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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
What if women who were "upskirted" started taking pictures of the creeps' faces and posted those pictures on the internet, with date/time/place and any other identifying information?
After all, it's legal, they certainly wouldn't mind being known as the local upskirters, right?
Then again, maybe just pepper spray them.
I think this will pass, as a reaction grows via a few high-profile incidents of upskirters getting their asses kicked by pissed off victims/boyfriends/bystanders.
Also I expect awareness to grow and women to be encouraged to speak out, as with other forms of sexual assault. Eventually we will look back on this like we do with suicide hijacking -- an offense that can only be committed because people aren't prepared to recognize or confront it.
It's only abuse if we feel violated. How about somebody selling underwear that says "F--- you loser" when you look at it from the upskirt angle.
This is all about power - about the power of a man to sexually lay claim to womens bodies without their consent. Really it is just one degree away from rape.
On a related subject in a writing class I am taking ( 16 women , 3 men) one of the men recently wrote an mastubatory fantasy in which he graphically takes us thru his very bad habit of "raping himself" as he described it in one flight of fancy . He included 10 other slang terms for the act and a scene of sitting on the toilet. Tommorrow we are due to workshop our stories- I know he will relish the power he has to open his pants to all the young women there ( and I mean 18- 22) and shake his thing literatureally . I have no doubt his intent is to make us forced props for many fantasies to come.
As the only older women there and thus not unaware of what he is up to, I am hoping our professor gets whats happenig ( I wrote HIM a letter of protest) and we are not forced to listen since our grade is partially based on attendance ...
On the other hand if this was a gay man taking pictures of straight mens crotches - it occurs to me that the punishment might be quite severe
Seriously. Kick him in the fucking head. Knock the phone out of his hand and crush it (his hand, and the phone while you're at it.) Step on his neck. Don't sit there and fret and worry and be passive. Flip the fuck out on these people. I defy anyone who goes medieval on these cunts to find a single witness who will testify against them. Anyone you find who might have witnessed it will suddenly have been reading a newspaper or checking their messages or looking out the window of the train.
I may be hit with a barrage for not joining in the predictable chorus of outrage, but things like this always make me think of the fundamental issues at hand. The argument that you are in a public place and no actual assault or physical contact is taking place is, in my opinion, not one that can be so easily dismissed. The question that no one thinks to ask is: why exactly is it that half the population (and, in fact, only that specific half) is vulnerable to an invasion of privacy even when in a public place and without even being touched? And the answer is something so self-evident that no one ever thinks to consider it - that it is the norm for women to wear clothes that partially reveal the sexual areas of their bodies.
No one is saying that women who put on a blouse or a skirt consciously intend to be gawked at. On the contrary, it is not a matter of individual choice precisely because these clothes are the norm. But isn't their revealing nature part of their very design? Isn't the whole intent behind low-cut tops and miniskirts not only to reveal as much as possible, but also in that process to make a suggestion of and arouse the desire for those very parts that it conceals? Imagine the metaphorical Martian observing this debate - the first question would be "if they don't want their genitals seen, why do they wear clothes that seems specifically designed for this purpose?"
I'm just throwing this out there for consideration. Clearly the underlying issue is the same one we've rehashed over and over within this comments section, which is the imbalance of power and desire between the sexes, and we can't expect that nothing be done in concrete cases until this paradox is resolved. Laws specifically prohibiting photographing a person's genitals seem fairly reasonable and hard to object to. But if we take it further, could not an argument be made to criminalize simple gawking or leering, as I imagine these have a similar disconcerting effect upon women? You would be hard pressed to find a man who has never tried to see up a girl's skirt or down her blouse. If it is simply the act of making a permanent and distributable record of this view that makes it into a criminal act, then we need to be clear about that. Is the crime in the photography or the distribution?
What if you read the entire article instead of pepper spraying us with sarcasm, since the very solution you suggest is discussed on the second page and championed by a group called HollaBack NYC?
Apart from the authors imagination?
...considering the reaction to the pics of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan all over the web a few years ago. Personally, I was disgusted by a media so full of "what's wrong with these girls?" rather than "what's wrong with these photographers?" and "what's wrong with you for looking at this?"
So this makes me wonder about public nudity laws. The fact that we are not allowed to be naked while walking around suggests that we are not allowed to choose to suspend our expectation of bodily privacy; that is, we can't choose to SHOW our bodies. Perhaps the assumption is that, without nudity laws, we would all be falling all over ourselves to be naked. If not, then surely it wouldn't be so legally tenuous to argue that choosing to WEAR CLOTHES is an assertion that we expect our bodies to be private while we walk around in public.
I guess my point is, if we were to banish public nudity laws, then people could choose whether to walk around naked or not. And if they did not choose to walk around naked--that is, if they chose to remain clothed--then perhaps the law would recognize that wearing clothing indicates an expectation of bodily privacy.
Really, is that what it would take?!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
