Not My Boobies

Hmm... Hm hm hm. Mixed emotions as I read the article about the college girl with the drunkenness and the baring of the breasts. For one, I definitely agree with the assessment that this is in no practical way at all like rape. She was physically forced to do nothing. The analogy is ridiculous. And, ultimately, if you don't want friends, family, and total stranger to consider you a hussy, then don't act like one. ;-)

As to whether or not she entirely got what she deserved, I'm more undecided. While the article states that legal measures of privacy doesn't extend to large public crowds/events, I'm somewhat concerned about that. I don't like the idea that someone can just randomly videotape me out in a crowd and make money off that-- even if all I'm doing is picking my nose-- without my explicit consent.

We have so much discussion about privacy currently, and little has been concluded. It seems to me that privacy issues are currently perceived to be very black & white. Either something is entirely private, or it's entirely public. To me, it's really more subtle. At what point do we really draw the dividing line? Is a group of 20 people public? Is 50? 100? Is there a different level of publicity between 100 people in a bar and everyone who watches cable television? I think so.

I don't particularly feel sorry for the girl, and I think she leveraged an emotionally-charged rape/sexual harrassment accusation [ed: I forgot to type this word when I first wrote this post-- oops!] to her advantage. But the bigger implications disturb me.