Whether or not you’re aware of it, the likelihood that a complete stranger has has visual access to the lower undergarment your girlfriend, sister, friend, mother, or even daughter is very high. If these females wear skirts, it is even higher. If they have worn a skirt while visiting New York’s Union Square, it’s almost a certainty. Peepers are on a panty-prowl all over the world, yes, but thanks to the tireless efforts of Normal Bob Smith, the self-appointed sentinel of Union Square, these perverted men face embarrassment, exposure, and ridicule. On his Union Square-focused website, Normal Bob Smith’s Amazing Strangers, our hero has, as previously reported by Mr. Pink’s, documented the activities and methodologies of these Peepers in an effort to enlighten and empower skirt-wearing women of New York and, indeed, of the entire world. The most illustrative of Smith’s documents is a series of video works entitled “Methods of a Peeper.” With six installments already online (and hopefully more to come), Smith goes into incredible detail narrating this own footage of Peepers in action. After exposing the “Tandem Style Passenger Window”, “Portrait”, and “Front Row” Peeping methods, Smith and his camera have unearthed actual footage of the most dangerous of all Peeping methods, Picture Peeping.
Armed with an everyday digital camera, the Picture Peeper doesn’t just hope to catch himself a glimpse of a stranger’s panties, he hopes to document it for later viewing and perhaps even distribution. We’ve all seen websites purporting to host galleries and movies of surreptitiously snapped upskirt or down-blouse images, but I, for one, usually assume they were taken with the permission and cooperation of the subject. Methods of a Peeper 6: Picture Peeping now has me convinced otherwise. With his camera trained on a pot-bellied aging Peeper, Smith points out various peeping techniques – dangling a camera from the wrist, pretending to calculate numbers while holding said camera, holding the camera low and steady while taking long, extended videos et. al. – all of which allow the Peeper to store his images for a lonely Saturday evening or for sharing with friends. With the unwelcome online distribution of intimate photos as hot a topic as ever, the lessons to be gleaned from Smith’s public service videos are so vital they perhaps should be shown in schools, YWCAs, and self-defense classes around the country.
Like Spider-Man and Travis Bickle before him, though, Normal Bob Smith and his selfless attempts to preserve the sanctity of his beloved New York will likely go unnoticed, misunderstood, and under-appreciated. Mr. Pink, for one, isn’t afraid to applaud his heroic efforts, efforts that have brought him face-to-face with the sleaziest men of The Big Apple, resulted in plenty of hate mail, and no doubt placed his own safety in great jeopardy.
Normal Bob Smith, you are a true patriot and for you valiant efforts to protect the sanctity of what lies between the legs of the women of New York, Mr. Pink salutes you, sir.