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A Singapore content creator, Kasey Avarielle Low, 28, recently shared her experience confronting a man at a HDB void deck.
He was allegedly taking photos of her butt while she was playing pickleball with friends, she said.
Her video has since racked up more than 500,000 views on Instagram.
Speaking to Mothership, Low said she decided to confront the man because she did not want to "leave it to chance" and let him get away with it.
Noticed man taking photos
Low said she was playing pickleball with her friends at a public court in the Northeast area on Jul. 18, something she does every week.
Halfway through their game, one of her friends noticed a man "hiding" in a corner and seemingly taking photos of her.
The friend alerted her husband, and the pair observed the man holding his phone vertically and leaning to one side, as though he was zooming in.
A male friend approached the man to ask if he had been filming, but he denied it.
Although they were not completely certain the man had been taking photos, Low said she did not want to leave it to chance and decided to confront him herself.
"If I confronted and was wrong I would sincerely apologise, but if I wasn’t wrong, some random creep will get away with it again," she said.
Low said this was not the first time she had experienced such an incident, but that she had been too stunned to speak up on previous occasions.
This time, however, she said it was an easy decision to confront the man and clarify the situation calmly.
Found photos in 'recently deleted' gallery
In her video, Low approached the man and asked to see his photo gallery.
He readily showed her the gallery, which did not contain any photos of her. However, Low also asked to check the "recently deleted" folder.
There, she said she found three rows of "zoomed-in" photos of her bottoms.
As the man "buffered for excuses", Low deleted all the photos herself.
Continued to lie
According to Low, the man continued making excuses even after she confronted him.
He claimed the angle made it appear otherwise and said he had only been trying to take photos of the game.
Low rejected his explanation, pointing out that the images were focused on her.
"He just kept giving excuses and changing his statement, from saying he didn’t take any photos to saying it’s accidental, it’s not on purpose, to saying he only wanted to take the game bc it’s interesting.
"But I’ve seen the photos and it’s very clearly zoomed in," Low told Mothership.
The man only left after Low's boyfriend, whom she described as muscular and tattooed, walked over and asked him to leave.
Why she's speaking up
In the caption of her video, Low wrote:
"Past me would’ve not posted this or just kept quiet, but I know there’ll be other girls that’ll be afraid/ don’t want to cause trouble and just keep quiet and let it go because I used to be like that."
She told Mothership that she hopes to encourage other girls to speak up, while acknowledging how difficult it can be to do so in such situations.
"It’s never your fault. It’s not how you dress, how you act, if the perpetrator wants to do this kind of act, they’d do it anyway," she said.
Since posting the video, Low said she has received an influx of comments accusing her of overreacting and claiming she had "asked for it" because of what she was wearing.
She said she had been wearing running shorts.
Low emphasised that regardless of what someone is wearing, such behaviour is never acceptable.
She has personally been harassed even while in long pants and long sleeved-shirts, she said.
"It’s never about what you wear. But if you don’t speak up, don’t shout out, this will always keep happening, to you and to the other girls around you," she said.
Did not make police report
Low shared that she did not make a police report as she deleted the evidence and was not sure if the report would still go through.
But she added that she regrets not having done so.
"Honestly I was wrong, even if it took three to four hours to file a report and even if he just got a warning, it would’ve probably been best so he wouldn’t attempt this with anyone else," she said.
Voyeurism in Singapore
According to the Singapore Police Force (SPF), voyeurism is the act of observing or filming another person who is engaged in a private act without his or her permission.
The majority of voyeurism cases involve perpetrators taking upskirt photographs or videos, as well as “Peeping Tom” cases where perpetrators intentionally observe or record another person engaging in a private act without his or her consent.
According to Singapore Legal Advice, acts of voyeurism are criminalised under section 377BB of the Penal Code.
This includes recording an image of the victim’s private parts, namely genitals, breasts (where the victim is a female), or buttocks (whether exposed or covered) that would not usually be visible, without the victim’s consent and with the knowledge or belief that the victim does not consent to being recorded.
One example is taking upskirt pictures on the escalator.
