| Upskirt (transliterated as appu-sukaato)
is the photographing of unsuspecting women
by pointing a camera up the skirt to view
their underwear. Escalators, stairs, crowded
trains and stores are some of the favorite
haunts of the upskirt photographer who
typically uses miniature cameras concealed
in shoes or bags. The manager of a store
selling miniature cameras in Tokyo says
most customers are "men in their 20s and
30s, salarymen types." However, since
the boom in cell phones incorporating
cameras, hardly a week goes by without
newspaper reports of arrests of policemen,
schoolteachers, university professors,
civil servants, and other "respectable"
members of society for the crime of upskirt
photography. In fact, such was the an
explosion of "upskirt" crimes immediately
after the launch of the camera-equipped
phones that legislation was passed making
it mandatory for such phones to make a
loud camera-shutter sound in an attempt
to make such photography less surreptitious.
There are several theories for the Japanese
male's obsession with women's panties,
but the most likely explanation is that
the underwear acts as a substitute for
women's genitals. Genitalia are considered
obscene in Japanese law, so legal "erotic"
photography features lots of panty shots.
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