Naughty (Non-Consensual) Bangkok Subway Upskirt Pics in Authorities’ Crosshairs

Originally published via Armageddon Safari Substack:

At the Thailand Cultural Center MRT, recently, next to the standard no-durian infographic — the king of fruit’s smell comes off as obscene to many people and is therefore banned from public transport and hotel rooms — there sat a new addition to the list of prohibited substances and activities on the subway: upskirt pics, later to be uploaded and monetized on some shady dark corner of the web.

The posted official anti-upskirt warning from the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority

Related: The State of Feminism in Southeast Asia

The upskirt video/image industry has apparently been booming in Southeast Asia for some time now.

Via Thai Examiner, September 2024 (emphasis added):

“Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Bureau on Wednesday urged women and female students in the capital to report any attempts to take images from under their skirts. Certainly, following an arrest in Bang Kapi on Tuesday and police investigations, officers confirmed that such activities are a widespread threat in Bangkok. Police on Tuesday took a 20-year-old man into custody after a warrant was issued on Monday. In short, he was the boss of one of a range of online networks where such obscene content is monetized for profit.

A deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau in Bangkok on Wednesday issued a warning for women in the capital.

Certainly, his warning also extended to female students in Bangkok*, particularly those using bus or train services. In short, there are gangs surreptitiously making video clips underneath women’s skirts.

In turn, these video and photo clips are being disseminated on online networks and apps…

Afterwards, Mr. Kittithat, whose surname has presently been withheld by police, admitted culpability. He told investigators that he earned between ฿40,000 and ฿50,000 per month from his efforts.

The suspect admitted to the prevalence of such gangs in the capital seeking to obtain such materials. Officers identified thousands of clips on Mr. Kittithat’s iPad. He is to be charged under the 2007 Computer Crime Act.

The offence is using a computer system to distribute obscene materials publicly. In addition, the uploading of such material to a computer network is a further offence.

In this case, the suspect faces up to five years in prison if convicted of the offences and a fine of up to ฿100,000.”

*It certainly doesn’t help the anti-upskirt law enforcement efforts that university students, and young women in general, compete to expose as much leg as possible in tight-fitting skirts without actually revealing their panties.

I struggled with such distractions in my former life as an English instructor at a private university with a lax dress code outside of town, as detailed in more detail than necessary in my award-winning memoir.

Related: My Gold-Standard Expat Memoir: Back and Better Than Ever With the Second Edition

As a connoisseur of all manner of pornography in my adolescence, in the late 90s and early aughts when the internet was still a novel wonder, pumped full of hormones and unleashed to discover every variety of degeneracy and perversion I could to my heart’s content, I eventually stumbled upon the most degenerate porn purveyors of all: the Japanese.

I’ve heard it said that German porn is the most sordid and disturbing.

But no.

It’s assuredly the Japanese.

One genre of Japanese porn, particularly curious, is what is meant to look like harassment and sometimes gang rapes (almost all sex in Japanese porn, in fact, is portrayed as non-consensual) perpetrated on innocent girls/women on trains, usually in schoolgirl uniforms, backed into corners and groped by dozens of off- camera disembodied male arms while the girls make whiny, high-pitched protestations to no avail.

For risk of being uncouth, and Armageddon Safari being a family publication, I won’t post any links here to the Japanese train rape porn.

But, if you are so inclined, were you to visit any decently stocked adult entertainment website and type in “Japanese train,” you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for.

Puritanism never made it to Asia.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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