Upskirting. Downblousing. Happy slapping. As camera phones proliferate, an ugly vocabulary is born.
By Monica Collins
Camera phones can be dangerous. That's my technoparanoia talking, as the hybrid gadgets now number in the millions and allow anybody to take pictures for the perverse kick of it. A cellphone salesman from Rhode Island was arrested in May for peeping under a 17-year-old's skirt with a camera phone as she rode the escalator at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleborough. The crime? "Upskirting."
"Downblousing" is just what you imagine: covertly snapping bosom shots of women bending over, images that typically turn up on Internet voyeur sites. California's Legislature banned upskirting and downblousing after pictures taken at Disneyland showed up on the Web. "Happy slapping" involves surprising a passerby with a punch or slap and recording the act on a camera phone. In April, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that transport police had investigated
200 such incidents in the previous six months at London bus stops and train stations.