I don’t think this reads like an onion.
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
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Not The Onion
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Yeah wtf, there's no humour here, just awfulness
Someone saw “not the onion” and took it literally
WTF, OP? I had to find an archive to get the rest of the text, and there was a lot more to the story. As usual, United has fully lived down to its abysmally low standards.
For anyone else who has zero intentions of paying for a NBC subscription for one article, here's an archive link. There are known problems with the site, but I could not find another archive that had the content. Use at your own discretion:
Holy shit, this is infuriating. And then they try to gaslight her in email.
That fucking guy should have been arrested and banned forever from the airline. I have no idea what the fuck the crew was thinking.
I hope she can press charges and sue the airline, IANAL but it seems like she has a solid case, given how NBC judged her story to be true and newsworthy.
This story was on the WildFeed comm a couple of days ago… and, yeah, United did almost everything poorly or wrongly. Mind blowingly so.
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For the record, if that happens to you, stand up and be a public nuisance.
"EXCUSE ME FLIGHT ATTENDANT BUT, can I please have a plastic spray shield to protect myself while this man masturbates midflight?"
You can also involve the other passengers directly, if they don't react to your obvious public call for help (above) by asking if anyone else sees this guy flogging the dolphin in Seat 33B?
The more euphemisms you can use, the better!
I'm not a woman so there is probably some bit of deep ingrained fear that I'm lacking here, but this was pretty much my first thought when I heard about this.
Maybe public shaming was this guy's kink, but I think being loud is the right move in this situation. There should have been pictures and videos of this guy.
As a woman, yeah I'd struggle not to freeze up after being ignored. The big thing is that someone doing that is probably crazy and gives no fucks as to consequences and the people in charge have displayed a level of apathy that I wouldn't know how far it goes. He might attack and they might not stop him.
Anyone who got past the paywall know what protocol was violated? From the information available, I'm sincerely unsure of what they could have done. Were they supposed to go up the aisle asking someone else to sit next to the masturbator? Were they supposed to swap one of them to one of the flight attendant seats? Can they even detain the guy after landing? I legitimately don't know what they're supposed to do in this situation, other than provide information for the victim to press charges
Public masturbation is illegal. The protocol is probably to inform the commander and law enforcement and ask the person to stop, and restraining him if he does not comply.
Yeah I suspect the "let him leave" wasn't down to United in this case, if law enforcement doesn't want to pick him up at deboarding they can't do much. Hopefully he gets charged, but it'd require the police to detain him on touchdown.
There is no reason they need to detain you to charge you.
Yeah that was my point, sorry if I expressed it badly. That he'll probably be charged, but detainment if warranted would have come down to the police picking him up, related to a criminal charge and independent of a civil case by United.
Snagging him right at the arrival gate seems pretty reasonable, and certainly security has done so after flights for many various offenses in the past.
But yeah, at the very least they should know who the guy was and be able to provide information to the authorities in order to press charges.
Well, that’s probably why they let him leave, nobody wants to touch that guy with a ten foot pole, let alone restrain him.
I doubt it was really ten foot, probably just a few inches
Pretty sure it was that. They could still have thrown some blankets on him and binded his wrists to the seat.
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the fuck is wrong with going to the airplane bathroom. what a creep.
A fellow half mile high club member.
tips hat
genuinely it helps significantly relieve restless leg syndrome, which on a long flight can be downright torturous.
but only if there's not a line of people waiting of course
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Sounds like they where landing. Hence she had to sit as well. The guy probably could have waited till he was in the airport.
He definitely could’ve waited. The flight was a regional trip and only an hour long.
I bet he does it for the thrill. If he gets off on the publicity of the act and having other passengers be captive around him, then an airport bathroom would have defeated the purpose. He wanted his fellow passengers to witness what he did, like a flasher or exhibitionist.
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Well? Did he cum?!
Jesus Christ, man! There's just some things you don't talk about in public!
“That kid is back on that escalator.”
Easy cum, easy go
where did you come from cotton-eyed Joe?
I guess you could say he arrived at his destination.
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Fate missed its chance when it didn't seat him next to the woman who took her pants off.
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