Was it prudent of Jennifer Lawrence to take pictures of herself nude in the first place? Y/N?

[xaszatm]

This situation is so filled with ridiculous irony.

So let's get this straight - people whose large degree of wealth is based on other people looking at idealized (makeup, helpful lighting, camera angles, photoshopping, editing, etc) versions of their often nearly-naked bodies are upset that now people are looking at non-idealized versions of their nearly-naked or fully naked bodies.

This is the core of what's happening here. It's not about privacy - it's about controlling the way one's body is perceived. These are, except for the posing and whatever minor day-to-day enhancements these women are using at the time, NATURAL images of the women. This is the problem for them, not the "lack of privacy".

There's no GLAMOUR to these images. While this lack of glamour might be fine for their boyfriends, it abhors them for their "fans" to see them minus the glamour that their cadre of photographers, editors, makeup artists, etc. usually provide them.

These are women who have already put their barely clothed or not clothed bodies on display, in the context of idealization and wealth maximization. These women forgo privacy to exploit others for their own profit, and it's the perceived injury to their ability to continue to exploit that's the problem. But of course privacy is used as the excuse, as it's potentially a more effective argument than the truth.

It's heroic to post these images. It shows human beings so far bedazzled by glamour into worshiping these women the truth about what these women actually look like.

These images are in no way an attack on the women - they are an attack on the *image machines* - the system of editors, makeup artists, movie studios, photoshoppers, and the like who control and idealize the IMAGES of the women that they so kindly ALLOW into the world.

This is an attack on Sports Illustrated, Hollywood, Maxim, and the like. It's a very big fuck you to them, and I love it.

...really? So these people have no right to complain at all about their nude photos being released publicly across the internet? Jenifer is the "villain" and the hacker is a "hero"? What sort of messed up Kool-Aid are you drinking, good sir?

If I were to publically hack into your files and steal personal and valuable information about you and post it everywhere, why would you complain? I'm your hero. Oh? It's different because these people are celebrities? NO THEY AREN'T! Paparazzi take unflattering photos of women all the time. These photos are an invasion of privacy and you are trying to make sure that the dirt the hacker created sticks because of "heroism."

snip

Also, what he said. High Five Spot1990.

 

[JetVypre]

Dishonest people exist. This is a fact, no matter how much you defend laws/rules, moral or otherwise, there will always be people who will attempt to undermine them (for teh lulz). Humanity sucks, blah blah blah.

This does not in anyway condone anything these people do, I'm just pointing it out.

If you take something as sensitive and private as nude pictures and store them ANYWHERE NEAR the internet, then there will always be the potential for said hackers to access them. Game over, never unseen.

As far as I have read, nobody is sure on how these pictures were acquired, so this may not apply. However, if it was due to iCloud or their phones being hacked, then I think it can be argued that a small portion of responsibility falls on the individual. Whilst if they were taken from a secure source (secure HDD and such) then of course they couldn't remotely be held responsible.

My analogy would be: If I have £1000 cash (or however much you consider nude pictures to be worth) in my wallet, perched slightly poking out of my back pocket so the money was visible and walked through a packed city train station, chances are, that wallet is gone within 30 seconds to pickpockets. I think most will agree that some of the blame would fall on me for not considering the risks in that instance. OR if I wasn't aware of the fact that city train stations are a hot spot for pickpockets, awareness should be raised of pickpockets.

However, if I take that £1000 cash and staple it to my chest underneath my coat and walk through the same train station (assuming the blood isn't too noticeable) I'd bet that £1000 that I could wander around that station for days and that money would be perfectly safe (albeit a bit blood stained). If someone mugged me and pulled out all the staples, I think most people would agree that in the scenario of carrying £1000 cash through a train station, I did a fairly good job of securing it and couldn't take any responsibility.

TLDR: If People are going to take nude photos, they need to be made or make themselves aware of how insecure the internet is, especially people in the public eye, and keep anything they don't want taken far away from it. If anything, everyone should take a lesson from this. Or just don't take nude photos...I don't understand why personally...

EDIT: Made my TLDR more to the point of the thread

 

[otakon17]

]There were other ways. Like sending them a sext. Or calling them on the phone. Or meeting with them in person for naughty times with the shades lowered and the curtains closed. All things involve risk and some things are more risky than others. The risk of exposure in this case outweighs the satisfaction of a successful flirt, to me anyway. Hindsight is 20/20 and all and it most definitely was not worth it at this point.

You're still blaming the people who had a crime perpetrated against them. All of those pictures are between consenting adults; some are even between spouses. We're to blame them for poor judgement but not the people who actually engaged in theft? If so, why?

I am not blaming her. I have said it a half dozen times and the blame for the whole mess falls to the assholes that stole them and spread them out. My only point is that at the time it did not seem like a smart decision. Put yourself in the same boat. You want to send a little something to your significant other. Does it seem like a good idea for it to be a picture over something as public as a cellphone?

I really can't understand how anyone would blame Jennifer Lawrence for the pictures being leaked. Isn't it obvious that it is solely the hacker's fault. She made a choice to take the pictures, which is perfectly fine unless you have an issue with any kind of nude picture being taken while in the privacy oh your home and only for that privacy, and the hacker made the choice to broadcast them, which is obviously morally wrong!

This isn't about laying blame, we know that the culprits that spread the data out are to blame. The point of the whole discussion is:

Was it prudent of her to take pictures of herself in that manner in the first place?

 

[Rattja]

Hehe, I've been saying this for years now.
Since my mom is somewhat addicted to taking pictures, documenting everything, I know all too well that there are pictures one just don't want the world to see. But I agreed back then, regretted it later and now shy away from any lens pointing my way.

I think that if you take these kinds of pictures, you also risk that anyone can see them at some point, and I don't really feel bad for you if that were to happen. It could have been prevented by simply not taking them in the first place.

People in general don't seem to adjust to the digital world we have created all that well. I mean, in theory this is the same as someone breaking into your home or whatever, grabbing a physical photo and coppy it right? The only difference is that it's easier to do now, as you just need to press the right keys and bam! Instant exposure.

I actually have a close friend that had this happen to her, where her previous husband spread them around, and I told her the same thing, should not have done it in the first place.
I get why someone may want to take pictures like this, but it's rather stupid to think they will ever be safe in this day and age as long as it's in digital form.
Hell, even deleting the things does not save you from someone who really wants to dig.

One could point fingers all day, but at the end of the day it could only be prevented by the person in the picture and only that person. We have yet to make a system that is unhackable, so just go with a physical picture in a safe or something if you just HAVE to take these pictures.

Regradless of everything, people in general can't be trusted, it is somewhat amusing that many seem to think they can.
It's just as with secrets, as soon as you tell someone it's out of your hands what that person will do with it.
Which makes me think about how messed up it is that we need to keep secrets of any kind in the first place.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I am not blaming her. I have said it a half dozen times and the blame for the whole mess falls to the assholes that stole them and spread them out. My only point is that at the time it did not seem like a smart decision. Put yourself in the same boat. You want to send a little something to your significant other. Does it seem like a good idea for it to be a picture over something as public as a cellphone?

This whole thing was about iCloud storage, which to be fair is a bit esoteric to the general public yet. Sending pics via MMS is one thing, but cloud storage is another. Neither case makes it justifiable.

Captcha: "box kitty" Oh, for fuck's sake.

 

[alandavidson]

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, if you think about it, how could any of these female celebrities think that this is any fault but their own?

These women should know that because they were born with breasts and ovaries that they should be vigilant and paranoid, and if they make one wrong move, they are to blame. How could they have not known they are targets? Haven't we been telling them that their entire lives? If they go out to a club they are soley responsible for keeping track of their drinks to make sure no one drugs them. When they dress, it must be in such a way that doesn't cause a man to lust, and thus provoke a sexual assault. Their words and actions mustn't be flirty or provocative, or else they might risk turning someone on, and then become a victim because they weren't careful enough. And if they take pictures of themselves nude, then they should know that someone will find those pictures and spread them across the internet.

And these women are to blame because they should have known better than to expect privacy and human decency. What were they thinking?



(For anyone who didn't get it, the above is sarcasm)

 

[Brian Tams]

By my estimation, exactly 4 groups of people deserve blame here.

1. The Hackers
2. The people who reposted the pictures ad nauseam
3. The shallow people who actively searched for them, which encourages the people in points 1 & 2 to keep doing what they're doing
4. The providers of the security that got hacked.

I feel bad for the celebrities. Those were supposed to be private.

That being said, this is a good cautionary tale; the internet is an insecure place.

 

[giles]

This isn't about laying blame, we know that the culprits that spread the data out are to blame. The point of the whole discussion is:

Was it prudent of her to take pictures of herself in that manner in the first place?

Forget it. You won't have a discussion like that here because most people can't differentiate between proper risk-reward-assessment and "victim blaming", at least when the topic comes up after something happened. Source? This thread. Look at everyone jumping at the chance to wag their finger at you, oh what a mean victim blamer you are!
I mean do these people not lock their front door? There's no reason for people to lock their doors, it's not their fault when they get robbed, it's the thieves who are at fault!
Fucking hell.

On the original question: No, I don't think it's smart for a celebrity to keep photos of their private parts around. It's completely in their right to take nude pictures and it's in no way "their own fault" if they get stolen, but it's not smart from a risk reward standpoint. Celebrities are already a target for weirdos and "hackers" like this.
If you're a hollywood actor you are selling your looks in some way and having everyone see you naked is damaging to your career. It's like keeping all your life's savings in a big box with a dollar sign on your kitchen table. Sure, you can do that, but the expected loss of it getting stolen and ruining your life kinda outweighs the benefit of you exercising your god given right to keep money in obvious boxes.

 

[KazeAizen]

Here, let me tell you my response in image form:

[img=https://38.media.tumblr.com/23bada4f7d151707df3ad8e889940159/tumblr_nbaxr1Gvcg1qel5vuo1_500.png]https://38.media.tumblr.com/23bada4f7d151707df3ad8e889940159/tumblr_nbaxr1Gvcg1qel5vuo1_500.png[/img]

Now stop.

My good sir or madam. You have won the internet today. Take this imaginary cake and cookie from me.

 

[Daverson]

No. In my mind, there's no difference between saying "I've got some private pictures I don't want everyone looking at" and "I've got some private genitals that I don't want everyone looking at". And only an arsehole would try to claim that someone's status as a celebrity should magically invalidate their right to privacy.

However

I do think it's a bit hypocritical to spend your entire life perpetuating and profiting from the stereotype that a woman's self-worth can only be judged based on her looks, then act like it's some massive outrage when some creep decides to go above and beyond to "get a better view".

I'm sure some of these women didn't deserve this, and I certainly don't condone the actions of the hackers. But I'm finding it really difficult to feel any sympathy here.

 

[alandavidson]

On the original question: No, I don't think it's smart for a celebrity to keep photos of their private parts around. It's completely in their right to take nude pictures and it's in no way "their own fault" if they get stolen, but it's not smart from a risk reward standpoint. Celebrities are already a target for weirdos and "hackers" like this.
If you're a hollywood actor you are selling your looks in some way and having everyone see you naked is damaging to your career. It's like keeping all your life's savings in a big box with a dollar sign on your kitchen table. Sure, you can do that, but the expected loss of it getting stolen and ruining your life kinda outweighs the benefit of you exercising your god given right to keep money in boxes.

I'm sorry, for a minute had this really stupid thought that celebrities were people who enjoyed the same rights, freedoms, and expectations as everyone else. Thanks for reminding me that's so far from the truth. What the hell was I thinking?

 

[ForumSafari]

Practical:
Well them not taking the photos would have been better but human beings are vain so obviously the first thing people are going to do with a camera and a hot body is combine the two. Realistically you can't expect human beings to treat technology with the respect and foresight it deserves.

However, then uploading them to a third party service is pure idiocy. There is no excuse for that, you should be able to imagine how bad leaked nudes would make you feel and plan a security solution around that. not knowing how it works is no excuse, if you don't understand a machine don't point it at your naked body.

Moral:
The celebrities (by which I mean Jennifer Lawrence and all the others no one gives a fuck about) had no duty of care to make sure they didn't upload these photos to the cloud and the people that took them are entirely at fault.

Whimsical:
I think a lot of the 'victim blaming' 'violation' stuff is only because they/she's a woman. If she'd been a man it'd be a mixture of 'lol what a retard' and 'lol what an amusing page 7 story' as judged by previous times this has happened. They didn't deserve to have what happened to them happen, it is morally wrong of these people to do what they did. However, the celebrities in question also behaved like complete and utter retards. Don't upload sensitive pictures to the Cloud, it's a bad idea in the same way that me taking my bags of money for a walk through the ghetto is stupid.

 

[Lightknight]

Here, let me tell you my response in image form:

[img=https://38.media.tumblr.com/23bada4f7d151707df3ad8e889940159/tumblr_nbaxr1Gvcg1qel5vuo1_500.png]https://38.media.tumblr.com/23bada4f7d151707df3ad8e889940159/tumblr_nbaxr1Gvcg1qel5vuo1_500.png[/img]

Now stop.

My good sir or madam. You have won the internet today. Take this imaginary cake and cookie from me.

The guy in the cartoon is partially responsible for getting kicked in the balls because he was being a dick to the wrong person.

 

[giles]

I'm sorry, for a minute had this really stupid thought that celebrities were people who enjoyed the same rights, freedoms, and expectations as everyone else. Thanks for reminding me that's so far from the truth. What the hell was I thinking?

Whoa what a clever one liner that misses the point entirely. Thanks for reminding me that we can't have a grown up discussion around here. What the hell was I thinking?


I would give you more of an answer and expand on my point about how a celebrity has the same "rights, freedoms and expectations as everyone else" but has a unique standpoint when it comes to risk assessment of taking nude pictures (which is WAY more than your post deserves), but I feel like I would essentially just be repeating myself. Read my original post again.

 

[Blow_Pop]

Who cares?

Seriously.

Sometimes you look good naked and want to take photos so you can remind yourself of this fact. For that reason alone, yes it was prudent of her to do so (whether or not that was her actual reason for them). And OP, you still kind of come off as victim blaming.

There is never a reason to expose someone's private photos to everyone or anyone else that you don't have express permission to do so with.

If someone says hey, send these photos along to x because I lost their number or whatever, then yes send them to THAT person ONLY.

There's no reason why someone should be condemned for taking "risque" photos of themselves. But that's just my 2 cents on the matter.

And personally I haven't seen them, nor do I care to see them. I don't like her for my own reasons but that doesn't mean that I think she deserves what happened because that's a fucked up thing to do. Celebrity or not.

 

[Panda Pandemic]

Have to agree with the people who say that it's like saying we shouldn't own things. No problem with the stuff existing at all. The unfortunate thing is the storage spot was not as secure as people may usually think and others took advantage of that.

 

[Lieju]

This situation is so filled with ridiculous irony.

So let's get this straight - people whose large degree of wealth is based on other people looking at idealized (makeup, helpful lighting, camera angles, photoshopping, editing, etc) versions of their often nearly-naked bodies are upset that now people are looking at non-idealized versions of their nearly-naked or fully naked bodies.

This is the core of what's happening here. It's not about privacy - it's about controlling the way one's body is perceived. These are, except for the posing and whatever minor day-to-day enhancements these women are using at the time, NATURAL images of the women. This is the problem for them, not the "lack of privacy".

So because they consented to having certain pictures of them taken (in most cases not NUDE ones) then spreading any private pictures is suddenly a OK?

This is some pretty shitty logic.

Giving consent on something doesn't mean it's always okay!

You can't go and force someone to have sex with you and make it magically okay because she consented to having sex with other people.

That's exactly the same kind of logic at play here.

It doesn't matter if they're natural images or whatnot.

It's their choice if they want to show off their body, not yours, no matter how natural you find it.

And it's nice how you know what those women think, how they don't want privacy or anything.
After all, if your job involves being on the public eye, why would you want to have a private life???

 

[Cronenberg1]

I agree that taking nude photos and keeping them in places where someone could steel them is not a good idea and should be discouraged, but I absolutely do not agree with using these instances to express those worries. Was it maybe a bad idea? sure but that doesn't matter anymore because it already happened. Not everyone makes perfect decisions 100% of the time. There is a time and place for talking about keeping you're privacy safe, but this is not the time or place. So go home captain hindsight your opinion is not needed here.

 

[omega 616]

I hate this site for that shit, "I am not victim blaming here" ... "yes you are!". How about you just believe the guy/gal and take him/her at their word?

I think taking nude pics of yourself is stupid, if you do want to do it ... crop your face out of the shot!

What I honestly don't get is wanting to look at a celeb nude, she has boobs and a vagina ... like just about every woman out there! There is also terabytes upon terabytes of steamable porn to watched, why are you looking at stills? Have we not moved on from googling "lady naughty parts" at this point? That was back in the times of dial up and images loads millimeters at a time, probably took 10 minutes to get one image!

On top of that, the internet "loves Jennifer Lawrence" and then effectively sits in a tree outside her bedroom, taking pictures to show the world ... that's not love! That's, at most, lust! At worst fucking creepy stalking.

But, of course, all the neck beards and children out there have a chance to see a person they know naked and they foam at the mouth to see them!

I am very against people doing this to other people ... I have been sent rude pics and I could NEVER show those to anybody. They were sent to me in trust, I could never break that trust, they are VERY private and intimate. Even if that person hurts me, I couldn't lower myself to do that to somebody.