There’s an interesting case in Melbourne at the moment where a bloke has been charged with using a concealed camera (in his shoe ) to get photos of womens’ knickers under their skirts and dresses.
Now, apart from the ingenuity used, and that his fetish is pretty out-there and probably needs addressing (either judicially or psychiatrically), I was interested in the use of the word ‘victim’ to describe those women who had been photographed completely unawares.
IOW, if a crime has been perpetrated against you and you are completely ignorant of that fact, and will suffer no loss because of the crime*, can you be considered a ‘victim’?
*I include this rider to account for those crimes that you might be unaware of, but that involve some loss or damages to you. For example, someone stealing from your bank account (let’s assume you’ve got $250 billion squirrelled away) and you never notice the debits. Or perhaps someone vandalises your great-grandmas headstone in the cemetery, but you never visit to wail over her grave so you’ll never know. I’m not interested in these sorts of scenarios.
But let’s say that our photographer friend here was never discovered. Regardless of discovery, his actions are still criminal. However, the notion of victimhood can only come about upon the revelation of his crime IMO and does not relate in any way to the crime itself.
Two part quandary:
Are the (unaware) women in the photographs victims in any real sense of the word?
Should the authorities be calling for women to come forward if they feel they have been a ‘victim’?:
Wouldn’t it be best to avoid the creation of a victim? Charge the guy with the crimes he has committed, but why the hell introduce another facet (the victim) that was not there before the discovery and publicisation of the act?
There is a societal interest beyond that of just the victim. It can be reasonably presumed that someone aroused by this sort of intrusion can, if left unchecked, move onto worse intrusions and invite others, by the lack of consequences, to do the same.
As another, worse, example; is there any harm in raping a braindead coma victim? Not to the primary victim, it can be argued, but why let a rapist go unchecked?
Let’s just (for the sake of the argument) assume that he is never apprehended, and that his behaviour never escalates beyond photographing knickers and viewing them privately at home.
Is there a victim before the awareness of the crime?
Well, in practice, there’s no way the state can make a never-escalate assumption, but for the sake of argument - if he’s never apprehended and no-one other than himself ever becomes aware of his activity (i.e. he never publishes or shares the images in any way) then the concepts of “crime” and “victim” become moot. That changes, though, the instant another party becomes aware of the activity.
We’ve had similar threads like this before, including one hypothetical about a person trapped with an unrelated infant and the question if a moral obligation exists to feed the infant (given that this can be done with absolutely no risk to the survival of the adult). I think the result was that the obligation didn’t exist, but you’d be a real scumbag to let the baby starve.
In the English-derived system of common law, a crime was “a breach of the King’s peace.” That is to say, the victim of the crime is the peaceful and ordered operation of society. Prosecutions are brought in the name of the Crown (“Regina”-the Queen-abbreviated “R. v. Defendant”) in countries that retain her as the head of state, or in the name of the State or the People (more formally the People of the State of New York in my neck of the woods).
Thus, society was the victim of the crime, even if the individuals who were photographed do not know that they were the individual targets of this social wrong.
One woman reported that she was skeeved out, police raided the perps house and found evidence that he had been doing this for app. 4 years.
Certainly, the woman who raised the alarm was indeed a victim. But what about the other women, who for years have not realised that they had been the subjects of lewd perving?
Should they be alerted to their ‘victimhood’? Should they even be called ‘victims’ unless they are aware of the crime in the firstplace?
I mean, I might well be one of those women who have been photographed. I am not aware of being a victim, because I have not ascertained whether the evidence points to my nether regions or not.
It’s a bit like Schrodinger and his moggie really.
Absolutely. I agree that this person committed a crime, and should be dealt with appropriately. And society might well be the victim, no doubt about that.
It’s just the notion of calling individual persons ‘victims’ of a crime, when they are not cognisant that a crime has been committed that worries me.
Worries you? The only this situation comes up is in unlikely circumstances such as you described. There have been times when “victimhood” spread out of control (witch crazes, the so-called “Satanic Panic”, recovered memories that were planted by therapists, etc.) but the fate of an underwear peeper isn’t exactly a major concern.
As a practical matter, one problem with calling all the women this dude photographed over a 4-year period “victims” is that it’s very, very difficult to defend himself from these charges. Most of these women can’t be identified, right? So, what if this guy offers as a defense, “Yes, I took a picture of this woman - the one who went to the police - without her consent. However, all of the other pictures were taken with the consent of my subject.” How can we prosecute him for his crimes against these additional victims, when there’s no way to proof beyond a reasonable doubt that there wasn’t consent?
Note: I’m not saying I think there was consent, or that this guy isn’t a pervy sleazebag. But if all you’ve got is an up-skirt photo, that doesn’t constitute proof it’s an illegal, involuntary up-skirt photo.
Suppose the perpetrator published a book showing all the other shots, and detailing when and where they were taken. Suppose then that people began connecting the dots, identifying the other subjects, and ruining their reputations. I could see where this would make victims out of the other subjects even though the other subjects weren’t aware of it.
I would say yes, you are still a victim, because our society defines certain actions as unacceptable - the actions themselves, not just getting caught doing them. Maybe the victim isn’t injured, but his/her rights have been violated nonetheless.
BTW, last time I remember discussing this, the example was “What if a chef with no communicable diseases spits in my burger, and I don’t notice?”
Well, if I caught someone trying to take pics of me that I wouldn’t consent to, I’d get quite angry. My privacy and my right to decide who sees me how are being hurt. It’s not a “physical” thing being hurt, but it’s real nonetheless.
So I’d say those women who were photographed upskirt without their consent were victims, yes.
Yes, but just because you aren’t interested in the scenarios doesn’t mean they aren’t applicable. I get the feeling you are trying to make the “Sound a falling tree makes if no one is around to hear it” argument. To some people, having someone else in possession of a nude picture of them is far worse than losing a few grand from their account. Therefore if the one is a victim, so is the other.
Note: I realize that at least some of these pictures are “panty” shots, and not actual nudity, but I don’t think that changes anything except perhaps the severity of “victimhood”, if you’d like.
But I think that the argument is that it’s not the fact that someone else has the nude picture, it’s the fact that the person thinks/knows that there is a nude picture.
IOW, it’s not the picture itself that causes any harm to the individual, it’s the impact that the knowledge of the picture has on the person in the picture.
Not that I’m arguing that taking pictures like that is ok, only that I kind of agree with the OP; that unaware targets of this guy’s camera are not victims until they become aware that they were photographed.
I can certainly understand where both of you are coming from, I just happen to disagree. If there is a peeping tom (or a peeping debb, for that matter) at my window, I consider myself a victim of invasion of privacy, for instance, even if I’m unaware of his existence. By the same token, if the government has been recording all of our phone calls for the past decade, I think of us all as victims, even if we aren’t aware of it.
I think the disagreement boils down to the fact that I don’t distinguish between whether someone is aware that they are being victimized or not when determining victomhood, while others do. Both sides seem to have reasonable arguments for their position, and I’m not really sure what we gain or lose by this creation of victimhood, rightfully or otherwise.
What exactly is worrisome about it? One of the definitions of “victim” is “A person who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of”. None of those things necessarily require tangible harm, or even awareness of the situation. The word “victim” can be appropriately used for anyone who has been ill-treated.
“Victim” has become far more loaded and politicized than it needs to be. These days it seems to be used only reverently or contemptuously, with very little middle ground. Poor little word. It didn’t ask for all this controversy.
That’s a different situation, tho. The OP is about a panty-peeper who was never “caught.”
The reason I noticed your post is that I had the total opposite reaction when this situation occurred in Toronto a few years ago. An analogy for me is when I have changed my clothes in front of wide open windows, where the nearest possible vantage point for a peeper is quite far away. Some folks are horrified by this - “what if someone has binoculars?”
I say, if someone wants to go to that amount of trouble for something that isn’t harming me at all, why should I have a problem with it?
Now, if I came upon some guy’s apartment that was filled with photos of me that I had never seen, now THAT would be skeevy.
But from what I know about straight men and their lascivious desires, anonymous panty/booby shots are perfectly satisfactory. There’s a big difference between a peeper and a stalker.
) to get photos of womens’ knickers under their skirts and dresses.