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jadedmusingsFresh on the heels of the Girls Gone Wild case wherein we learned telling the camera man "no" and having someone else expose your breasts still counts as consent, we learn that it's unreasonable to expect our breasts not to be photographed while fully clothed on the subway.
It's only more complicated if you think any part of a woman's anatomy is less autonomous than another, but that's not the part that sticks in my craw.
Um...what?!
Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that being fully clothed in the subway is just like going to the beach in a string bikini? Never mind the fact that a woman wearing a "skimpy bathing suit" is no more consenting to having her bare breasts photographed than a woman wearing a parka.
Why is it so unreasonable to expect that my breasts or my vulva are not going to be photographed when I'm out in public? Why is it so damn hard to understand that you should ask for someone's consent before taking their picture? Why is it women are punished for existing in public while female?
And to the commenter saying "I take pictures of weird people on the bus all the time!": Seriously? Are you really not seeing a difference between taking the picture of a body part associated with sexual arousal against someone's will and taking a picture of that dude dressed like a clown to share with your friends on Facebook?
Some days, I really hate the world.
Richard Weir of the Boston Herald reports that on July 5, a woman on Boston's Green line leaned over to pick up her stuff, "accidentally exposing her breasts." She heard a click, and looked up to find a dude "admiring his photo" of her boobs. So she snapped his picture and gave it to Boston police. But while most people seem to agree that taking upskirt photos is illegal, the status of "downshirt" pics is a little more complicated.
It's only more complicated if you think any part of a woman's anatomy is less autonomous than another, but that's not the part that sticks in my craw.
The Suffolk County DA's office says the photographer is a criminal — a spokesman explains that "taking a picture of a woman who leans over and inadvertently exposes part of her chest is in our mind a crime" and "a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy beneath his or her own clothing." But Boston civil rights lawyer Howard Friedman says, "You don't have an expectation of privacy on an MBTA train." And attorney William Korman concurs, arguing, "If you take a picture of a woman in a skimpy bathing suit at the beach, that's not a crime. How can it be a crime then on the bus or subway?" [Emphasis mine]
Um...what?!
Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that being fully clothed in the subway is just like going to the beach in a string bikini? Never mind the fact that a woman wearing a "skimpy bathing suit" is no more consenting to having her bare breasts photographed than a woman wearing a parka.
Why is it so unreasonable to expect that my breasts or my vulva are not going to be photographed when I'm out in public? Why is it so damn hard to understand that you should ask for someone's consent before taking their picture? Why is it women are punished for existing in public while female?
And to the commenter saying "I take pictures of weird people on the bus all the time!": Seriously? Are you really not seeing a difference between taking the picture of a body part associated with sexual arousal against someone's will and taking a picture of that dude dressed like a clown to share with your friends on Facebook?
Some days, I really hate the world.
