RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #95 (3/9/2014): Upskirt
aired March 8, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/YmZDoGW6M40
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 9, 2014.
Say you’re sitting on a train, or, if you’re on my budget, a bus. You’re standing, holding onto a Pole – or an Armenian – and people are seated in front of you. Among them, a nubile young lady dressed in loose-fitting spring attire. I don’t care if you’re Charlie Sheen or Pope John XXIII, you’re gonna cast your eyes down that blouse in the hopes of seeing cleavage or boobage. If you’re a little pervier and you happen to be sitting in the row of seats parallel to the little chickie, you might even cast a glance when she crosses her legs, just to see if what she’s hiding down there is a peach or a porcupine. It’s sexist and disgusting, but it’s human nature. And human males being what they are, with technology being what it is, some guys get their jollies by surreptitiously whipping out a cell phone – thank God, that’s all they’re whipping out – and snapping photos of visible snappers.
Does this violate the privacy of women who are being unknowingly immortalized by T-Mobile? Of course, it does. And lawmakers in Massachusetts have put their feet down over what women can expect when they put their feet up. Any candid cameraman taking an upskirt or a down-blouse now faces two years in prison and a hefty fine – even heftier if the girl, God forbid, is underage. These rules were rushed into law following the state Supreme Court’s decision on a case that went the other way. A guy who was set up in a sting operation was caught taking snapshots – or snatchshots, but since this was in a public place, the Supreme Court couldn’t brand him as a Peeping Tom. He was more of a Clicking Harry or a Snapping Dick.
But now, with iPhones so prevalent and women wearing outfits that show enough to make men rise higher than a havdala candle, new rules are needed every day to secure privacy and safety for females. If that sounds a bissel nanny-state for conservatives, put the shoe on the other foot – or the panties on the other gonads, to be precise. Imagine you’re on the train in the summer, wearing shorts, and try as you might, your nutsack will just not stay in the crease. You push it in, it pops out; you cover it up, it slides over. Something about shorts in the summer; it turns your balls into a lava lamp. How would you like it if some creepy woman came up to you with her smartphone and went, “Say cheese!”? Horrible, even if, in summertime, you actually do smell like cheese down there.
These days, we all tolerate a certain level of big brothering to stop terrorism and help insurance companies figure out who caused the fender-bender. But we also should have a reasonable expectation that a public place won’t become a pubic Facebook. That someone won’t put our hooters on computers or turn our meats into tweets. I think Massachusetts lawmakers made the right decision, and when it comes to upskirt photography, we have to view the picture as a whole, and not beat around the bush.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
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