Text:
The informant and his friend group would often camp out in a specific friend’s back yard. Whenever they did, they would wait until it’s past midnight, then drive up a mountain in the area called Cap Sante, where they would find cars that are parked and shaking a bit. They would sneak up to these cars, which would be populated with other teenagers or people in their early 20s doing the deed, and flash their flashlights into the windows, then run away and do it to another car after a while.

Context:
The friend whose back yard they would camp in was Mormon, and his father was very strict with him about many things. One thing he wasn’t too strict about, however, was camping/outdoor activities. This is why they would camp out at that friend’s house a lot, as it was what they were allowed to do with that friend. The trips to Cap Sante began when they were in middle school, and only one of them could drive, and he only had a driver’s permit, not a license. When they went for a drive, they wanted to go far away so they wouldn’t be caught by the strict father, and they wanted to go away from the town, so they wouldn’t be caught by the police. This narrowed their possible destinations down to just Cap Sante. Once they got there, they noticed the cars that were shaking. They started shining in their flashlights to scare the people away so they wouldn’t use the mountain as their midnight sex spot again. They started doing this regularly, later going to the mountain to find those cars, as opposed to finding those cars when looking for the mountain.

Analysis:
I think a lot of this ritual stems from children enjoying the thrill of rebellion and disobeying rules. The initial drive at night when it wasn’t allowed did this, and shining their flashlights into cars gives a similar thrill to ding-dong ditching, both of which are things that are rebellious because kids are taught to be kind and mind their own business, and these things are neither of those. An extra thrill for middle-school boys is the chance of seeing people having sex, or naked, which they likely hadn’t yet in person at that point.