What Is Upskirting: Why and How the Trendy Fetish Harms Society
Under a method of violating personal space, offenders face up to 3 years in prison.
What is it?
Upskirting, which translates from English as "looking up skirts", is considered one of the varieties of sexual fetishism. The term is used to describe the act itself and its results: photos and videos taken up women's skirts.
In Russian-speaking communities, the term "zasvet" is also used to describe photos and video recordings that accidentally or deliberately capture the intimate parts of people's bodies in public places: on streets, in public transport and in shops.
There are already known cases of arrests and punishments for this kind of activity.
And if you call the police?
In Madrid, a man suspected of upskirting was arrested. He filmed videos under the skirts of more than 550 women and posted at least 283 video clips online. The videos collected millions of views on pornographic websites.
According to police, the 53-year-old Colombian filmed videos under girls' skirts on a smartphone that he hid in a backpack. Many of the victims were minors.
The man has been accused of filming videos under skirts daily since the summer of 2018, when he began uploading video clips online. Police began monitoring the suspect and arrested him while he was upskirting on the subway.
The National Police, in its Twitter account, called the suspect "one of the most dangerous predators who violated the personal space of women". During a search of his home, police seized a laptop and hard drives with hundreds of video recordings. The suspect's own website had more than 3,500 subscribers. He is now under arrest.
Why is this kept quiet?
Upskirting is not popular in all countries. Moreover, many victims do not even notice that they are being filmed intimately, since so-called "hunters" try to film as discreetly as possible.
Among the countries popular with such fetishists, Japan, the United States and Russia "lead".
In October 2017, activist Anna Dovgalyuk staged the action "What Is Under My Skirt" in the St. Petersburg metro, which provoked a mixed reaction from passersby and internet users. The participant lifted her dress at various metro stations.
The video says that around 350 complaints about upskirters were registered in St. Petersburg in 2017.
How do you fight it?
Upskirting has already been recognised as sexual violence in some countries: at least in the United States, Spain, Australia, England, Wales, India and New Zealand.
For example, in England, the fight against upskirting was started in 2017 by London resident Gina Martin. She also faced upskirting, but the police could only detain the offender and demand that the photos and videos be deleted, after which they released him.
The young woman did not put up with this and gathered tens of thousands of signatures on an online petition, which attracted the attention of British authorities. After that, a law was passed providing for imprisonment for upskirting.
Depending on the country, upskirting is punishable by a criminal sentence of imprisonment for a term of 2 to 3 years.
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