indecency

[Downunder Kilt]

True Blue answered the question well. In legal terms, there must be "means rea" - literally, "guilty mind," meaning you had the intention to commit a crime.

I have never heard of someone who was kilted who unintentionally flashed someone being prosecuted for indecency or public lewdness.

If you are going regimental and trip and accidentally flash yourself to a bus full of nuns, was that your intention?

I know there was a you tube video on this site months ago that had a drunken Scottish soccer fan pull off his kilt on camera during a newscast. Obviously he had the intent to do that.

As a police officer, if I got complaint of a kilted man exposing themselves, I would have consider the situation - did the actor lift up his kilt or did someone else do it to him? Did a breeze lift it up? Did he immediately push it back down or did he take a stroll past the schoolyard first?

I think the vast majority of rabble on this site really need not be concerned with being locked up any time soon. Well, at least not for flashing.

There is also the term reckless intent wherein you do something having no regards to the outcome. This could be the case where you go regimental whilst wearing a kilt on a very windy day. You don't intend (mens rea) that your kilt flies up around your ears during a gust, but it was probable it would happen given the climatic conditions. You could very well be charged with a criminal offence in that you actions were reckless and likely to cause offence.

It is very much like a person firing a firearm down a busy street, and saying they did not intend to hurt anyone and did not aim at anyone. It is reckless and just because there was no intent (mens rea), there was a reckless intent as it was highly probable that their action would cause injury/death

Black's Law Dictionary defines recklessness in American law as "Conduct whereby the actor does not desire harmful consequence but...foresees the possibility and consciously takes the risk," or alternatively as "a state of mind in which a person does not care about the consequences of his or her actions." Black's Law dictionary 1053 (Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th ed. abr. 2005). In American courts, like English courts, a wrongdoer is found guilty of recklessness based upon the subjective test rule, where the accused must have had the same reasonable knowledge or ability to know the circumstances surrounding the incident in order to be found guilty of recklessness.