Upskirting bill blocked

It is a criminal offence imo.
The same as voyeurism is a criminal offence.

Stalking was not a criminal offence until genuine outrage made the government of the day introduced it to sit alongside the Harrassment Act.

Haha! So now I'm closing down discussion! Chortle. I've been trying to look at angles outside the outrage.

OK, iam, but the outrage has seemed a bit hysterical in some quarters. Not on here, but some of the stuff directed at Chope.

I said on Friday evening (without the underlining; that's new):

Joanna Williams is arguing that the idea of making upskirting a criminal offence ( as opposed to a moral one, which it already is ) is yet another way of making women into victims.

Oh! Virtue signalling another popular term to close down discussion!

It isn't mass virtue signalling Baggs. it's expressing genuine outrage.

baggs Your logic seems to be that if a woman doesn't know she has been "upskirted" then it doesn't harm her personally - and therefore what? there is no need to criminalise such behaviour?

Then it seems you've misunderstood my logic, eloethan.

I suggest you read all my posts and count up the number of times I've said or implied that there should be legal consequences to behaviour that harms others, including when it is upskirting.

Joanna Williams questioned the need to criminalise upskirting, though I don't think she stated outright that she thought it was a bad idea. Perhaps you are confusing me with her.

The only place I differ from most other posters on this thread is that I'm prepared to believe Chope had a good reason for temporarily blocking (i.e. forcing more detailed debate) the bill. I have not argued anywhere that there should not be punishements for people who are caught upskirting and I have made it perfectly clear (several times) that I think it's a disgusting practice.

What I haven't done is join in the mass virtue signalling.

no not at all Baggs just trying to comprehend a viewpoint different to my own. Woud you feel harmed or disturbed if you discovered someone had entered your home, and even if they did not steal anything ?

More thanks Eloethan for the way your set out exactly why the response to CC and up skirting isn't a moral panic.

Paedophiles often use catalogues, like those issued by Mothercare, which show photographs of babies and infants modelling eg nappies, pants, vests, those snuggle towels you put around infants when they come naked out of the bath. Yep, those men use the images to masturbate to. I wonder what the response of those posters here, who continue to intellectualise the issue of upskirting, arguing that if a child/woman doesn't know she's been up skirted, she hasn't been harmed, would also say the infants in those images hadn't been harmed.
It's like arguing there is no such thing as society - we're all harmed by disgusting behaviour.

As I logged on, I was thinking of what to say in a post on this thread and it is exactly what Eloethan has just posted.

baggs Your logic seems to be that if a woman doesn't know she has been "upskirted" then it doesn't harm her personally - and therefore what? there is no need to criminalise such behaviour? If it were not an offence to, for instance, secretly film women in the shower or the toilet, would you say that there is no need to make it a criminal offence because the woman was not aware that it had happened?

The point surely is that even if the person in question is unaware she has been photographed/filmed, if the perpetrator knows that, even if he is found out, what he has done is not seen as a criminal offence, he will no doubt continue with the behaviour (and there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that such behaviour can escalate to even more serious acts).

It's not a "moral panic". If a woman chooses to be photographed in these sorts of situations, that's fine but if a woman has not consented to it then it is an invasion of her privacy, both in the surreptitious taking of the photograph/film and in distributing it on line.

I imagine that at one time we did not have laws to prevent images of babies and children being used for porn purposes. I expect the law referring to this specific activity only came into force once it was discovered that it was happening. When there was no internet, for instance, such photographs and films could not be distributed in that way.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at, pec. My morals?

Images of babies and children should not be used for porn purposes. I presume we have laws that deal with this.

So, to be clear, if I were upskirted and pictures shared but I didn't know it had happened I would not be damaged in the least.

This does not mean that the upskirting was not wrong, only that I wasn't hurt by it. Nor does it mean I'm not disgusted by the idea of it done to anyone at all.

So do you think it OK to post babies gentitals/ anus on porn site if the child was not harmed when photo taken?

PECS, "no damage" is indeed saying too much. What I should have said is no damage to the indidvidual who was upskirted if she didn't know about it. Oh wait! That is what I said.

I don't feel qualified to comment on whether damage is done to society in general by such activities and the posting of that sort of picture online. I suppose it could be seen as general damage in the same way as robbery or murder is general damage. They also damage individuals directly which, I think Williams and others are arguing, upskirting doesn't if it is done seruptitiously and the individuals to whom it is done don't know about it.

A woman or girl does not have to be a feminist to not want her knickers, her genitals or whatever is hidden from public view to be photographed and shared on the internet, whether or not she is aware of it.

Yes Baggs funnily enough we know the bill has not being blocked forever - but by making a fuss about CC’s behaviour we have ensured it will come back - as it is doing. Any important legal details would have been sorted our if it had gone through last week - it didn’t need objecting to to ensure that happened - and most of us knew that as well.

baggs I find it interesting that you really think 'no damage' is being done if the women do not know men are taking covert photographs of their vulva/buttocks, pubic hair, pants/tampon strings and bloody leaks & to then distributing them on the internet .
Would you argue that photographing babies and toddlers genitals and distributing them is a 'no damage' action too because the kids were too young to really know what was going on? My DGD (Yr7) always wears her lycra shorts under her school skirt. I find that to be an unhappy situation.

Baggs I do see your logic, but in the case of young girls it has been known for the pictures to be shared with family and friends naming the girl. The sooner upskirting is made a criminal offence (whether the woman knows about it or not) the better.

Of course you are FAR too subtle for most of us lesser mortals Baggs ???

The good news is that the bill has not been blocked forever. It never was. Only while important legal details were sorted out.

If a person upskirts me unknowingly to [me] , to quote Eloethan, then no damage is done to me. If he shares whatever photographs he has taken, with or without lewd comments, nobody will recognise me from that angle so there is still no damage to me.

Whether having a man expose himself to someone or being knowingly upskirted (it would have to be knowingly for it to matter; see above) is worse would be an entirely subjective thing.

Just being pedantic. Pedantry is important in law-making, I think. Details matter. I think that's what Williams is saying.

X posts.

Thank you for that Eloe and the time you must have spent doing it. Anything written by JW has to be seen through the prism of her political views and in particular her views on feminism. She sounds like just a slightly more educated version of AR and JH-B - all that is needed for men to behave is slap or a steelyeyed stare. I have to ask myself why some women are so unsupportive of other women

The horrific "Handmaid's Tale" envisions a society in which men, insecure in their masculinity, dominate. Women become instrumental in enforcing, through a set of brutally repressive sub-structures, a doctrine that sees them falling into two categories - good/compliant, bad/disobedient - both definitions being determined by what suits men.

I read it when it was first published and, though I felt it provided food for thought, I suspected the author used shock, horror and controversy in order to create interest and promote her writing. I couldn't really believe such a scenario could actually happen in the modern world.

When I see some of the comments that men - and, shockingly women too - make about women, I can see why Attwood wrote this book and that she was giving her take on how easily, and almost imperceptibly, the role of women could gradually be re-defined and enforced, with the approval and collusion of many of their own sex.