Jase Dillan was running some errands on Boston’s Newbury Street last week when she noticed something odd: a man was filming her even as he tried to conceal his camera. Dillan says that after getting into her car, she could see – thanks to his camera’s viewfinder – that the man was filming women’s genital areas and buttocks right on a major city thoroughfare.



It was when Dillan saw the man allegedly turn his camera onto some teenage girls that she decided to intervene.

She called the police and then, like so many other women have started to do in the age of the internet, Dillan started filming the alleged peeper and later posted the video to her Facebook account (she is a Facebook friend of my husband’s).

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” she asks as she follows him. “You don’t like being filmed without permission? Because that’s what you were doing.”

The man can be seen smiling, walking quickly away from Dillan, saying little. Finally, he retorts: “Why do you think that I would need your permission?”

A pretty brazen response from someone who allegedly has been caught filming young girls. The problem? He’s right. Legally, men who want to secretly film women’s body parts largely don’t need permission or consent – not from women, not from teenage girls, not from children. In too many states, if you’re in a public place you have no legal expectation of privacy, not even for your private parts.

And women are sick of it. Sick of the ogling, sick the catcalling, sick of the knowledge that we can’t walk to work or run some errands without running the risk of someone harassing us or taping us or doing us harm. Sick of the fact that in too many cases, the law allows it.

Massachusetts only just made “upskirt” photos illegal last year, and in many states the practice still isn’t criminalized. Texas has upheld the right of men to surreptitiously take photos of women’s private areas, even if the photos are meant for purposes of sexual gratification. A court decision in Washington, DC ruled the same thing in 2014, as did a judge in Oregon this year after a 61-year-old man was caught taking photos up the skirt of a 13-year-old girl.

“From a legal point of view, which unfortunately today is my job to enforce, he didn’t do anything wrong,” the judge said.

Considering filming up women’s skirts or down their blouses is not widely illegal, it makes legal – though certainly not ethical – sense that filming women’s or children’s clothed buttocks, crotches or breast areas isn’t banned either. Essentially, if someone would like to film or take pictures of parts of your body to masturbate to once they get home, that’s their right. (There are whole online communities dedicated to just that.)

“This kind of behavior happens all the time,” Dillan told me. “Women are not respected.”

Until the law catches up, is the only recourse for women really just public shaming and sharing? It seems ridiculous for the internet to do the job that the cops and justice system should.

But until they do, Dillan says she hopes her video helps women, especially younger women, know that they don’t have to put up with harassment.



“You might not be on a busy street in the middle of the day with the luxury I had to confront this man, but you always have a voice,” she says. “And you have the right to walk down the street without constant fear of harassment, violation or humiliation.”

Dillan isn’t alone in thinking so – her video has gotten over a million views.