Where I come from, that's more than an indiscretion. We're not talking about a locker room.
However, I would consider cornering me in a bathroom and sexually harassing me to be just cause for self defense.
(I used to pay accident claims. Some policies specifically did not cover injuries that were incurred in the commission of a felony. I had to write a denial based on that clause. We first had to research if the event in qhestion was a felony in the state in question.)
Society lays out the rules by law. And society judges when those rules have been breached. I think people forget that they have to live in a world where people other than themselves might have a different idea of what constitutes an acceptable response to distinctly discouraged behavior.
Is a woman who is being filmed naked against her will unjustified if she smacks the guy doing the filming when she learns of the violation?
Telling the victim to not automatically respond with disproportionate violence is not "blaming the victim".
If he'd said, "if you don't want pictures of your dick on the internet, don't pee at Google I/O," then you might have a point.
Seriously, sexual harassment is not a light crime. It does serious damage to the victim's mental state. There's no way of knowing if the perpetrator is going to take things further. If you want to state here right now that you feel that violence as a way to stop an ongoing act of close-quarters sexual harassment is a disproportionate response, then that's fine. But don't be surprised if other people in your society don't agree.
And yes, violating someone's privacy to see them naked when they obviously don't want to be seen is sexual harassment. Filming that takes it to the next level.
And if you are seriously worried about someone solely because of peeking then you need to learn how to handle that worry.
There's a good chance I'd fall on you.
There is no reason to ever be violent if it isn’t absolute necessary to defend oneself.
Ok, maybe pushing someone away can be ok in that moment, however the glee with which people here talk about violence is absolutely vile. Violence is not ok. It is to never ever be used, only in the most dire emergencies.
A voyeur would consider the risk of being yelled at, reported to a local authority (such as a bar owner), being thrown out of an establishment, etc. They would consider these risks and weigh the consequences and determine that they are worth it in the end. They would still get what they wanted, and would be free to carry on their activities in the future, perhaps at another establishment or after enough time had passed.
But the risk of physical violence, that's not so easily dismissed.
There are NUMEROUS statutes that prohibit the surreptitious filming of people where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. I think a bathroom qualifies.
And I think you'd have a hard time getting a jury to convict someone of punching another guy in the nose for filming them in the bathroom.
Honestly, do you think the VERY FACT that he has a camera running at the time he gets punched by the guy he was filming wouldn't be prima facie evidence that he was in-fact filming in a private place? Cloud or not?
I'm willing the guy who is looking at a sex-offender charge and life-long pervert registration is willing to avoid pressing charges just to make the whole thing go away.
No, that conviction will be a slam dunk, because there's video evidence of it.
You'll also score a simultaneous conviction for running afoul of peeping tom laws, because filming in a bathroom is as you mentioned illegal in many jurisdictions.
The only winner here is the prosecutor. The fact that party A was violating the law before party B assaulted him does not nullify party B's crime. The law doesn't really work that way. The bar for justifiable use of violence is legally high.
A beatdown? No. A fist to the face or an elbow to the chest to get him away? You'd better believe it. There's not much room to run to safety when you're cornered at a urinal.
Crimes don't exist in a vacuum, there are factors that make the actions cross lines. A man glancing at a women's chest or a woman glancing at a man's rear end is not becoming of a professional, but it's not a crime. Repeated offense and an escalating situation? Then it becomes a crime. Likewise, nudity and expectation of privacy are factors that go into determining the appropriate response.
If I walked up behind a woman and started breathing heavily on her neck while she was cornered in a room with only one exit, she would be completely within her rights to use violence as a means to get away from me even though I never touched her.
My underlying question being, at what point does looking put one in enough fear of touching that preemptive escalation to violence is warranted? Because from what I'm told by female friends, that fear is fairly commonplace in their lives, while violence is rather more rare.
I'm trying to figure out what your agenda is; if you're trying to lead me into a trap. Are you trying to catch me saying that I don't hold the same standard to women? Because your "at a concert or on a train or in a bar" example misses the whole "nude" and "expectations of privacy" part of this story, not to mention the "trapped in a room with one exit and no witnesses".
Would I cross the room to punch someone? No. Would I use force to get them away from me? Well, isn't there a whole industry built up around women's self defense courses? I'm not answering your question because I don't feel comfortable with your intentions. I think you know the answer, I just don't know what you're trying to get me to say.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with extending your standard of self-defense to women who feel uncomfortable with the way men are behaving in public, but I also feel it would be hugely challenging to our social structure and I'm curious where you fall on the issue.
I would urge everyone to reserve violence until it is absolutely necessary in your mind to prevent injury to yourself. But if it is necessary, I wouldn't blame anyone for it. Naked, vulnerable, cornered, and threatened has potential to bring out violence in anyone. It's basic fight or flight, except the flight option is taken out. I wouldn't punch someone on the train for staring at my clothed body and merely making me feel uncomfortable. I would punch someone on the train for staring at me and breathing heavily while keeping me from walking away.
Feeling uncomfortable isn't the line I'm trying to draw, feeling trapped and threatened is.
So, there's a general response from men here that this sounds like an absurd overreaction, but I'm not in that camp. If anything I'm trying to defend your point of view. It's just it sounds to me like you're describing a feeling of trapped, threatened vulnerability that is extreme and rare for men, but a daily occurrence for women, that goes something like this:
"Gosh, that man seems visibly interested in me as a sexual object despite the totally inappropriate context, and the fact that I haven't made any advances or invitations whatsoever. Well, I'm sure that's the hard limit of his disregard for social convention.
"Okay, he just told me to smile. Well, I'm sure that's the hard limit."
Now I'll distance myself from the herd here by saying I think men who act like that (a strict superset of men who might stare at your junk in the john) ought to experience some fear of physical violence themselves. My original question to you is whether you intend that to be an implication of your asserting your right to self-defense in this situation, where the consensus seems to be that it is unwarranted. Though perhaps I'm belaboring the point because it seems your answer is no, or at least no contest.
Punching someone on the train for standing in your way is not reasonable either.
It's all well and good for us to think about what we might do in a situation like that. In almost every case, that's not what happens when faced with that situation. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
So let me be clear: it's extraordinarily hard to compare "what you would do" in a scenario when you have the luxury of thinking about it, considering the alternatives, and thinking about possible consequences. In the heat of the moment, when you've got seconds to react, you're likely to make a decision is widely different than the one you THINK you'd make.
Those of us who have faced violence in the past know this intimately. If you've never been held at the point of a gun (I have), then it's hard to comprehend the variety of emotions, positive and negative, that come to the surface when you're suddenly faced with that reality.
Even people who have trained their whole lives for violent encounters deal with this. I wouldn't get too worked up about not having all the answers at your fingertips.
That said, if I catch you taking a picture of my junk in the bathroom, it's not going to go well for you.
SO, to paraphrase your example: an average woman, who might lack the physical means to feel safe in the presence of someone who might be larger and looking at them in a sexual way, would be justified in feeling threatened.
You seem to have a quaint notion of how the justice system works. Video evidence? Probably wont be surpressed by defense. Probably wont be contested because it's obtained as the result of an illegal act. The jury will probably not agree with the defense that the video represented the first stage of an attack by people who film attacks to gain notariety in the Internet. Probably.
If you agree to post your bar number from any US state and the range of cases you've defended, I'd be willing to hear your counterargument.
For one thing, I've lived in the USA for my entire life.
For another, I've lived in several states.
For yet another, I've been involved in an altercation that came to the notice of the police. Several in fact. I'm still walking around a free man with nary a scratch on my record.
So my experience would seem to be directly on point and in direct contradiction to your opinion of how these things go in my country and state.
But hey, if you think your penis is so wonderful, feel free to provide a picture link. I promise not to share it.