QUT Law Lecturer Kelley Burton thinks that it should be illegal to photograph or film topless sunbathers unless they give their permission http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20724123-1702,00.html. I imagine she means only female topless sunbathers, or taking any sort of a photograph on a beach would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

I'm of the opinion that we live in a neurotic age, and the tendency to want to limit the occasions where one can take photographs is just one example of it.

Burton is a womon of many talents, including mind-reading. She reckons that;

"...when a woman is sunbathing topless she is merely consenting to other people observing her with the naked eye, in that place...

"Her consent doesn't stretch to other people photographing her and then exposing the photographs all over the internet."

I'd say that any woman who sunbathes topless ought to do so in private, or be treated just like any other sunbather. Not sure what her feminist sisters would say about Burton, but it would appear to be a backward step for equality. When I sunbathe topless I'd be delighted if people photographed me.

Later Burton also commends a ban on photographing children, presumably in case paedophiles enjoy the photos. All this smacks of a primitive view of photographs and pictures. When natives objected to photographs being taken of them it was because they thought that having a picture of them gave someone else power over them.

Likewise, the objection to taking photos of something that can be seen and enjoyed by the naked eye seems to smack of a fear that somehow something which is subsequently done to the photo has a power over the subject. This is a magical, not a modern, view of the world.

Isn’t female topless bathing in public technically illegal anyway, at least in Queensland?

The first thing we need to do is bring the law, and the policing regime, into line with acceptable practice.

Only after we have got past this extraordinary duplicity between legality and condoned practices, and determined exactly what is legal and acceptable behaviour, can we even start to sort out what is or is not acceptable behaviour by others that results from that behaviour

I'm all for topless sunbathing and I think everyone has a right to refuse being photographed. Especially topless females in a society where women are modest about revealing their bodies to the world and covering up such area's is the social norm.

At the very least reporters and associated cameramen should be forced to seek permission. For the simple reason that I detest such lying media vultures and anything which makes their lives a little harder is almost always going to get my support.

Reporters are largely biased corrupt scumbags.

Graham, the problem is that the developing technology of image production and publication has got way ahead of changes in our understanding of public and private space. Most of us assume that the public space in which we place ourselves is that space which we can check out: you can choose to sunbake topless or not given the social cues that allow that: e.g. it's a beach, others are topless, no one around is likely to be offended. New technologies, especially digital photography and ubiquitous camera phones, together with the net, mean that what we thought was a particular type of public space might in fact turn out to be something quite different.

Everyone perves.(I know Christians deny it, but I don't believe them.) But there is a crucial difference between perving which occurs discreetly within an individual human skull and that which results in images in public spaces out of the control of the pervee.

Do it in public... take what comes. If you flaunt ur attributes in a public place.. I think its highly hypocritical to then think you can limit who sees you.

The stupidity of this act, is why the heck should she be worried about being posted on the internet bare breasted when she is already exposed to public eyes on the beach. She doesn't have the slightest clue:

a) What others are thinking
b) Who they are.

So, if someone takes a 'pervy' line with her nakedness on that beach, but perhaps hides his actual eye direction behind sunglasses, hmmmm whats the diff between that and someone getting a bit of a cheap thrill behind a computer monitor ?

The simple fact that she is worried about internet exposure means she KNOWS there is a dark side to such exposure.

This idea that we can do what we like and then 'controllllllllll' everyone else by some dimwitted idea of 'consent' is plain ludicrous.

Its just the same as flooding youth Tv with objectifying sexualized images and 'Gotcha' segments on youth FM stations (where people are HUMILIATED and DEGRADED and SADISTICALLY ANNOYED for PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT) and then thinking the objectifying sexualized 'use' of another human by the Werribee teens is not to be expected.

Werribee was just 'Gotcha+MTV+Existential self affirmation (If it feels good..DO it)'

In a world without reference to God.... why is this inherently 'wrong and evil' ?

Garbage IN....Garbage OUT.....

So, if ya wanna go topless.. take what comes.

OOps..I just noticed Snouts little jibe :) "Christians deny it, but I don't believe them"...

woooo.. now there's a challenge

Lets just say.. while we are aware of the short distance between a look and a perv, show me the man who is not switched on by the sight of well shaped bare breasts and I'll show you pigs flying :)

Hmmm now is this 'his' fault or hers :) ?