I wrote this in early October of 2014, in response to something that was being talked about in the news. Several celebrities – all female – had their nude photos stolen and distributed without their permission. Here are my thoughts about that situation.
I read this piece in episode 10 of my Words of Jen podcast. (The photo above comes from Pixabay.)
So, I’m reading a lot of news articles and/or blogs that point out that a bunch of celebrities had their nude photos stolen by people who have absolutely no concept of boundaries, self control, or what it means to have a basic amount of respect for fellow human beings. It appears that at least some of the celebrities have filed lawsuits in response to having their private photos stolen and passed around.
I’ve noticed that all of the celebrities who had their nude photos stolen just so happen to be female. This means that one of two things has happened: One, absolutely zero male celebrities have ever taken a nude photo and sent it to someone else. Or two, the male celebrities that have had nude photos of themselves stolen are, for some mysterious reason, all choosing to remain completely silent about it.
Neither one of those possibilities seems very likely. There isn’t a history of male celebrities being super happy about having their privacy violated by strangers, after all. Nobody enjoys being violated. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that exactly zero male celebrities have ever in their lives sent a “dick pic” to someone else via the internet.
The only reasonable conclusion is that there are nude photos of male celebrities out there, probably in the same places that the nude photos of the female celebrities were stolen from. And that brings me to my point. This whole thing isn’t about the photos. If that were the case, then the nefarious person (or people?) who stole the private photos of celebrities would have stolen the photos of both male and female celebrities.
This isn’t about the photos. What it is about is yet another way for immature, obnoxious, hateful men to attempt to shame and demean women.
It’s also not about pointing out that sending photos to “the cloud” is risky. If that were true, we would be reading about stolen celebrities “dick pics” in addition to the nude photos of female celebrities. But, we aren’t hearing about those, now are we?
There are people saying the stolen photos are the fault of the female celebrities who dared to take a nude photo and send it to a lover via the internet. Those who have this view are a hairsbreadth away from saying that women who are raped are at fault because they dressed too sexy/ were drinking/ were flirting/ were out late at night/ etc.
Pay attention when you hear people blaming female celebrities for having their photos stolen. They are telling you, loud and clear, that they do not believe it is acceptable for women to freely express their own sexuality with their lover/spouse/significant other in whatever way the woman wants to. They are also saying that they think it is perfectly acceptable to violate the privacy of someone if that person is female.
Then, when you notice that kind of garbage coming out of someone’s mouth, get away from them. They are letting you know that they don’t respect women, don’t have any idea of what healthy boundaries are, and that they think it is acceptable for men to try and use women’s own bodies as a weapon against them.
It’s Not About the Photos is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
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