedos, sometimes aroused, in each classroom he took a course in. With the help of a friend working the camera, he managed just that — even without receiving class credit! In one video, titled “Classroom speedo jerkoff,” he masturbates to completion on a desk. And then he learned the lesson of posting anything to the Internet: It’s very public. And even college administrators know how to use the WWW. Tim says he started blogging and posting photos because “after I came out earlier this year [2009], I discovered I love showing off in front of a camera. Taking naked or nearly naked pictures is both arousing and artistic for me. I enjoy doing it and I enjoy the thought that other guys might be getting off on it too.” He chose his username, not surprisingly, because “I have a big fetish for speedos. I always tan and swim in them and wear them as underwear most of the time. Most of what I put up here will hopefully have to do with speedos, but I’ll make sure there are plenty of nude pics too.” Indeed, there are plenty of nude photos of him around, and while we won’t link or post them, Google is your friend. Among those photos is a series of him in University of Hawaii classrooms, snapped in January-February. He describes the endeavor: “In my twist on that I’m going to be taking speedo pics all over the UH Manoa campus, inside and outside of the buildings and in all the noticeable locations I can find. In this part I decided to document all the classrooms where I’ve had classes over the past year…and to do it in my speedos 🙂 I’d be lying if I pretended I didn’t get a kick out of standing in these rooms that are packed with college kids five days a week, or sometimes sitting in the same seats I always occupy during class, in nothing but a speedo. Oh, to see their faces if I actually walked in dressed like that…but I couldn’t do that, I’d probably be hard and dripping from the excitement, and some of these speedos are very revealing…” Not surprisingly, administrators found out about it: “Apparently my last video update, the jerkoff scene in the classroom, is causing quite a controversy on campus, which I’m only finding out about in little bits and roundabout ways. The harassment actually hasn’t been coming from individuals, but from the university itself. Instead of coming to me with their viewpoint, whoever disliked that post used the student coduct code to bring allegations of unsafe and indecent conduct against me.” It’s unclear what disciplinary action might be in store, but he says not everyone is against him: “This is an enormously stressful and disappointing situation. I’ve spent most of the past week on the verge of crying from mental fatigue. So I was very cheered to receive a couple of messages this afternoon from instructors here at UH who are actually applauding what I’ve done. One of them commented directly on my earlier post, so you can read his own words there. The other one came up to me during the LGBT coffee hour this afternoon, thanked me for the important cultural work I was doing with the blog, and told me to keep doing it. It was the strongest positive response I’ve ever had. So thank you both very, very much.” Now what Tim sees as an innocent project in exhibitionism, he sees his college’s attack on it as an affront to … gay rights. Huh.

As much as I love showing off on here, this blog has in fact developed an equally important second purpose. That isn’t exactly to campaign against homophobia or to support gay rights. One blog can’t do much in that direction anyway. No, more precisely, the blog and its visual contents are my way of speaking out about the place of pornography within the gay community and society as a whole, by making it more personally relevant. It was a shock to me the first time I ran into visible opposition to it from other gay guys. I had assumed that since they themselves were likely to be the targets of discrimination or intolerance because of their sexual identity, they would be more accepting of different behaviors even if they didn’t choose to participate themselves. I’ve since found out that I was very wrong. In spite of the fact that just about all of them do look or have looked at porn, and that the gay community lacks much in the way of its own celebrities or identifying figures other than pornstars, they don’t seem to be willing to have those connected with porn anywhere near them. I’m far from being the first gay guy I’ve heard about who has suffered from this form of discrimination. From all appearances, instead of being genuinely willing to think outside the box, gays simply encase themselves in a different box. The walls are still up, the biases are still in place. Only the minor details have changed. Personally, I find this attitude hurtful and disappointing. On a larger, impersonal scale, it’s actually very damaging to the cause of gay rights. Here in Hawaii there is particular reason to be concerned with this aspect of the question, since the legislature recently shelved the bill that would have allowed civil unions here. If disliking A’s behavior is sufficient reason for B to condemn him, then the gay rights movement has no footing at all, since such an attitude accepts that personal prejudice is a valid ground for legal discrimination. That is not the tolerance and acceptance that the LGBT community is so fond of referring to.

If there was going to be any indication Tim planned on backing down from his fight to photograph himself nude in classrooms, it would likely be his removal of his Xtube videos, blog posts, and photos. But he hasn’t; they all remain online, although there haven’t been any updates since the beginning of the month. Meanwhile, the university appears to be leveraging its own attack. A report about his antics appeared in the crime beat section of student newspaper Ka Leo:

A UH student has been endangering students by leaving his body fluids on desks in many classrooms. His blog, Hawai‘i Speedo Student, shows pictures and videos of himself masturbating in buildings such as Kuykendall, Moore, Webster, Physical Science, Watanabe and possibly more. He is currently being investigated for violating student conduct codes. Please take appropriate precautions like disinfecting desks and washing hands frequently. He is self-described as 5 foot 7 inches with frizzy blond hair, blue eyes and a slim build. Do not attempt to approach the student. If you notice him or anyone else exhibiting sexually deviant and psychotic behavior, call Campus Security at (808) 956-6911.

And the University of Hawai’i-Manoa’s Twitter account posted this campus warning: “if you see ‘Hawaii Speedo Student’ on campus, do not approach him–call Campus Security.” Now, he’s an outlaw. Or at least a wild mountain lion roaming campus looking for prey. Whether he’ll be suspended or expelled, or just ignored, remains to be seen. But it’s sort of like: What did you think was going to happen? Nobody on the Internet would be able to identify you? And nobody at the university would know who you are? And nobody in the administration office would care that you were filming amateur porn artful photography in their classrooms? There are certainly worse people in the world, and worse people on college campuses. And aside from his tendency to spread himself out on classroom chairs shared by other students, it’s not like he has inflicted much harm. (Okay, it would’ve been nice if he bleached the desk after cumming on it in “Classroom speedo jerkoff.”) But to University of Hawai’i brass, he’s harming the school’s image, probably violating its code of conduct, and appears to be promoting sexual deviancy. So they will crack down. And should they, we’d hasten to say it’s an affront to gay rights, or discrimination against campus queers, but rather just an attempt to keep students from abandoning all standards of decorum. We’d imagine they would do the same if a straight guy, straight girl, or straight guy-girl combo repeated the feat. If this doesn’t go his way, and he’s kicked out of school, we’d recommend Tim turn to a career in porn. But alas, even that door seems to be closed: “I’m very unhappy about something right now and I need to vent about it, childish as it may be. Why is it that every guy I really want to be with, every porn studio I really want to work with, couldn’t care less about me? More importantly, why do they both pick guys who are less attractive and less enthusiastic over me? That kind of thing hurts me a lot, way more than just rejection would. Okay, maybe I’m overrating myself. Maybe all the attention I’ve gotten online has gone to my head and convinced me that I’m hotter than I really am. But let’s assume that I am a reasonably attractive young guy with a pretty good sex drive and a relaxed and entertaining, if quirky, personality. What is my problem? What is it about me that makes me unwanted by those I want the most?” On the following pages: A gallery of Tim’s time at University of Hawai’i-Manoa. Inside the classroom, Pages 2-21. Other photos, Pages 22-66.