Question
I have a question for RBS. If a woman that you videotaped found your website and saw that video clips of her feet and her face were being sold without her permission, and if she got upset because of this, would you care?
I’m with Seanwoj on this one. Although, Seanwoj, I can see why others would interpret your questions as trolling, as the answer is clearly no (at least based on the premise of RBS’s work, and if you are familiar with it), they do not sign release forms. However, it is a legitimate debate, and Seanwoj and anyone else who wishes to is valid in raising this question. I don’t know if RBS is “beating around the bush”, does not have the time to answer questions, or simply does not want to. He does have it within him to respond to other people’s comments, though of course only if they are nice comments and do not oppose or question him in any way (who likes being opposed or questioned?), or sometimes he just calls you a “twat”. So, I guess you did kind of get blown off. And regarding bftk2005, we all know what this individual does, going around touching women’s feet without their permission, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that bftk2005 would support what RBS is doing. I’ll address this in a future thread.
Also, to Seanwoj’s defense, bftk2005, I’m going to guess that inferring that Seanwoj’s posts are distracting you from enjoying the content in this thread is a cheap excuse to tell him to stop expressing his feelings about this issue. It’s obvious nonsense, and Seanwoj only asked the question twice throughout the entire thread, along with a few more posts defending himself against you and others. There’s no way you can’t just skim his posts that you don’t like and quickly browse the thread. Pictures stand out more than text; you should be able to just skim the text and jump right to the pictures.
It is still a legitimate moral debate about filming people and SELLING their image, not to mention for the purpose of arousing people with foot fetishes (which I do have, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it, but that’s why we have models who know what the foot fetish is and who are paid to model their feet). I also think it’s wise to not bring up the legal status of this issue because you will be asked if you are an attorney, and most likely you are not. I also don’t know for sure if what RBS is doing is legal or illegal. I have looked all over the internet and it’s very ambiguous.
However, this isn’t at all a question of legal or illegal. This is a question of just plain decency and an internal feeling of what to do and what not to do. The fact that RBS and anyone who supports what he is doing state that “it’s not illegal” or “no laws are being broken” is just telling of their character, that they are relying on the legality of something just to get by with their own desires. There are plenty of legal things I could do that I don’t do because I just think they are wrong. If “there is no legal issue with either candidly (or openly) taking photographs of someone, or posting images of someone online” (to quote Tidas), then could I not go to the beach and photograph/videotape children in their bathing suits and start a fetish website about cute children at the beach in their bathing suits? But I wouldn’t do that, and clearly people would get upset about that if I did. Well, that’s all anyone is doing when they question what RBS is doing. They are getting upset, or at least asking questions, because they feel what someone else is doing is WRONG, and they are speaking up about it. And there’s nothing wrong with speaking up about something you feel is wrong, so any attempt to blow you off, such as “you’re trolling” or just not responding to you at all is a suggestion to me that the person knows deep inside that maybe they are wrong and these attempts to silence or discourage people who question them is some sort of defense mechanism.
(Also to add to Tidas’ comment, there are exceptions where you cannot legally photography/videotape someone, such as a mall with a sign that says you cannot take photographs or video.)
Briefly going back to the concept of photographing/videotaping children, RBS does have his own personal policy of not taping anyone under eighteen. He could just prefer taping grown women, which is just a personal preference. However, I would find it to be pseudo-moral and a double standard should it be because of some sort of “moral” reason. Since you can indeed candidly photograph/videotape anyone or anything in a public area, this idea of excluding the videotaping of minors for moral reasons while feeling totally justified in doing the same thing with adults who have no idea what the footage is being used for would suggest three things:
1. RBS feels that there is something inherently wrong with what he’s doing since he won’t do it involving minors
2. If there is nothing wrong with what he is doing, he wouldn’t so blatantly raise an issue about age every time he encounters a person who looks to be on the brink of being a minor and an adult, as seen in his clip store descriptions, but rather just shoot the footage as he pleases
3. He is trying to look “moral enough”, using society’s strong protection of the welfare of minors for his own justification for videotaping adult women. (An “at least I’m not filming minors, so I must be a moral person” kind of justification)
Only RBS knows where he stands on this, but I think he is wrong for doing it in the first place, and should he admit to not filming minors for moral reasons, I think there would be a bit of a logical problem there, as well. To address my first and third points above, the only difference between a minor and an adult in the scenario of being filmed candidly for the purpose of the footage being sold for sexual arousal reasons is that the minor could not consent to that if the person filming came up and asked whereas the adult can. But RBS does not ask any of his subjects. Being “eighteen and over” does not mean you automatically know or have the responsibility to deduce why someone is filming you, and it does not mean that you have to just “suck it up, you’re and adult, you should be aware of sexual fetishes” and be sexual arousal material for strangers on the internet.
Truly decent and considerate people don’t have to live barely within the law or what’s considered acceptable. I think what RBS is doing is definitely inconsiderate. I agree with Seanwoj that people should “look at the whole picture – not just what interests them”. People who support what RBS is doing only do so because they want arousing images of unsuspecting women, and they don’t think about how the women might feel about the situation. It’s selfish and lacking of any consideration for other human beings. To quote RBS:
“I think it's more a matter of how you do it than where you are. I am pretty low key about it, let the woman see what I'm doing, but don't really advertise it, so if she's ok with it she can just let me do my thing and no one is the wiser.”
Well, she might be okay with being videotaped but what she may not be okay with is her image being sold for a profit and put on the internet for people to get sexual pleasure from. This woman is someone’s daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, aunt, a human being with feelings. So to repeat my question to RBS: If a woman that you videotaped found your website and saw that video clips of her feet and her face were being sold without her permission, and if she got upset because of this, would you care?
To everyone else, I apologize for such a long post. This forum is meant to be fun and enjoyable, and I hate to make it a forum for moral debate. Unfortunately, the nature of this forum can often provoke moral debate and it’s important to be able to feel like you can raise an issue without people trying to silence you or make you feel like the bad guy for doing such, so long as you do so in an intelligent, decent, respectful manner, which I think I have done and which I think Seanwoj has done, as well.
My advice to people who ever find the need to question something: always present yourself intelligently, decently, and respectfully, like I said. Those who you debate against may have sharp tongues or decide to circumvent your legitimate questions, but such can never beat a soft-spoken, calm demeanor that has truth and good intentions on its side. Or, just present one profound question or thought, as I have done, and then leave and never come back unless you have to. Those who you question will have to respond to your question or thought, read it and consider it and hopefully internalize it, or ignore you, and I guarantee in that process that SOMEONE will do some deep thinking, and you’ve just changed another person for the better.