If you don’t want your nude photos shown all over the internet, don’t take nude photos. If you don’t want to get raped, don’t wear revealing clothing. If you don’t want your identity stolen, don’t use credit cards. If you don’t want to get robbed, don’t buy things. If you don’t want to get electrocuted, don’t have any electronics. If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t have a face.
Enough! Enough with victim blaming, no matter the crime. If your first response to the photo leak was to shout that people shouldn’t take naked photos, just stop! If your first response was to proclaim how you never have and never will take nude photos, congratulations! Would you and your high horse like a cookie?
Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe this is a concept that some people can’t understand but where I come from, when a crime is committed the person to blame is the criminal who committed said crime.
But sadly we leave in a society where that’s not always the case, especially when the crime is of a sexual nature. People will bend over backwards to find reasons the victims brought it upon themselves.
In this case, these reasons are as follows: Those celebrities shouldn’t have taken the photos in the first place. They should have covered their faces. They were stupid for saving the photos on iCloud.
Now don’t get me wrong, that is some solid advice. This is a reminder for everyone that it is harder and harder to keep things private these days. This became big news because of the people it happened to but even us common folk get our private photos/videos leaked on the Internet. However, if your first and only response is one of those reasons and not that this is a gross violation of privacy and the person who hacked the photos is to blame, then you are part of the problem.
That should be the biggest and only problem about this photo leak: Privacy! The content of the photos should be a non-issue here. It’s just boobs, but to some people that seems to be the biggest problem. Because don’t forget ladies, the second you decide to take control of your own sexuality, you’re not doing what society expects of you. Your sexuality is a prop and commodity for others to do what they please with. You break away from that mold and expect to be condemned.
I am sick and tired of people being blamed when a crime is committed against them. Let’s stop with the victim shaming once and for all. The only person who should be blamed when a crime is committed is the criminal.
(Sorry that this post is kind of all over the place. I started school on Thursday so I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. And I have to go to the dentist today so I have been extra cranky. I promise something upbeat for my next post!)
Am I Thirty Yet 
AMEN. I honestly don’t understand victim blaming! “Someone innocent had a crime committed against them and they feel violated and terrible, so it makes perfect sense for me to blame the whole thing on them and figure out what they did wrong, it’s going to make them feel so much better”
My thoughts exactly. 🙂
Great post as always, girl! And I completely agree! BTW’s…how is school going so far?!?!
School is going well, just keeping my really busy. Tomorrow is only the third day and I already have so much work to do.
Oofta. I remember it well. Just remember to breath. And keep a stash of emergency chocolate by your desk at all times (it definitely helps ease the pain of writing papers and reading text books till all hours of the morning). You got this, girl! 🙂
Haha it’s funny you say that. Last night when I got home from class the first thing I did was eat a mini kit kat bar and baby ruth bar.
My dad was trying to argue the whole, don’t take the photo if you don’t want it to be found argument for Jennifer Lawrence, I wish I would’ve thought of this as a comeback.
Everyone will have their own opinion on taking nude photos. Some people don’t agree with, some people will never do it. I get all that. However, it’s a choice that anyone is free to make and those private photos shouldn’t be plastered all over the Internet without consent.
I entirely agree.
“If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t have a face.”
You kill me, Thirty! I give you more thumbs up than I have thumbs! This is my biggest fear about technology, that nothing is truly private (as proven when my family’s text messages ended up on each other’s phones, some kind of AT&T goofup. Luckily the most explicit texts from my mom to dad was reminding him to pick up more milk). Will never understand people who blame the victim when there’s nothing they can do about it now, as Britney Lee said.
It is scary how nothing really is private these days. You need to be so careful with anything you say or do because even deleting isn’t enough.
I believe that was the case with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s photos. According to her Twitter feed, she did delete the photos but they were recovered anyway. Shows just how much effort went into this. Horrifying.
Yea it is horrible. She actually tweeted about it saying how it’s sad and scary how much trouble someone must have went to get those photos. And she was bombarded with hate from people on twitter because she spoke out about it. A bunch of people were blaming her for taking the photos in the first place. I just don’t understand people.
Amen! To hell with victim blaming.
As someone dealing with the effects of identity theft right now, I have to say that the support I’ve received from friends has been wonderful. The creditors have been working swiftly to repair the damages. But the amount of times I’ve heard ‘Well, you asked for it’ or ‘You let it happen’ makes me roll my eyes. You can read more about it here: http://alanjryland.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/gay-interrupted-perspectives-and-paradigms-from-a-homeless-writer-on-a-life-no-longer-in-stasis/
That said: These women are innocent and do not deserve the vitriol that’s come their way. To continue to reinforce the lessons of shame that breed raging insecurities, that ravage self-esteem and that contribute to the ever alarming suicide rate among men and women alike is disgusting. We need to stop attacking people for what they do in their own bedrooms and I say that firmly as a gay male, a member of a community whose entire existence is judged on this alone.
I don’t understand that. You’re already dealing with the identity theft (I am sorry to hear about that). People are not helping, they are just making it worse, by somehow turning the blame on you. That bothers me so much.
It bothers me too, immensely. We have a very unfortunate ‘pick yourself up by your bootstraps!’ mentality in the United States which has, sadly, mutated into a one-size-fits-all bible where simply hearing of someone’s misfortune causes people to turn their backs and immediately think, ‘Well, at least that’s not me.’ The amount of times I’ve heard, ‘Well, I would NEVER have allowed that to happen’ make my head hurt.
I find that comments like these always come from a place of ignorance and that alone has sapped us of empathy. It’s easier to face things in a cold and even clinical way when the media bombards you with stories so troubling that the thought of these instances potentially impacting you or those around you simply does not compute.
That I am keenly aware of this is not lost on me. That I’ve lost the support of people who I thought were close to me is sad, even disappointing. But I’m doing all I can, getting the word out and looking for work. There’s a lot that needs to be fixed and if cropping out some negative energy is the way to go, than so be it.
Why does society encourage its citizens to look away when someone is in tears? That’s when you’re needed most.
Something to think about; sorry if I’ve rambled, haha. Had another interview this morning that went pretty well. Just got back and going to get some more writing out of the way! 🙂
Don’t apologize. I always enjoy reading your comments. And exciting about the job interview. Hope it works out. 🙂
Why thank you! I appreciate it.
I should hear back from this job by the middle of the coming week. The interview went far more smoothly than I anticipated, considering I hadn’t slept well the night before! Fingers crossed!
I so know what you mean…
I’m so glad to see that some people get it. 🙂
If I’ve learned anything from this privacy breach, it’s that nothing is truly private. Technology really is a double edged sword, isn’t it?
It definitely is. I still believe that technology has done more good then bad but we need to be very conscience of the bad aspects.
It is unfortunate that many people think there is privacy on the Internet. There is very little privacy these things when hackers can easily for instance, steal credit card information. The other day, I heard about the possibility of a big security breach at Home Depot on credit card information of customers. Here is the link.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/09/03/data-breach-bulletin-home-depot-credit-card-breach-could-prove-to-be-larger-than-target-breach/
Yea we just spoke about that in my computer class at grad school yesterday. It’s scary. It makes me want to start using cash again for everything.
I completely agree with this! If someone hacked into my phone or bank account they’d be really disappointed. There’s not much you can do with £1.13 and a picture of a monkey riding a dog.
Soph x
Haha, same for me!
Hear hear! Could not agree more.
Thanks. I’m glad to see so many agree with this!