But do you honestly think that having your child be amongst many other people who witness a mentally ill person masterbating in public is akin to actual molestation?

I actually agreed with the basic idea that I THINK he was saying....which is that our reaction as parents to a scenario like that is more likely to cause trauma/have negative consequences than the circumstances themselves. If we, as parents, freak out in that situation than we are signalling to the child that this is a big deal....and really, it's not.

Honestly, if I was walking my boys down a street and we witnessed some random dude jerking off....I would very calmly remove them from the situation and i really wouldn't be that upset about it. I imagine my 9 year old would say 'what was that man doing'...to which, like Sowhat said, i would use an opportunity to broach the subject of masterbation. And the message would be masterbation is perfectly normal and something that everyone does. But it's something very special that you only do when you're alone. It's something you do to give yourself pleasure because it feels really good. So the mistake that the man had made was that he was doing something out in public that should be done in privacy. I would also point out that the man probably has a mental illness....and that the mental illness sometimes makes people forget to follow the rules that everybody else does. I would stress that what the man was doing was perfectly natural....that I do it too....that you will also do it eventually....and that there's nothing wrong with it but it should be done in privacy.

I really don't see any potential for trauma or anything like that because of that scenario as long as the parents don't respond in a needlessly melo-dramatic way.