IN FOCUS: Why do upskirt crimes happen, and what will it take to stop them?
More than 320 voyeurism cases were reported in Singapore up to September last year. Experts explain what drives upskirt offenders to chase “the thrill and the trophy”.
SINGAPORE: When she felt someone standing close behind her on the escalator, her first thought was that the person was not keeping a safe distance. She did not suspect harmful intentions.
Turning around, Celine (not her real name) saw a man holding a phone that was shining brightly. For a split second, she also saw her underwear on its screen.
“What are you doing? Taking my photos?” she questioned. He said no and held the phone to his ear, as if on a call, then tried to hurry off the escalator leading out of Bugis MRT station.
In those few moments in April, Celine’s commute transformed into a disturbing encounter with an upskirt voyeur.
She held on tightly to the man’s shirt as he tried to get away, dragging her past several shopfronts. She shouted for help, screaming that he had taken photos of her underwear.
He only stopped when Celine told him she would not call the police if he deleted any photos of her. Both were trembling when he handed her his phone.
Looking through it, she did not find any photos or videos of herself. In shock, she made the man apologise, asked him to see a psychiatrist, and then let him go.
“But the whole night it was very traumatising,” Celine, whose identity is protected by a court order, told CNA in December.
After thinking about the incident and talking it over with friends, she changed her mind. “I decided to make the police report the next day because I feel that if I let him go, I’m giving him a chance to victimise (others),” she said.
The perpetrator, 37-year-old Gary Huang Kunjie, was convicted and sentenced to 36 weeks’ jail in October after pleading guilty to voyeurism.
Huang was a serial offender. This was the fifth year in a row he was jailed for preying on women. He had reoffended just six months after being released from prison.
Police investigations showed he had taken upskirt images of Celine that he deleted after she caught him. Nine days later, he recorded upskirt videos of two other women.
From January to September last year, 321 cases of voyeurism were reported to police in Singapore. This figure comprised cases involving upskirt photos and videos, as well as other methods like peeping and taking nude photos or videos.
In 2021, the police received 467 reports of voyeurism, more than the 394 in 2020.
Upskirt offenders have committed crimes in MRT stations, shopping malls and their own workplaces, leading not just to criminal sentences but also professional ruin.
A doctor was struck off the medical register in July for taking more than 3,200 upskirt videos, including once while posing as a student at a junior college.
In September, a suspended secondary school discipline master admitted to taking upskirt videos of female colleagues and students over more than three years.
And a lawyer was struck off the roll in May for taking upskirt and other intrusive photos of his female colleague.
What compels upskirt perpetrators to offend repeatedly? The psychological reasons vary between individuals. But there are also broader societal factors at the root of such sexual violations, experts warn.
PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS
There is no single proven cause for upskirt offending, said Dr Janice Tan, principal clinical psychologist of HEALing Werkz.
The risk factors typically are childhood sexual abuse, substance abuse, sexual preoccupation and hypersexuality.
Some offenders may have experienced peer rejection or have poor interpersonal relations. Male offenders may have difficulty relating to women or having their intimacy needs met in an age-appropriate way, said Dr Tan.
Upskirt behaviour can also be a form of stress relief or thrill-seeking, she added.
Clinical psychologist Dr Annabelle Chow said that some co-morbidities associated with a high propensity for upskirt offending are conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, anxiety and depression.
She also pointed to external factors that can heighten the risk of offending, such as peer pressure and online upskirt communities.
“Within a group setting, individuals might be instigated by their peers to commit acts to prove their ‘courage’ or to win a dare,” she said.
Senior forensic psychologist June Fong said in the experience of her practice at Promises Healthcare, people who commit voyeuristic offences are generally high-functioning in other aspects of their lives.
“However, they may not be as emotionally or psychologically resilient, and tend to internalise negative emotions, have limited social support, and keep problems to themselves in order to maintain a positive public image,” she said.
This explains why they “act out sexually” when they are unable to cope with stress.
“Contrary to popular opinion, people who commit upskirt offences may not be doing so purely because they are experiencing sexual frustration,” she said. A significant proportion are married, dating or in stable relationships, but face other stressors.
Dr Julia Lam, a consultant forensic psychologist, said that upskirt offenders usually have a history of excessive or problematic pornography use as well as excessive masturbation.
They may develop a “tolerance” to pornography, needing to view more and for a longer time to achieve the same effect. When unable to view pornography, they may feel preoccupied, which could be a sign of behavioural addiction.
Dr Lam said that when offenders become dissatisfied with the pornography they can find, they may want to make their own. The upskirt image they end up making becomes “more like a trophy”.
If they experience a thrill and adrenaline rush when making the upskirt image, this can be a form of positive reinforcement that makes them repeat the behaviour, she added.
Dr Lam, who conducts forensic assessments for use in court, estimated that she has seen about 20 patients with voyeuristic tendencies in the last six to seven years. Since her practice started in 2009 the number of cases appears to have increased, which she attributed to the wider use of mobile phones.
SERIAL OFFENDING
Many cases reported by CNA have involved offenders with multiple convictions or offenders who, despite being caught for the first time, kept up their conduct over a prolonged period.
In one case, a serial offender who had been photographing women since 2013 briefly stopped in 2017 after seeing news about other offenders being caught. But he resumed the next year after being unable to restrain himself.
Dr Tan pointed out that upskirt offences can be committed with victims never knowing that they were victims.
“To some extent, this has resulted in higher offence completion rates where offenders are able to avoid detection and the negative consequences of their crime,” she said.
“They may then become emboldened to continue their offending behaviours. Over time, their upskirt behaviours serve as their main form of sexual gratification and become habitual. Habits are harder to break.”
The perception that there is no harm to the victim in upskirt offences reduces traditional psychological barriers to offending, said Ms Fong.
Recidivism of upskirt offences is high because “the thrill and the trophy” of making upskirt images reinforce the behaviour, added Dr Lam.
Capturing an upskirt image gives offenders “a sense of victory that is different from downloading something from the Internet”, she said. Most offenders think they will not get caught despite similar cases in the news, especially when “the thrill overrides their conscience and they feel invincible”.
Unlike one-off offences, which could be the result of circumstantial factors, it is likely that those who reoffend are unable to control their sexual impulses, said Dr Chow.
She pointed to voyeuristic disorder, which requires at least six months of experiencing recurrent and intense sexual arousal from observing an unsuspecting person who is naked, disrobing or engaging in sexual activity.
Voyeuristic disorder also requires that the individual has acted on these sexual urges with a nonconsenting person, or that the urges have caused significant distress or impairment in functioning.
Not everyone who carries out upskirt offences suffers from voyeuristic disorder. If the sexual urges do not cause distress or impairment, then the individual could be suffering from paraphilia, an “abnormal preference or liking”, said Dr Lam.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), paraphilia by itself does not necessarily justify or require clinical intervention.
A GENDERED CRIME
While there are psychological factors, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) cautioned against being “overly quick” to pathologise acts of voyeurism by attributing them to disorders or mental illnesses.
“This framing of sexual violence as medical, instead of gendered and sociological, robs the behaviours of necessary cultural context,” said Ms Corinna Lim, AWARE’s executive director.
It also finds the solution to voyeurism in individual treatment rather than a broader rethinking of societal values and systems, she said.
While upskirt perpetrators and victims can involve any gender, research shows that most perpetrators are men and most survivors are women, according to Ms Lim.
This makes it a “gendered crime”, she said. “We cannot think about sexual voyeurism, therefore, without thinking about misogyny.
“Like all forms of gender-based violence, voyeurism is about power and control, and a disregard of women's consent and agency.”
Voyeuristic acts engineer “situations of female ignorance, helplessness and indignity, from which a male perpetrator can feel comparatively knowledgeable, in control and superior”.
The factors underpinning sexual violence have “deep anchors” in society in the form of sexist beliefs, gendered expectations and the objectification of women, said Ms Lim.
These concepts are often summed up as toxic masculinity – the set of unhealthy norms traditionally associated with “manhood”. These include strength and aggression, risk-taking, sexual conquest and heteronormativity.
While many of these traits are not inherently healthy or unhealthy, they are sometimes taken to “violent extremes” to demonstrate one’s masculinity, said Ms Lim.
Sexual assault myths and victim-blaming attitudes also serve as an excuse for upskirt offenders, further facilitating sexual violence. For example, a common myth is that a woman who wears a short skirt is “asking for it”, said Ms Lim.
Such thoughts can take hold in a victim’s mind. After Huang targeted her, Celine found herself wondering if she was to blame.
“Was it because I wore the wrong skirt? You actually question yourself, like was it wrong for me to wear a skirt and go up the escalator?” she said.
Celine only moved past those thoughts after coming to the conclusion that “I'm not skimpily dressed, I'm properly dressed”. But for some time after the incident, she still modified her own behaviour by wearing shorts under her skirts.
VICTIM TOLD TO “GET OVER IT”
Even after making the police report, Celine felt fearful of running into the man again as she was not aware of how the investigation was going. She was reminded of the incident every time she went to Bugis.
She talked to friends about it, but some of them dismissed her experience. After Huang was sentenced, acquaintances wondered why she still felt affected by what happened.
“It’s like everybody expects you to get over it ... And some actually feel that he never really touched you, so why so difficult (to get over it)?”
Once, Celine said, an acquaintance told her: “You should be happy because I’m sure he took photos of you because you’re good-looking.”
Some men she confided in shared her experience with others like “it’s not (a) big deal”. Other confidantes simply said: “He’s caught already.”
AWARE’s Ms Lim said it is a common misconception that non-physical sexual violence, including upskirt and voyeuristic offences, is less “serious” and impacts victims less.
Dismissing its impact can compound victims’ confusion and self-blame, hamper their recovery and deter them from reporting their experience, she said.
“In cases of upskirting, the survivor may experience long-lasting anxiety and lack of control as she wonders if her pictures are being shared online by strangers, and how this may impact her career, relationships and other aspects of her life moving forward,” said Ms Lim.
“She may face a long, frustrating and expensive process of trying to get her images taken down from various sites. Even so, it can be almost impossible to ensure that an image is taken down for good, which may indeed amplify the survivor’s trauma.”
The courts recognise the use of technology to carry out sexual violence as an aggravating factor when sentencing offenders.
This is because technology usually makes it both easier to commit the offence and harder to detect it, said criminal lawyer Joyce Khoo of Quahe Woo & Palmer LLC.
The offender can also view or replay the images captured anytime and anywhere, and there is a further risk of the images being disseminated online, she added.
BALANCING PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION
About five years after the advent of the first mobile phone with a camera, another Asian country came up with an unusual approach to the problem of upskirt photos.
Since 2004, all mobile phones sold in South Korea have been required to have a 60- to 68-decibel shutter sound that cannot be silenced, according to research by the United States Law Library of Congress. Mobile phone makers in Japan also have to follow a similar standard.
The shutter sound makes it harder to take a photo secretly. But it has not stopped South Korea from developing, in one commentator’s words, an epidemic of “molka” – sexually voyeuristic images of women – fed by standalone spy cameras and silent, third-party camera apps.
Another way to reduce such crime is for people with voyeuristic urges to seek treatment before the law catches up with them. But they rarely come forward due to social stigma and the legal repercussions if they have acted on their impulses before, said psychologist Dr Chow.
Upskirt acts are prosecuted under the offence of voyeurism in Section 377BB of the Penal Code. The penalty is up to two years in jail, a fine, caning or any combination of these.
Additionally, it is an offence to possess an obscene film under Section 30 of the Films Act. This can be punished with up to six months in jail, a fine of up to S$20,000 or both.
When courts in Singapore decide on sentences, they consider the principles of deterrence – of both the offender and other would-be offenders – as well as rehabilitation, proportionate punishment and prevention.
Rehabilitation should be the primary sentencing consideration if the upskirt offender suffers from certain psychiatric conditions that contributed to his behaviour, said Ms Khoo.
“It is a misconception that just because rehabilitation is the primary sentencing consideration, the deterrent effect of the eventual sentence is automatically lost,” the lawyer said.
Instead, rehabilitation in the form of psychiatric treatment would ideally deter the offender from reoffending, she said.
If the offender suffers from voyeuristic disorder that contributed to the criminal conduct, this could be a mitigating factor resulting in a lighter sentence.
“If there is evidence to support that the offender is not able to control his actions due to his disorder, punishment would be ineffective as it does not treat the underlying cause of the offending behaviour.”
In those cases, the courts can order the offender to receive psychiatric treatment at the Institute of Mental Health by imposing a mandatory treatment order of up to three years.
Forensic psychologist Ms Fong acknowledged that there is usually strong public sentiment for more punitive measures for upskirt offenders, but this does not always translate well.
“Incarceration without rehabilitation can sometimes worsen the very factors responsible for the development of the disorder in the first place,” she said, citing the example of social isolation as a trigger.
“Fear can only go so far in halting the behaviour for a period of time; without addressing the risk factors, the person may reoffend once released.”
SUCCESS DOES NOT MEAN NO RISK
Treatment for voyeuristic impulses combines medication, typically to suppress impulsive behaviours and lower sexual urges, as well as psychotherapy.
Cognitive behavioural therapy coupled with relapse prevention and coping skills training has proven to be effective in treating voyeuristic disorder, said Ms Fong.
A specialised assessment is needed for each individual, she explained: “Someone who is sexually aroused by peeping at others in public toilets because he was once a victim of such an act, will require a different treatment from another voyeur who takes upskirt pictures because he is introverted and unable to socialise with females in a normative manner.”
The therapist will help the individual understand the different triggers for the offending conduct, manage stress, hone different ways of managing deviant sexual urges, improve relationship skills and help to make progress towards meaningful life goals.
Dr Lam said the key thing is for the individual to replace the voyeuristic behaviour with new routines, hobbies and relationships with peers that do not involve upskirt images.
These can be paired with “booster sessions” where the individual checks in with their therapist or attends self-help groups like Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous on a regular basis, she said.
There is cause for optimism. Ms Fong pointed out that the prognosis for treatment is good in young adults, as the offending behaviour may not be as entrenched.
When it comes to managing voyeuristic urges, “success” does not equate to “no risk”, she said.
“Rather, the impulse or urges might still be there, but the person is better able to recognise it, and take the relevant steps to circumvent it or manage the urge.”
As for the broader issue of rethinking societal values, AWARE has previously called for comprehensive sexuality education in schools and media-based interventions, such as public awareness campaigns and media guidelines discouraging the use of gender stereotypes and hypersexualised female bodies.
AWARE’s Ms Lim pointed out that the gender norms underpinning sexual violence are “not natural or innate, but learned”. And violent sexual offenders are not the only ones who subscribe to them.
“We are all exposed to them at a young age and socialised into performing them unconsciously throughout our lives,” she said.