There’s so much in body language that can say yes or no on a dance floor even when the music is too loud for words. It’s obvious.

Women should be allowed to go out and have fun doing whatever they wish, but that doesn’t imply that they want to be touched or photographed. If they do, that’s up to them, but it should never be assumed. this is a clear case of non-consent. GGW should be legally required to have written consent for anyone to appear in their videos, even if it’s Jane Schmo walking through the background fully clothed.

If I were a bar or club owner, I would ban photography for reasons like this, and if anyone ever pulled off someone elses clothing, I’d eject them.

This travesty enrages me in so many ways. The woman said no, goddamnit.

The woman said no.

Once up there, it turned out the ‘costume contest’ was actually more of a ‘dance contest’, if by ‘dance’ you meant ‘attempt to behave as sexually as possible for the visual pleasure of the menfolks’. Well, okay; I and my friend were both pretty open with our sexuality at that point, had a loose sexual relationship with each other, and knew that ‘girl-on-girl’ was more likely to win us the money. So, we act sexy. Okay.

Then it turns out that the MC wants us to strip, because ‘the DJ is from out of town’ and he wants to show him ‘how great [city] girls are’. Uhm, alright, well we’re already up here, there is money involved, we are out of reach of dudes and there are bouncers everywhere. We are comfortable with out bodies. So, stripping it is.

And that’s when the camera phones come out. People start filming us, a few as we strip but once we’re nearly nude, there are so many that some of them are pushing past the bouncers and halfway up on the stage. We win the money, so my friend, who is farther from the crowd, gathers her clothes and hops down. I go to gather my clothing to find that some of the camera-wielders have GRABBED THEM and are now refusing to give them back. I act angry, signal them to stop recording and give my clothes back, and one of them reaches up and grabs my chest. I take several steps back and the MC says ‘hey guys, that’s not okay, give the lady her clothes’. A few of the more gentlemanly members of the crowd wrest my clothes from the douchebags and toss them back to me. Since I’m STILL being filmed by about 30 – 50 people, I gather my clothing at my chest and hop down to try to make a beeline for the bathroom. I am followed by people trying to film me and grab me, until a bouncer manages to shove his way through and a couple of the big gentlemenly fellows push people back and help me through the crowd. As I duck into the bathroom, I can explicitly hear the bouncer shouting ‘all of you, turn off your phones! Delete those videos, you do not have permission to have them!’ (Mr Bouncer got a big hug at the end of the night.)

Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if the many, many people who recorded me that night deleted their videos or posted them online or what. A friend later told me that a few bouncers were guarding the door, checking cell phones and making people delete any video they had taken of the incident, but I did not see any of that when I left and have no idea if it was effective or if my friend was just trying to cheer me up or what.

I tried to speak to the MC, after the show, about what had happened, but his response was essentially ‘if you didn’t want to be filmed, you shouldn’t have stripped’. Implied consent. Now there could be amateur video of my naked body, and my friend’s, anywhere and I would have no way of knowing about it until someone who knew me pointed it out. Even if I did find it somewhere, it is unlikely I could press any charges, because the club was too loud for any phone to have recorded me saying ‘no’ or ‘no filming’, and this case has set precedent that means the very fact that I did not immediately run over and punch the first person to raise their camera implies consent on my part.

Argh.

I dislike, but understand, the law that anything that can be seen in or from a public place is therefore in the public domain and can be filmed, etc. I wish it were not so, but if it wasn’t for that law people could sue for accidentally turning up in your vacation photos 9_6 However, when it comes to a private place, a business or a home, there needs to be strong consent rules in place. This case only proves that fact further, to me.

The last bit, of course, only works if members of the feminist group have cars to start with to offer rideshares for women who would want to get away. It may not even have to be loudly said, just talk to women present about GGW and their bad rep.

Specifically, what _is_ sexual assault? Wiki-p has a couple of definitions, neither of which seems to apply to the filming specifically (not that the filming wasn’t wrong morally/legally, I just want precision). However, the definitions of SA could conceivably apply to the top-pulling-down.

Based on the way “sexual assault” has been used in these comments (specifically by faux-Geerussell in #46), it seems like a good functional definiton might be “anything done to a person without that person’s [express?] consent that relates to sexuality.”

Also, does this make pantsing (as per #40) sexual assault?

Apologies/gratitude in advance for my ignorance/your patience.