A short thing on why The Fappening matters

Yay, boobs! Cool. Are we done? Great. The Fappening is one of those things that's easier to process using humor and hormones because it makes it hurt a little less. However, the second you stop using those silly coping mechanisms, you realize that putting naked pictures of people, famous or not, on the web without their consent is a violation of their privacy, and whenever you have violation and people, in this case a lot of women, on the same sentence, you have a big problem on your hands.

I know you have a lot to do and probably have read a ton about it already, so I'll get to the point quickly. Here's why The Fappening matters: 

1. We love to complain about the NSA peeping into our lives, but we're ready to click on any link that promises a little peek into the lives of the rich and famous...and the poor and infamous...and anybody who's not us. We want privacy because we do awful shit in private, but we want to know what everyone else is doing. It's kind of awful, but we all do it, so it's okay, right?  

2. Privacy is a thing of the past. It's dead. Deal with it. The existence of a right is not a guarantee of said right, and thinking otherwise is stupid and dangerous. Women who have breasts and cameras are free to do whatever they want with both, but they should do so knowing that privacy is only alive as a idyllic concept, not a reality. Every email and text you send can be read, everything you post on Facebook belongs to Facebook, and every action, picture, comment, work of art or whatever else you put in your computer, whether you share it or not, is something that someone can steal. It could be the NSA or your pervy neighbor, but it can, and probably will, happen. I'm not saying that these women are to blame, just that they were probably operating under the old idea that what's yours is actually yours and other people shouldn't put their filthy paws on it. That's normal. No one parks their car expecting it to be stolen, but thousands of cars are stolen every day. The same goes for all your vital digital data. Is that wrong? Hell yes! Sadly, denial doesn't make the problem go away. Listen, we are all equal, right? Ask any young black dude in this country if he feels as safe dealing with cops as a white dude and see what kind of response you get. See? Real life vs. the truth is always uncomfortable. What people fail to understand is that the way things should be is not the way things are, and the fact that they're not the way they should be affects all of us, especially if we decide to act in ways that ignore the dangers and put us at risk. If I have to walk past the cops, you bet your ass I'm taking my hands out of my pockets and keeping all sudden movements to a minimum. Likewise, when I send someone a dick pic, I know that image has the same odds of being immediately deleted that it has of going viral. Sadly, the same applies to that photo if I decide to save it somewhere "secret" or "private" that happens to be connected to the web. 

3. This country's stupid puritanism has created a society obsessed with nudity, and things like The Fappening demonstrate how ugly things can get when that backfires. Rights are violated time and again. Ethics are trampled. Morbidity takes over like a zombie virus in a bad horror movie. I grew up spending four months of each year in Spain, a country where a naked woman showering on television is just another body lotion or shampoo ad. Then I moved to the state and learned that The Nipple is public enemy number one. We can kill each other in the streets, but you won't see one a nipple on television, and if you do, someone's handing their ass over to the FCC. Usually, this country is fine with its put-that-shit-in-a-paper-bag culture and making fun of how "sick" the Japanese are, but then we get a chance to see some famous boobies and the internet explodes, no other piece of news matter, and folks start realizing that their favorite celebrities are not as "wholesome" as mass media moguls would like them to be.

 

There you have it, three reasons why this collection of naked celebrities is, more than a titillating trip to Tabooville, a cultural phenomenon that should be used to remind folks that the panopticon is a reality and we're all inside it. Sadly, you can be the peeper today and the victim tomorrow, so be careful about celebrating celebrititties too much. I'm sure we'll reinstate privacy as a real right the second we're done eradicating racism, sexism, and homophobia in this country...