In an article published this morning, Richard Weir of the Herald calls it creepy, but police in Boston aren’t sure if sneaking pictures of women’s cleavage while they ride the subway is a crime. (Taking shots up a woman’s skirt is a clear-cut crime, however.)
The Suffolk county DA is convinced that “taking a picture of a woman who leans over and inadvertently exposes part of her chest is in our mind a crime. Under Massachusetts law, this is black and white,” but the Herald article quotes lawyers and law enforcement officials who aren’t sure.
In trying to understand why they they’re so uncertain, I stumbled on a rather unsettling piece of logic. It feels like this legal “gray area” for reasons that too closely resemble victim-blaming. “She dressed a certain way, he could see her cleavage, why couldn’t he take a picture of it?” sounds too much like, “She wore a short skirt, she was by herself at night, of course she was gonna get raped.”
Fortunately, it seems like more people are on the side of the victim here, but the Boston Police still haven’t found the guy who took the picture over which all the hoopla’s being raised. The women he took a picture of? She took a picture of him. You can see it here, as well as a video of T passengers commenting on the stalkerish behavior (my friend Erika’s in the video! she used to live in Northampton! local connection!)
