It has almost become a ritual of pregnancy in modern culture, a woman goes out into the world and her baby bump brings attention, some more wanted than others. People stop her, to give their predictions as to if it will be a boy or a girl and rub her belly as if it is for good like, like they are rubbing the buddha of babies. That trend is now changing, as one man from Cumberland County man is learning this the hard way as he faces harassment charges for touching a woman's pregnant belly.
How often it may or may not of been a matter of consent is one issue being raised. In the most recent case the man touched the stomach once and did not get consent and then touched it again.. While it might be a more clear cut case and seen more as groping if he had touched her breasts or buttocks, the fact unwelcome contact was made, despite it being a once accepted social gesture, is what is now being called into question.
The spokesperson from the Cumberland District attorney' office said it the definition of harassment is Any time someone is annoyed or alarmed by another person and it involves touching without consent.This is nothing new all states have harassments laws, we are just now seeing an increase of people who are applying it to their pregnant stomachs. This makes it less of an issue of the law changing but people changing how they feel the need to have the laws protect them.
Overcrowding in urban areas might be a factor that is figuring in to this. The belly touching of pregnant women to bless their arriving bundle of joy, dates back to medieval times, when people lived in much smaller villages and their was a greater feeling of community and family, so there was hardly such a thing as strangers. So while it might fall under annoying for your odd grandmother to pat your belly it is much different that being stopped by a man on the street.
The internet might also factor in people have grown use to less face to face interaction,as well as pornography touching on what was once taboo by objectifying pregnant women, in what is becoming a rapidly growing niche in the porn industry. This might trigger people to have their boundaries blurred particularly if they have developed such as fetish.
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