It's that time of year when skeletons emerge around every corner.
They sit on porch steps and crawl out of makeshift graveyards. Twelve-footers loom large over neighborhoods, spiders spill from the rooftops, and creepy dolls adorn fences.
But one bony display cruising Casper streets this Halloween is making people stop dead in their tracks.
Strapped atop a silver GMC Acadia is a menagerie of skeletons and assorted dangling bones.
In the middle of it all, two skeletons are having sex.
Or at least it looks like it.
From a distance, the jumble of bones looks like just another elaborate Halloween display.
Up close, the arrangement is less ambiguous: One skeleton is on all fours with another positioned directly behind it, its bony pelvis pressed against the other’s backside.
Pink underwear is bunched around the lower skeleton’s femurs, while a bra hangs uselessly from its bare rib cage.
Other skeletons surround the fornicating pair, while a skeletal dog rides near the front of the SUV.
As the rolling bone zone has made its way around Casper, residents have started debating whether the display is funny, filthy, protected expression — or Halloween taken too far.
‘Not … Funny'
Casper resident Meagan Logan said she isn't sure what bothers her more: The skeleton sex scene or the number of people defending it.
“All I can think about is the children, especially children that may be healing from sexual trauma,” she said. “A lot of people are speaking about rights as Americans, but I feel like we have a right to go to the grocery store and not see things like that.
“I have a very dark and offensive sense of humor, and not one time did I find it funny.”
Logan says the underwear is fine, "but once they put it into a sexual position, then that to me is no different than a couple having sex in public or someone making sexual gestures in public."
Logan also wonders about the vehicle itself.
The Acadia isn't sporting a couple of plastic pumpkins. Large decorations cover much of it, with skeletons and other props attached to its roof, sides and rear.
Logan said she's been pulled over for relatively minor cracks in her windshield.
“I don't understand how that is not obstructing view or distracted driving,” she said.
‘Auntie, What Are They Doing?’
Casper resident Kristian O'Dell said she first noticed the SUV about a month ago while picking up her son from his father's house near Dean Morgan Middle School. Her 5-year-old daughter and 6-year-old niece were with her.
“My niece, who's 6, was like, ‘Auntie, what are they doing?’” O'Dell said.
That left Auntie in a bind.
“What do you say to a 6-year-old?” she said.
It wasn't O'Dell's last encounter with the bone-mobile. She said she has seen the vehicle repeatedly while picking up her son, sometimes with three young girls riding with her — and they have questions.
“That's just not something that you want to explain to little girls at that age, or even my 10-year-old son,” she said.
O'Dell said she generally doesn't like getting involved in public debate, but this one got under her skin. She said the skeleton-covered SUV is often parked in the area near the middle school with hundreds of children nearby.
“I think there's a time and a place for it,” she said. “They want to put it up in their yard, I feel like that would be a little bit more acceptable than on a vehicle because then you can just choose not to drive by that house.”
You can avoid a house, she said, but you can't avoid another car driving around town.
"You never know where they're gonna be,” O’Dell said.
She also takes issue with the ski mask worn by one of the skeletons. Combined with the positioning, O’Dell said, it makes the scene look less like a raunchy joke and more like forced sex, with the surrounding skeletons complicitly looking on.
“That bothers me,” she said, explaining that the overall scene carries a more sinister implication than simply two skeletons posed in an arduous embrace.
What About The Gore?
Not everyone thinks Casper needs to clutch its pearls over the passionate display.
Resident Mary Goff finds the whole thing, well, entertaining.
She does concede that it might be better suited for an adult Halloween party, but the controversy has left her wondering about a strange line Americans tend to draw around Halloween.
Fake corpses? Fine.
Blood? Bring it on.
Severed limbs, gaping wounds, graveyards and the undead clawing their way out of the dirt? Put them in the front yard and hand the kids some Reese's.
Sex? Now hold on.
“Why are we OK with exposing kids to violence, but not sex?” asks Goff.
When it comes to the question of whether or not two skeletons should be having sex in a public parking spot on top of an SUV — Goff isn't prepared to appoint herself the arbiter.
“Who's to say?" she said.
'Reasonable Minds May Differ'
Wyoming law establishes a three-part test for whether material is legally obscene, and Loretta Howieson Kallas, Uinta County prosecuting attorney and president of the Wyoming County and Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said all three parts matter.
Kallas cautioned that her analysis is her opinion based only on the circumstances presented to her. Another attorney could reach a different conclusion, she said, and because the SUV is in Casper, any prosecutorial decision would ultimately fall to Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen or his office.
Under Wyoming law, material is obscene when an average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that it appeals to a prurient interest; it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and, taken as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The key word there is “and.” All three requirements have to be met, Kallas said.
Wyoming's definition of sexual conduct includes representations of actual or simulated sexual acts.
In other words, the fact that the participants in Casper's SUV rooftop romp haven't had flesh for some time doesn't necessarily end the legal inquiry.
“I certainly can contemplate means by which a figurative display may meet the definition,” Kallas said, adding that it would have to be considered case by case.
She said one could reasonably imagine the person responsible for the display intends to engage viewers in a prurient manner and that the skeletons are intended to depict a sexual act, but proving something depicts sex is not the same thing as proving obscenity.
The person behind the display could potentially argue the tableau is satire, art or even political commentary. Whether it is patently offensive is another question.
“Ultimately, the issue is vague enough that many reasonable minds may differ,” Kallas said.
That matters because prosecutors don't merely have to convince the public.
They have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
Location, Location, Copulation
Where the skeletons are getting frisky matters, too.
Kallas said putting a display on a vehicle traveling through public places could affect the legal analysis to some degree, depending on where and how it was displayed.
For example, she said, there could be additional considerations if someone intentionally displayed something in a manner designed to put it prominently in front of children or other protected groups.
Depending on the circumstances, location might also raise questions about a breach of the peace rather than obscenity, she said.
Still, Kallas stressed that intent and purpose would matter.
Based solely on the circumstances presented to her, she doesn't expect the Casper bone brigade to be an easy obscenity prosecution.
“Without further context, it is my opinion that this circumstance would be unlikely to result in a conviction for obscenity,” Kallas said.
Part of the problem is baked directly into obscenity law: community standards. What shocks one community may barely raise an eyebrow somewhere else.
“Many of our laws require a careful balance as to the expectation and protection of the public and a citizen's constitutional rights,” Kallas said.
That leaves Casper residents debating the question at the heart of obscenity law: What crosses the line in their community?
The City's own municipal code contains provisions addressing obscene materials, but whether those provisions could apply to this particular display remains unanswered.
Casper City Attorney Eric Nelson did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about whether the skeleton display could run afoul of the city's obscenity ordinance or whether it is protected expression.
For now, the skeletons remain on the road, and Casper residents remain free to be horrified, amused, offended or turned on by the sheer commitment required to turn a GMC Acadia into a rolling orgy.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
