Selfies. More selfies.
Nude selfies. Nude rude selfies of nude rude bits and bobs. Was Bob actually in
the photo? But I digress. Or undress. Whatever. Are nude photos the end of the
world as we know it, or not what they’re cracked up to be?...
I often feel like I’m
surrounded by photos and images of nude or nearly nude people. Shutterstock, for
example, the company specialising in high quality digital photos (and where I
got the photo for this post from), have quite the selection of nude photos to
choose from. And wasn’t Hugh Jackman’s bum in the latest X-Men movie? And under
no circumstances are you (in an antique hunting fervour) to google “milk jugs”.
But let’s take a
closer look at Facebook (because it’s the only social media I use… ) I see far
more of other people’s “lives” and thoughts than I want to... I have a small number of teenage friends, but
because they have loads of friends and Facebook’s predilection to close the gap
on any degree of separation, I end up seeing the entire town’s collection of selfies
and scantily clad holiday snaps. (I’ve included a collection of Facebook photos
from the last couple of days below – these are celebrities that have been
shared or liked, not my actual FF’s themselves…)
It’s not that I want
to see all those photos. And I don’t actually want to see any more. But the
thing is, we’re allowed to look at photos of girls in push up bras and few
clothes or clothes that weirdly suggest no clothes, and we can ogle men with
bulging arm muscles and bulges in other places, but try and join in the fun
with your own pictures and you’ll be in trouble. For example, a 17 year old boy
has been prosecuted for having nude photos of himself on his own phone. That was America, but there are similar cases in the UK, and here in NZ we have the new Harmful Digital Communications
Act, which means we could start seeing similar convictions here. This Act means
that if you’re under 18 and take nude photos of yourself, or are involved in distributing images deemed
“indecent” or “obscene” you are breaking the law. The punishment is a fine up
to $200,000 or 10 years in prison.
This new Act has good
intentions written all over it – possibly good intentions with unintended
consequences. Ah yes, the worst kind. There are two issues. 1. taking photos of
yourself and 2. distributing photos of other people. Firstly, taking nude rude
photos of yourself. The idea is to protect our under 18’s from being exploited
by gross paedophiles, perverts and bastards who blackmail. However, it fails to
take into account that lots of photos are taken willingly by those under 18
themselves. And it’s actually legal to have sex at 16, so there’s a bit of inconsistency
around the age appropriateness of actions here (you can do the deed, just don’t
get carried away and take alluring photos...)
The other issue is
distributing the photos. This clause is designed to prevent “revenge porn” type
instances of photos being released without consent, and there’s no age limit to
this one. Again, revenge porn itself is
terrible. And it’s bad enough having your ex turn up at your place unannounced
and unexpected (and usually when they think you’re not home) to take what they
think is theirs (invariably it isn’t) without being true wankers and posting
compromising photos of you online as well.
The problem is who
gets caught up in this one. Take events at a local high school, for example. From
the latest newsletter: “over the last few weeks we have seen a disturbing
increase in a number of [students]… posting inappropriate naked pictures and
videos of themselves on the internet. It has reminded us that this behaviour is
more common than we think”. Uh-huh. You bet your bits and bobs it is. First
problem was that the students who took their own photos were under 18, second was
the fact that everyone in the entire school got sent the photos.
It would be a nice
world if people deleted any rude photos of others and sent their friends
messages saying “please don’t forward me those photos, I don’t want to see
them”. And seriously, I do wish that would happen more often. And I really
dislike the idea that some people were deliberately viewing the photos so they
could “have something over” the students in question. However, there were a
whole lot of others who unintentionally got caught up in what ended up being
the distribution of pornographic material of minors – half the school could
have been done for being paedophiles all because some students willingly took
photos of themselves. In my mind, the simplest way to overcome the stigma of photos
and distribution is to not care about nude photos – we’re all naked underneath
our clothes people.
There are a whole
range of scary and risky behaviours teenagers can engage in. For example, there is a much
higher chance of damage or death when it comes to testing the limits under the
influence of alcohol and drugs. But nude photos? There isn’t actually a lot of
innate danger in that. It actually comes down to a moral stance – the danger is
all in our heads people.
Back to Facebook. In
addition to the scantily clad photos and videos there are also a large number
of cute photos of kittens, little children and ponies and things. In some ways
this slightly weird juxtaposition only serves to “normalise” nudity. I’m really
not a fan of over sexualising our kids. But there’s something so ironic and
almost unjust about getting in trouble for your own experimentation. We live in
a world where companies make loads of money out of making our children look
sexual (make-up, clothes, endless scantily clad celebrity endorsements and ultimately
borderline pornographic advertising). But try and have some fun yourself and
goodness me that’s disgusting...
But is it? It seems to me that by criminalising both the taking (under 18) and distribution of photos we’re creating the very problem we’re trying to avoid. We are turning nude photos into a big deal. I’m not talking about photos and videos of other people in compromising positons. That is, and always should be, completely wrong and abhorrent. I’m talking specifically about taking nude photos of yourself. And really, if you haven’t tried it – you should! It’s fun. It’s empowering. It’s horny. And there’s nothing like parents joining in to put the teenagers off. They’ll never take nude photos of themselves again…
But is it? It seems to me that by criminalising both the taking (under 18) and distribution of photos we’re creating the very problem we’re trying to avoid. We are turning nude photos into a big deal. I’m not talking about photos and videos of other people in compromising positons. That is, and always should be, completely wrong and abhorrent. I’m talking specifically about taking nude photos of yourself. And really, if you haven’t tried it – you should! It’s fun. It’s empowering. It’s horny. And there’s nothing like parents joining in to put the teenagers off. They’ll never take nude photos of themselves again…
No comments:
Post a Comment