page_title: Mooning
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Mooning / In various countries and cultures / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Mooning students at Stanford University (protest and World record attempt); 1995.
context_page_description: Mooning is the act of displaying one's bare buttocks by removing clothing, e.g., by lowering the backside of one's trousers and underpants, usually bending over, whether also exposing the genitals or not. Mooning is used in the English speaking world to express protest, scorn, disrespect, or provocation, or can be done for shock value, fun, a joke or as a form of exhibitionism.
  Some jurisdictions regard mooning to be indecent exposure, sometimes depending on the context.
context_section_description: In January 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech. 
  The court ruled that indecent exposure relates only to exposure of the genitals, adding that even though mooning was a "disgusting" and "demeaning" act to engage in, and had taken place in the presence of a minor, "If exposure of half of the buttocks constituted indecent exposure, any woman wearing a thong at the beach at Ocean City would be guilty."
  Defense attorneys had cited a case from 1983 of a woman who was arrested after protesting in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building wearing nothing but a cardboard sign that covered the front of her body. In that case, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals had ruled that indecent exposure is limited to a person's genitalia. No review of the case by a higher court took place since prosecutors dropped the case after the ruling.
  In California, an appellate court found in December 2000 that mooning does not constitute indecent exposure (and, therefore, does not subject the defendant to sex offender registration laws) unless it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the conduct was sexually motivated.
caption: Students at Stanford University conduct a "mass mooning" in May 1995. This demonstration was in protest of censorship in the American media.
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