Yesterday we shared the news about an elementary school teacher suspended (but allowed to keep his job) for downloading child porn.
Now comes a story involving another educator up to no good in Japan.
A male teacher in his forties has been arrested for taking videos up girls’ skirts in escalators in Tokyo.
The man is a teacher at a public elementary school in Urayasu, Chiba, according to multiple media reports this week.
Upskirting is a huge fetish in Japan, inspiring a unique word (panchira) to describe the thrill of glimpsing female panties up a skirt. Secret filming (especially in public) is also another fetish area known as tosatsu, with whole swaths of content dedicated to satisfying the urge.
Better to buy and consume such content than actual do upskirting, as this man has found out the hard way.
What makes the case unusual, however, is that the man allegedly had a co-conspirator. He was working with a male university student to take videos up girls’ skirts.
The 45-year-old teacher is suspected by Tokyo Metropolitan Police of partnering with the male teenager to film up girls’ skirts at an ascending escalator in Kinshicho Station in Sumida, east Tokyo, on the morning of April 21.
The pair had quite a system worked out: the college kid would stand right behind the woman and film a video with his phone, with the teacher then standing behind the student to prevent the tosatsu from being seen by others.
The teacher has partially admitted the allegations. “It is true that I was a ‘shield’ for him but I haven’t seen the videos he took, nor did I see him filming.”
It is thought that the teacher and student became acquainted on social media, perhaps forming a kind of senpai-kohai apprentice and mentor relationship in order to satisfy their shared desire for panchira content.
It remains uncertain based on media reports if the pair worked together on several occasions or if this was a one-off, and how they were caught (we presume they were rumbled at the station by a victim or passerby).
Police are preparing to hand both the teacher and student over to prosecutors for trial.
The Urayasu Board of Education issued an apology.
Escalators and stairs are prime spots for upskirting, and high school girls often lower and place their bags behind them to flatten their skirts against their body in an attempt to prevent their panties from being visible to others below them.
