Man arrested for filming up woman's skirt at train station

He couldn't just buy a magazine or look at adult websites?

still don't fully get why it is a criminal activity 

It’s about consent.

Say goodbye to your job! Just because someone may be smart enough to pass the "koumuin" test doesnt mean they have any brains!

Someone in Japan was caught filming up a female's skirt at a train station?

Gee, I'm 'shocked.'

As much as I agree in freedom to film anything, if it was my partner and some loser filmed them, uploaded it on the Internet and made money from perverts doing their private thing...I think it is wrong,

krustytheclownToday 08:00 am JST

He couldn't just buy a magazine or look at adult websites?

Lorem ipsumToday 08:41 am JST

Or better bet, why didn't he simply strike up a conversation with her? She might just have liked him. Too much ego I suppose.

There's not much information available from the guys point of view but just a guess there are guys who film up skirts and then post them online where they get paid - this could have been purely a business action the real perverts may be the ones online.

She might just have liked him. Too much ego I suppose.

Or the complete opposite - a lack of self-confidence.

@Andrew

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

Kazuaki Shimazaki

There isn't a conversation nor argument here, but a victim blaming incel who believes women should lack human rights.

//So why make it a crime?

Simply because parents and potentially affected individuals, addressing their yuk response, have decided to do so in a democratic political system.  Same for public nudity and other 'no phyical harm done' crimes.

The issue here seems to be that, beyond all attempts at reasoning offered to you Kaz, is that you don't understand the concepts of consent.

Why do you think, as a male, that it is ok for other men to film up a woman's skirt just because she isn't wearing pants underneath? In what world do you think it is ok to justify your actions because of what someone else wears, and then suggest that she changes what she wears to avoid this happening?

You cannot and should not try and force others to change what they choose to wear just to stop people doing what they shouldn't, in this case filming up an innocent woman's skirt, in the first place. That is twisted reasoning and, as mentioned before, disgusting.

I would like to see this guy sent to Thailand, where he could film up skirts, he might just come unstuck with a few of the ladyboys! he might get more than he bargained for.

For as long as I have been living in Japan, I have never understood the fascination with some men and up skirt photos,.

and obviously they don’t watch the news or read it to realize that they will eventually get caught.

 If she doesn't give consent, she can always wear pants, can't she?

Shame on you. I hope you never have a daughter, sister or female dear to you have this happen to them.

Filming up a lady's skirt is creepy and just wrong. If it was "ok", why was he arrested?

Women need more respect (especially in Japan), not being told what to wear in order to prevent any form of harassment, groping, invasion of privacy, etc.

Thanks to those who commented on my comment. It made me think a little more.

I guess my general view of creepy stuff like this is, "what harm was done?" But that probably involves getting into the messy details of the incident itself. I assumed it was done "at a distance" because of the escalator reference. But I accept there is no clear line between simply "looking/recording" and harassment that causes distress.

To Hakman, thanks. I appreciate your comments. But I wonder whether the shortness of a skirt can be classified as an intention to cover or an intention to reveal. As a father of a girl (now a woman), I'm sure others here share memories of saying, "You're not going out dressed like that."

I generally share Disillusioned's view that it is the behavior of a child. In this case, it was a third party who intervened, so that person at least thought it was unacceptable. I'm not sure of the actual wording of the charges in cases like this, but perhaps it should be along the lines of "breach of the peace".

Another man-child satisfying his perverted sense of morality. "Oooow! I saw her underwear!" I remember I used to get a kick out of that too - when I was six! Some Japanese men just never grow up!

I see the usual solicitors and barristers are on, and up this morning, the usual splitting of hairs and questioning morals and content, what you guys have forgot is its an invasion of this lady's privacy , guys should not under any circumstance film up her skirt, down her skirt, top, film her chest, with out her permission, ALL children, woman, and men, should be able to go about freely doing there daily work, they should not have there privacy invaded by anyone. it nice to not see the usual excuse, i was drunk or can't remember!

Cheap thrill.

Or better bet, why didn't he simply strike up a conversation with her? She might just have liked him. Too much ego I suppose.

@Omachi Today 06:07 pm JST

At least you are being honest. I am aware that this is the real reason, actually. However, my thought is that since Hakman had chosen to accept albaleo's challenge, he ought to really make an effort to logically build his argument and not just resort to half-arguments like the below.

@Hakman Today 06:15 pm JST

And review the post to which I was responding. In that post, someone was asserting that photographing up a woman's skirt shouldn't be illegal. He/She compared it to someone wearing a skimpy bathing suit at the beach.

I think I read it just fine. I think it is you that is not correctly addressing the similarities between the two cases. In both cases, it's not like the subject expressedly gave her consent, is there? At best you kind of inferred the consent from the clothing she's wearing, which is the same in both cases. So perhaps the logical solution you are seeking should be to find something other than consent as the discriminator, since it really doesn't work as well as you hope it will.

It's not "uncovered," you twit. It IS covered. It's covered with a skirt.

Ah, but not against the bottom, right? And you cannot deny she did have the choice of covering the panty against the bottom to, by wearing pants. Since you have just written a rule up there that makes the choice of clothing a choice which indicates consent...

You seriously think that it's legally okay for a woman to have her physical privacy violated?

Not only is that a concept and not a physical object, but she's still covered right? If only by a piece of underwear? Which she could have covered up, with pants.

You seriously think that there must be "physical damage" in order for there to be a crime? 

The problem is that the further we get away from physical damage, the less objectively quantifiable are the crimes, and the closer we get to thoughtcrime.

That the psychological damage of sexual violation doesn't count?

This is an argument from Erfolgsunwert. This is proper by itself, but then the main measure becomes the degree of psychological damage that women get from having their panties viewed. Now, there is a good number of psychological studies done on the negative effects of rape suggesting the damage is significant and prolonged. Can the same be said for some panty shots?

I think the act of criminalizing actually makes women the victim more than not criminalizing. It makes them objects that has to be protected by criminal law, rather than subjects that can handle little things like this by themselves. The fact the entire act is criminalized also creates and reinforces the impression in the woman that the harm she received was actually serious, when in fact if she thinks of it as a little thing, it will be. So why are you encouraging a solution that increases the damage to the woman?

My main complaint is less the Yes or No, and more with your lack of logical buildup when you have voluntarily accepted albaleo's challenge. However, for that part, I think there are many legal solutions other than criminalization. Beyond the time worn solution of a fine, we can borrow the Russo-Chinese system and call it an administrative offence rather than a crime. In case you are unfamiliar with those, basically they exchange very limited maximum punishments (15 days imprisonment and no criminal record) for a highly abbreviated "prosecuting" procedure (one day - in China the police handles it all), which I must point out, has the side benefit of avoiding substantial further losses on the part of the victim which are usually incurred in the prosecuting process.

We can also just teach women to hit back, physically, almost like an anime against such people. The justificatory portion of the criminal law can be slightly tweaked so that it is "justified" for the victim to inflict up to say moderate injuries and further, property co-located with the perpetrator may be appropriated. (Needless to say, it is not justified for perpetrator to fight back under these circumstances and attempts to do so will result in ordinary assault charges with penalties in the upper half of the allowable band).

Lots of solutions, really.

@JkgrgunmaToday 08:50 pm JST

Why do you think, as a male, that it is ok for other men to film up a woman's skirt just because she isn't wearing pants underneath? In what world do you think it is ok to justify your actions because of what someone else wears, and then suggest that she changes what she wears to avoid this happening?

My point there is that while it is clearly unintended, such are the wonderful consequences of Hakman's clumsy attempt to rationalize his own "ick", in particular, his attempt to use consent as the discriminator between albaleo's scenario and the scenario at hand.

Further, your thought sequence is incorrect. The correct approach is to start by thinking why an action should be considered Unwert, rather than why someone thinks his justification will or will not work.

You cannot and should not try and force others to change what they choose to wear

I absolutely respect freedom. So why do you think you can and should try and force others to change what they choose to [do]?

@Brian WhewayToday 09:25 pm JST

what you guys have forgot is its an invasion of this lady's privacy,

Ah, at least you tried to identify the unwert in the picture. But here are two problems. First, is it reasonable to have an expectation of privacy in a public space? And second - underwear is still a piece of cloth that covers up those orifices, so if covering those holes up is the point, it's already done. 

I see the usual solicitors and barristers are on, and up this morning, the usual splitting of hairs and questioning morals and content

Personally, I think it is very quick and easy to condemn someone based on our ingrained icks. However, this gets old fast and really since there is very little exchange of information involved in such activities, there is hardly a need to use a comment thread for it. We can all condemn the guy in our brains and it'll be the same.

I think days like this are a fine opportunity to take our ingrained icks off their racks and look them over to see if they really make much sense. And that's an activity that greatly benefits from being able to discuss it with other people, so such discussion should get at least equal, if not greater priority than those who just want to write quick condemnatory comments based on their icks.

As for those who don't want in, just ignore the posts. But once you try and offer a reasoned counterargument, you are joining that re-inspection process, in which case it should be done with some integrity and logic and at least a willingness to accept their might be at least a slight possibility your ick might be found to be unreasonable.

Without trying to defend the idea of filming up women's skirts, I still don't fully get why it is a criminal activity (assuming no force or physical harassment was involved). How about filming women or men in near naked swimsuits at the beach? Is that fundamentally different?

@Hakman Today 10:08 am JST

I'm sorry, but on the merits, Albaleo's question remains valid.

First, isn't it a bit hasty to just assume that a person that's wearing a swimsuit with less cloth is "consenting" to the viewing of the parts left uncovered? Is that not dangerously close to the victim blaming that comes so often in rape cases, where wearing skimpy clothing is considered at least half a consent or at least some unworthiness on the part of the victim?

In the opposite direction, if not covering something is to be deemed consent, then why (put away your visceral ick and work it through logically) can I not deem wearing a skirt, which does not cover the underwear, a "consent" to film the uncovered underwear? If she doesn't give consent, she can always wear pants, can't she?

His second point is also important and you hadn't tried to engage it at all. Assuming we can agree there is a certain degree of unworthiness here, how do you justify escalating things into it being a crime? There is no physical damage, so to a great extent this is as valuable as you make it to be, while making it a criminal case entails physical costs that cannot be dispelled with a cognitive change. So, why make it a crime?