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Consent? How the fuck does that work?
Jul. 23rd, 2010 10:22 pmI've always hated the Girls Gone Wild franchise, even before its founder Joe Francis sexually assaulted a reporter for the Los Angeles Times during an interview. Now, I've got even more reason to despise Girls Gone Wild and everything associated with it.
So if I'm at a dance club shaking my tail (humor the introvert, okay?), and there's a camera crew that just happens to be filming the people on the dancefloor, apparently I'm consenting to have my breasts and who knows what other body parts filmed and distributed world wide for other people's pleasure. It doesn't matter if I don't want to share my breasts with the world, nor does it matter if I'm caught on film explicitly telling the other person pulling down my top "No!" By being female and going out in public, my privacy and bodily autonomy are forfeit when it comes to the pleasure of others.
I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. In 2008, an Oklaholma Court of Criminal Appeals declared a sixteen-year-old young woman had no reason to expect privacy while wearing a skirt in public when a thirty-four-year-old man stuck a camera under her skirt.
Consent? What's that?
A jury ruled yesterday against a woman who claimed her reputation was damaged after she was featured on a "Girls Gone Wild" video. What makes this case remarkable is that she didn't expose her own breasts - she was assaulted.
STLToday reports that the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, was dancing in at the former Rum Jungle bar in 2004 when someone reached up and pulled her tank top down, exposing her breasts to the "Girls Gone Wild" camera.
[Snip]
...After deliberating for just 90 minutes on Thursday, the St. Louis jury came back with a verdict in favor of the smut peddlers. Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, explained later to reporters that they figured if she was willing to dance in front of the photographer, she was probably cool with having her breasts on film. They said she gave implicit consent by being at the bar, and by participating in the filming - though she never signed a consent form, and she can be heard on camera saying "no, no" when asked to show her breasts. [Emphasis mine]
So if I'm at a dance club shaking my tail (humor the introvert, okay?), and there's a camera crew that just happens to be filming the people on the dancefloor, apparently I'm consenting to have my breasts and who knows what other body parts filmed and distributed world wide for other people's pleasure. It doesn't matter if I don't want to share my breasts with the world, nor does it matter if I'm caught on film explicitly telling the other person pulling down my top "No!" By being female and going out in public, my privacy and bodily autonomy are forfeit when it comes to the pleasure of others.
I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. In 2008, an Oklaholma Court of Criminal Appeals declared a sixteen-year-old young woman had no reason to expect privacy while wearing a skirt in public when a thirty-four-year-old man stuck a camera under her skirt.
Consent? What's that?
