Between cell phone cameras, dash cams, nanny cams, internet hackers, and all that Facebook and Google mine from our accounts and emails every day, it is no surprise that celebrity photos of Jennifer Lawrence recently surfaced on the web. While we, as a culture, may feel that we have a right to privacy, the facts of modern life mean that we don’t much have a reality of privacy anymore.
This is a mixed bag – on the one hand it means that police brutality and campus rapes have been caught on camera, making it possible to prosecute people who probably would otherwise have gotten away with their crimes. It also means that when you take nude photos and store them on your computer or online, or send an intern a dick pic or send your boyfriend that hot beaver shot, it is safe to assume the intended audience might not be the only audience.
We believe the end of privacy has potential to change our society drastically, especially around sex and relationships, which will continue to be more and more under the purview of the public eye. Will this make us more open and less prudish as a culture? Possibly. Will it continue to spark debate and raise consciousness about rape and objectification? Hopefully.
And as for Jennifer’s and her nude photos – she appears to be a deeply sexually empowered woman. While we should all be outraged that they were published without her consent, we hope she will not be ashamed of them. We think they are gorgeous.