Sometimes technology has unintended consequences. In Japan, one of those consequences is all the sukebe (dirty old men) sneaking up-skirt and down-blouse pictures of girls at train stations with their camera phones.
iPhone
Shutter Sound Always On
It was for this reason that Japanese mobile phone regulations require a conspicuous shutter sound to alert bystanders a photo is being taken. Nobuyuki Hayashi, a Japanese journalist blogs that Apple has added the sound effect to the iPhone 3Gs intended for the market there. The phone will make the sound even if set to silent mode.
Alan Patrick thinks the market will solve this problem on its own, no regulation required. “If the economy carries on moving in the direction it is going, this will soon stop being a problem – it has long been observed that women’s hemlines go up in good times, and down in bad.”
It’s not clear if that “rule” applies outside Western society, but Japan follows—and mutates—Western fashion, so maybe they’ll mirror our misfortune. If so, the longer hemlines will be anathema to hitherto encouragement of the sukebe—school uniforms mimicking the Catholic style so many fetishize about.
From experience, the skirts get shorter as winter approaches and the boots get longer. Being at the bottom of the steps at the train station is, therefore, a revealing experience should you choose to look upwards.
