GirlsGuideTo | WTF: Hidden Camera Pervs Strike Again

A few days ago a well-known and highly respected urologist practicing in Manhattan was found recording videos in a subway station. Videos that look up women’s skirts. While this is clearly gross, what’s even more disgusting is that this is apparently a trend. It’s been happening all summer!

Now I don’t want to scare anyone, but there's been shocking outbreak of hidden camera lawsuits across the country over the past few months, some of the accused with related and vastly more serious convictions (intent to rape, etc.) under their belts. The scary thing is that no one is sure why. Is it because the proliferation of DIY porn websites has encouraged men to, well, Do It Themselves? Is it because there's a flourishing market for upskirt shots? (Eww.) Is it because creepers now have access to cheaper and better video cameras? Here are just a few of the articles a researcher for Jezebel found this summer about women being filmed without their consent.

FunPlex Family Changing Room
Strategy: Hidden in an air freshener container

Choice awful detail: "Depending on what the camera recorded, police could charge the eventual suspect with unlawful sexual contact. If children were photographed, charges could include child pornography, West said."

Body Wax Salon
Strategy: Hidden in the ceiling

Choice awful detail: "11Alive News has learned the landlord who rents the spaces is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of aggravated assault with intent to rape in 2004."

Women's Gas Station Bathroom
Strategy: Undisclosed

Choice awful detail: "Klawinski said the manager told a company representative that he had planted the camera because some items were being stolen from a nearby storage room." (Mmmk.)

At Home
Strategy: Police seized numerous computers, memory cards, flash drives and video cameras from the accused man's house.

Choice awful detail: "She told police she was unaware she was being videotaped nude in her bedroom and went to police after discovering videos of herself stored on a computer at the home."

High School Field Trip
Strategy: A camera in a coffee packet on the bathroom counter. (WHAT.)

Choice awful detail: "Latah County Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Evans told 2nd District Judge John Stegner on Monday that Wells acknowledged videotaping an adult woman in the past and says he has tried to minimize his crime and shows reluctance toward treatment."

Ex-Wife's Bedroom
Strategy: "Police say the camera was set up a wireless router and had a motion sensor so he would get alerts when she was in the room and he could watch online."

Choice awful detail: "Police say Espinosa is a preacher at a Pryor Hispanic Church and acted as clergy for a hospice in Choteau."

Law Office
Strategy: Undisclosed

Choice awful detail: "According to their lawsuit, Johnson encouraged them to wear "skirts and high heels" while working in the office. He instructed them to sit at a particular desk in the office and allegedly positioned devices that secretly recorded their legs and lower torso and between their legs, according to the lawsuit."

Women's Locker Room/Office
Strategy: Undisclosed, but it was "not positioned correctly," so he got a lesser charge, even though it wasn't his first offense.

Choice awful detail: "Earlier this month Bednarik was accused of poking a hole in the ceiling tile above a woman's desk in an office at the college and installing a camera to record her while she was partially nude and pumping breast milk, according to court records."

Quinceañera
Strategy: Hidden in an air-conditioning vent in the women's bathroom

Choice awful detail: "[A former] employee ... had rigged the cameras before absconding to Texas with stolen bounce houses and laser lights."

Pole-Dancing Class
Strategy: Hidden in a stage light

Choice awful detail: "They discovered another camera in the area, which served as both a performance stage and a dressing area where 'some of the customers even disrobe and get down to their underwear' because of 'assurances that there are no cameras in the room,' the lawsuit states."

Our Verdict: WTF? Sadly, there are oh so many more examples where these come from — and these are just stories about people who have actually been caught. So what do we do? We obviously can't stop people from getting tiny, easily hidden cameras, and you shouldn't stop going to the gym or the bathroom or your freaking office because there are nasty men out there. I don’t know. I just don’t know.

What is your take on this? How can we fight back and try to stop this outbreak of sickos?