think about it...cameras everywhere, INVISIBLE except to ants and other small creatures. Maybe there is a secret internet in the cracks in sidewalks...let's craft some legislation.

I was serious. But yeah, major reading comprehension fail, my bad. Glad to hear someone is actually doing it.

Still think pepperspray is a good idea (or pounding into the pavement, take your pick based on your street fighting skills or lack thereof)

where this activity gets exciting

is a flamin' mystery to me....

I think I can see a demand for reflective underwear in the future.

Let's put it this way, the opportunities for pranking the photo pervs are limited only by the imagination. Dentata, "Alien Redux" prosthetics...

[dust-dry Midwestern voice]

"...and best of all, they're asking for it."

Privacy is not an issue here. Say some guy clandestinely takes a pic up a woman's skirt and posts it on the Internet. Is her privacy invaded? No one knows it's her. Even she doesn't know. How could this possibly have to do with her privacy? I think calling this a privacy issue is both prudish and presumptuous--as if a guy taking a photograph up one woman's skirt invades *all* of our privacy.

The real big deal here is when the guy gets caught in the act. This is creeeeeeeepy! Ew. Thus all the "stomp his lights out" posts. Yeah! Kick his face in. Dude had it coming.

The other real big deal is just knowing that someone might try this on us or someone we know, that this is, perhaps, a TREND. That gives me an overall creepy feeling, I gotta admit. But if some guy took a pic up my skirt, as long as I didn't know, whatever.

But my friends (reclaiming this phrase from a guy who might have clicked a pic or two in his day), privacy is not the issue.

For instance, privacy laws don't allow cameras in dressing rooms or restrooms because of people's assumptions that these are private places.

Upskirting involves getting the photo from an angle of a part of a woman's body that she did not intend to viewed at the time.

At issue is what is a reasonable expectation.

problem solved.

I want little blue ribbon drawstrings around the knees of mine.

I don't care if some nut takes a photo of my toes.

How taking a "poignant" photo of a homeless man sleeping in a doorway is any less intrusive and exploitative, is what I'd like to know. Bad example.

is you would have to reveal this on Obama's new survey for workers in his admin. :)

or a casual game of kick the can?

I reackon this shit reqires

A sad sack o' shit type o' man...

I think the commission of the act itself is an invasion of privacy, while it's happening.

The photographic artifact doesn't amount to much- I think that there's general agreement that in the usual case, personal anonymity is preserved.

But I get the idea that for the perps, the photographic record is secondary to the commission of the act. It's sort of like indecent exposure, in reverse. The photos are simply reminders

of the subjectively perceived power of the transgressive act.

Really... when uncoupled from anything but arousal and gratification, the tropisms of male human sexuality are...problematic. The commentaries of old texts like the Bible and the Kama Sutra are in close accord with the incisive observations of more contemporary commentators like Lenny Bruce and Randy Shilts, on that point.

sarcasm

since they are not generally considered human

/sarcasm

Are you sayin' we're all a little too uptight

But bum fights are alright?

upskirt cams, maybe not so much

I'm a bit of bum myself

Me 'n 'ol Dempsey Nash

Seems like a hard stomp on the camera, or better yet, two stomps on the hand or a knee to the solar plexus, would be the proper response. Don't be shy.

It's not about power. Skirts and dresses themselves are about power, though they are an esthetically nice carry over from days when imbalance of power between sexes was much worse. This is about creepy little fetishists stealing free kicks and getting off on "getting away with it". Its more like little boys stealing porn. In this case the creepy thing is that they seem oblivious to the fact that they are doing this to actual people. Perhaps a few of these guys getting the crap kicked out of them might have a chilling effect on this rest. Seems worth a try.

may be harder to detect on the internet than in spoken conversation, but if you need to use sarcasm tags to make sure people get the point, it probably wasn't worth saying in the first place.

As to the topic at hand: this is some pretty creepy, loser shit. But any man who tells you he hasn't taken a peek up a woman's skirt when presented with the opportunity is a liar.

In the same way as you would appreciate an attractive woman's face -- a decidedly un-private part -- you might also glance at her breasts, ass, etc out in public. Should this be illegal? Obviously not. But if you were to go up to her and take a picture of her face, that would be weird.

Where the act of looking at a woman, or man, becomes an issue is the length of the glance. If you stare openly for a long period of time at any part of any person, it becomes something else entirely. A photo is just another means of lengthening the viewing period.

So, let's split hairs here. What's the acceptable glancing window? Two seconds?

most rapists start out as peeping toms. lest anyone gets confused: most of men taking these types of photos, are probably not rapists. but rapists do start out by engaging in peeping tom type behavior wherein they are taking from an unwilling victim in some way--upskirt shots, rubbing up against some woman on the subway, copping an unwanted feel somehow. the behavior gradually gets more and more aggressive as more and more is taken, and there are no consequences.

yes, you cannot probably criminalize the activity of standing under a subway gate looking up at a woman in a sundress, and nor should you.

but the behavior here is of taking what has not been offered. if i wanted to show the world my underwear, i would. but i don't. so i put on a skirt.

also, the fact that these posts have focused on what women wear and if space should be public and if so how public ignores something very important and interesting--namely: who the fuck DOES this? a lot of people? some people? do they need mental help, or are they actually "normal" people responding to a pathologically misogynist society? why do they say they do it? are they otherwise normal people?

part of me would want to beat the shit out of some guy who did that to me; part of me would want to get out a clipboard and ask him a million questions just to understand why someone would do this, ranging from "what is your relationship with your mother like" to "do you feel that you do not find yourself turned on by consenting sexual relationships, and if so, why?"