Is having voyeuristic upskirt images taken of you just 'one of the consequences' of wearing a skirt? Are sneaky voyeuristic images even moral? A TRPer and some MRAs discuss with dramatic results (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
162 ups - 79 downs = 83 votes
157 comments submitted at 22:54:46 on Mar 6, 2014 by le_narwhal_king
What if, in some public place, a woman wearing a skirt was positioned somewhat above me, and I re-positioned my head to look up her skirt? Do you think what I'm doing should be against the law? What is my crime?
What if the woman's skirt was very short so that anyone who glanced at her would see her underwear without much effort on their part? Would they be breaking the law? Would she be (indecent exposure)? What makes looking more criminal than exposing? Where's the dividing line?
No, in the thread, these particular denizens of MensRights are doing the very thing that they openly mock daily: they're letting some gender norm represent the ideal (skirts are for women and they should be allowed to wear them without trouble. No word about the extreme lack of a male analog to the skirt, however) and they're letting discomfort and emotion guide their arguments. They're using ad hominem and strawman and appeal to ridicule.
I mean, yes, we're in SubredditDrama. And that thread IS drama. But I suggest that some of you readers actually thoughtfully ponder what /u/Demonspawn is saying and avoid joining the mob that's mentally replacing all his posts with "perverts are good."
Edit: this post is being received in the very way that I cautioned against. Rediquette, people. Disagree, but do so rationally.
Edit 2: Don't downvote just because you don't like it! I wonder what those funny words mean...
Edit 3: SRD mocks a thread and then does the exact same thing as in that thread.
Showing underwear isn't illegal, and neither is looking at it.
So is taking a picture is the divisive act? It shouldn't be, since it's a public place.
Taking a picture of something takes it out of the public sphere. It makes it private for the person who has the picture--especially if it's done without the knowledge of the picture's subject--and allows it to be used in ways that the subject did not consent for it to be used. It also allows that photograph to be duplicated infinitely and used by many, many people in ways the subject did not consent to.
It doesn't work like that. It was taken in public, period. It doesn't become private just because it's a picture.
So now that you have that picture, you somehow can't take it privately into your home or wherever you want, show it to whomever you want, or do whatever you want with it without the person in it even knowing?
Yes. That is how public space works. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but that's how it is. So quit getting upset with me. I don't make the laws, and I certainly shouldn't be demonized for understanding the consequences of them.
Anyone could take your picture while you're in a public place and share it. That is the liability of public expose. Only when you try to commercialize off of a person's identity without their consent, or when you engage in libel or intentional affliction of emotional distress (careful! This is not the same thing as "distributing privately") will you encounter legal ramifications.
It's objectively wrong to take non-consensual photographs of anyone's genitals, period. I don't care how short a woman's skirt is, or if she's waving her vagina in your goddamn face, if she hasn't given you permission, you don't record it. Hell, it's creepy enough to take sexualized photos of any parts of strangers.
You can try all of the bullshit mental gymnastics you want to justify what's going on, but it's wrong and the law needs to reflect that.
Before you try to make some half-assed remark, it applies for men too, I don't want some weirdo taking pictures of my junk if I'm (hypothetically) wearing a kilt.
It's a stupid thing to do but it's not illegal, because it's in public. Doesn't really matter how you feel about it.
Save the phrase "bullshit mental gymnastics" for when it applies, and not when an argument is uncomfortable and inconvenient for your views.
Might want to go investigate the phrase "objectively wrong" before the next time you use it.
We sure see a lot of kilts on the subway, don't we?
I'm assuming you're from the USA.
> In Canada, surreptitiously photographing up women’s skirts or recording video of the same view is punishable under the voyeurism section of the Criminal Code.
>Anyone found to have made upskirt images, or similar images where the victim had a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” for a sexual purpose faces up to five years in jail.
I never said looking should be illegal.
So what did you say should be illegal? Taking a picture or videotaping?
But it's a public place. What you're saying is either that filming should not be allowed in a public place, which is absurd; or that you should not be allowed to film certain things in public, which is censorship.
If you're incapable of discerning between videotaping/photographing public space and taking upskirt shots of unsuspecting women I don't believe you competent enough to go out in public without supervision.
And it is this kind of reaction, exactly, that I cautioned against in my post.
You're saying that taking an upskirt video in a public place is not taking a video in a public place.
Taking an upskirt video in a public place is taking an upskirt video in a public place, and should be illegal. How do you not understand the clear difference between just taking video and trying to violate somebody?
How do you not understand the clear difference between "public" and "private"?
>trying to violate somebody
Do elaborate. What is the violation, exactly? What do you mean by "trying?" Someone's underwear being visible is not a violation of that person. I don't know how else to say it. If that person didn't want pictures taken of her underwear, why the hell did she make her underwear easily visible in public? This is the core question.
What if someone got off on seeing shirts? Are you saying this person can't take a picture of shirts? Taking pictures of shirts should be illegal for everyone? Absurd. Illegal only for this person? Absurd.
I know it takes you out of your comfort zone, but consider that this "clear difference" might not be so clear.
They're very clear to everybody but you and your ilk it seems.
Who, then, are my ilk?
"People who like upskirt videos" would be the wrong answer.
"People who like violations of privacy" is also wrong.
I'm assuming you know this already because it was stated time and time again, but this is more for the lurker reading this.
It's not easy to argue for something you don't like, but all the counter-arguments are just boiling down to "it just doesn't feel right and makes me mad." That's not rigorous in a legal sense. Isn't this discussion all about the law, anyway?
I don't think that people should be making this videos. But, as I've illustrated with multiple examples, it's unreasonable to make such videos illegal. So then don't expose what you don't wish to be exposed.
>"it just doesn't feel right and makes me mad."
That would be the base of EVERY LAW IN EXISTENCE.
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>which is censorship
I'm fine with censorship. There's lots of stuff that you're not allowed to do in public places. It doesn't bother me at all that there would be a small subset of things that you're not allowed to film or photograph in public.
OK. Consider this then: you're saying that (ideally, for the sake of argument) the image of something particular is not okay to create.
But then, doesn't that mean that the thing itself, available to public view, is what's actually not okay? I hope you (and others) recognize the absurdity in this. Using your earlier remark: public urination is illegal—but what if we said only pictures of public urination were illegal?
I'll remind everyone here that this person took these pictures from a distance. He did not put a camera up inside these women's skirts. I also hope you understand that I don't think that what he did wasn't disgusting.
I mean, I feel like I should just take these comments to the thread proper but I was hoping to get some more well-reasoned responses here in the thread that's mocking this exchange. Don't be like those guys.
>But then, doesn't that mean that the thing itself, available to public view, is what's actually not okay?
No. The act of taking the photograph is the problem. It's the invasion of privacy that's the problem, not the obscenity of the person's underwear.
>Don't be like those guys.
I regularly identify myself as an MRA and do everything I can to shut down the kinds of people you're talking about. This just isn't something I feel like defending. It's an invasion of privacy. I know, it's technically out there in public if you're looking hard enough. That's just not enough justification for me.
If you get right up to my window and look through the gap in the blinds, then you'll see me in my birthday suit. I'd consider that an invasion of privacy, even though with enough effort, you can technically see me from outside of my home.
If I'm in a changing room in Target, you could climb up on a ladder and look down in on me or look under the door. That's an invasion of privacy, even though technically you can view the inside of the room from a public area.
>I also hope you understand that I don't think that what he did wasn't disgusting.
Are you saying that the subject of the photo is disgusting? Because that's the only way this statement:
>But then, doesn't that mean that the thing itself, available to public view, is what's actually not okay?
makes any sense.
>It's the invasion of privacy
As has been stated multiple times, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy when in a public place.
>It's an invasion of privacy. I know, it's technically out there in public if you're looking hard enough. That's just not enough justification for me.
Then... why are we arguing? I can't provide a re-definition of "public" or a paradigm shift based solely on what feels "right" to you.
>I'd consider that an invasion of privacy, even though with enough effort, you can technically see me from outside of my home.
Good for you. But if it's visible from a public place (obviously does not apply to going right up to the window), law says that it's fair game. Get better blinds, or don't walk around naked.
>If I'm in a changing room in Target, you could climb up on a ladder and look down in on me or look under the door.
This is not public. This is semi-private property. It's only public for the purposes of engaging in commerce, which is not what I'd be doing.
Don't project rhetoric on me when I provide a hypothetical. If you think the image of someone's panties is not disgusting but taking a picture is, what you're disgusted with is not the picture but the person's intent. Intent is notoriously difficult to legally enforce.
To summarize: if you don't want your panties visible in public, don't make them visible in public. People are getting butthurt because some unintended contradictions are revealed when you scrutinize their opinions, and they can't understand that an argument for X doesn't necessarily mean an appreciation of X.
By your logic, we should all be out on the streets having sex in public, getting drunk in public, watching porn in public, swearing loudly in public, etc etc because anything else would be censorship.
>Edit 2: Don't downvote just because you don't like it! I wonder what those funny words mean...
Misogyny doesn't add anything of substance, ergo downvotes.
Ok, think about it this way.
Would you be okay with someone taking an up-skirt picture of your mother or your sister? Would you not be angry if you were walking down the street with your girlfriend and you saw someone taking a picture up her skirt?
Would you make the same argument if you saw some creepy fuck following your 8-year-old cousin around and trying to take photos up her dress?
No, you wouldn't be okay with it. You fucking KNOW that, if you saw someone doing this shit to their mom, to their aunt, to their sister, to their daughter ... that creepy guy's camera would be smashed to pieces and you might do the same to his nose. I don't know why you apparently can't feel that empathy you'd feel towards your relatives or girlfriend, for the strangers around you.