Questionable Pictures

Recently in the local news, there has been much buzz about a teacher who took pictures of girls at his school. He's taken pictures of their rear ends in the hallway at school, and even took pictures of them going up and down the escalator in the local mall, all without their knowledge. Obviously, this guy must be a sicko.

You may know where I'm going with this, but just in case you don't, I'll continue.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't get where the problem is in this "crime". The girls didn't know they were being photographed until the story broke. So, it's not like he took them into a room and forced them to dress a certain way or pose provocatively. Just girls walking through the mall. Surely the pictures couldn't have been that sexy if they were doing their normal thing out in public at school and in the mall. Well, they could, but this is not a post about skimpy teenage fashions. Regardless, they weren't forced to do or wear anything they didn't choose of their own accord.

I honestly don't care if he takes a gazillion pictures in public places and jacks off to each and every one of them during his sad life at home. It's kind of like how my husband doesn't like me to line-dry my underthings in the back yard, because there is an apartment building behind us, and he's concerned that some sick guy is getting some pleasure out of looking at my bra hanging there. Personally, that doesn't bother me at all. As long as the guy never involves the girls directly, it seems like a victimless activity. The girls didn't know they were being photographed, so how could that be traumatizing to them until the story details became public? According to the stories, the teacher never made any threats to the girls or touched them inappropriately or tried to get them alone or anyrhing like that. So what is he being jailed for?

My concern is that he is being charged with the assumption that he would try to physically do something in the future. The logic there is that the pictures now would lead to molestation or rape at some point in the future. It is totally unacceptable in the United States of America that we would jail someone on the supposition that they might do something at some point in the future. That gets all Minority Report and creepy. Even more creepy than some dude taking picture of girls in the school hallway.

It sends me down a whole other tangent about jailing terror conspirators before they've actually done anything. But that will have to be left for another day.