This is the ‘Still Not Asking For It’ photo series by photographer Rory Banwell. And it’s taking a brilliant stand against sexual assault and the so-called rape culture in Australia.
The photographs show a series of men and women standing topless with black tape covering their nipples alongside powerful messages scrawled on their stomachs.
The striking slogans include “never asking for it”, “alcohol is not an excuse” and “fashion is not an invitation”. Banwell hopes that the series will hammer home the message that women are never asking to be raped.
Banwell’s work comes after a 2013 survey revealed that 8 out of 10 women in Australia don’t report sexual assault to the authorities – meaning that true figures often go under recorded.
Speaking to i100 she said:
The project was inspired when my husband and I found we were going to have a girl. Someone actually said it was time to buy a gun and we were so disappointed that people’s initial reactions were that we would need to protect her, purely because of her gender.
I was so taken aback by this sentiment that I decided I needed to do something; being a photographer, I knew that I could use this medium to accomplish my something and so Still Not Asking For It was born.
Since my daughter was born in Nov 2014 and after seeing that 78 women died last year from either intimate partner violence or domestic violence, it has become even more obvious how important projects like mine are. Creating a conversation is the most important thing we can do.