If you’re a straight guy looking for “fapping” material, the internet is your friend. It’s awash in freely available pictures of naked women of every size, shape, color, age, or hairstyle you prefer. And if you want more than pictures, the internet is happy to oblige, offering up videos featuring women of every description engaging in every sex act you can imagine, and then some.
You might think this would be enough.
But for some straight dudes, it evidently isn’t. They don’t just want to look at the mind-bogglingly enormous selection of women out there who have agreed to pose naked, or even perform explicit sex acts, on camera.
No, they also want to look at women who haven’t agreed to have their nude photos put on the internet. Hence the popularity of “ex-girlfriend” or “revenge porn” sites, filled with pictures that are (or at least purport to be) of ex-girlfriends who never wanted the pictures they shared with their then-boyfriends posted for the world to see.
Hence the popularity of “leaked” celebrity nudes.
The latest celebrity nudes scandal revolves around a gigantic collection of personal pictures stolen from the supposedly secure online accounts of an assortment of female celebs (and a couple of guys).
The most famous of the celebs in this current batch are Jennifer Lawrence – Jlaw – and Kate Upton; there are many others, including alleged pics of comedian Aubrey Plaza and gymnast McKayla Maroney, which internet “detectives” are scurrying to prove are real. Maroney is only 18; if the alleged pics of her are real, and weren’t taken very recently, they’re arguably child porn.
The pics were first released by an anon on internet cesspool 4chan, and they have found a welcome home on the slightly more respectable internet cesspool Reddit, where they have been posted and reposted, sometimes retouched and color-corrected, and celebrated with enthusiasm by hundreds of thousands of Redditors.
Indeed, the leaks have inspired a new subreddit, TheFappening, which has managed to gain 100,000 subscribers in a day. Evidently Reddit’s admins have no problem with a subreddit distributing stolen celebrity pics, including some that may well be child porn.
Naturally, Reddit being Reddit, some of new members of TheFappening are trying to distract from their odiousness by suggesting that those downloading Jlaw’s stolen pics also … donate to a charity fighting prostate cancer. Either that or start up their own prostate cancer fund – to make sure they get credit for their donations.
![TheJanders 224 points 2 hours ago Holy shit the news would be amazing.. "Spreaders of leaked celebrity nude photos raise millions for prostate cancer!" permalink save report give gold reply [–]BiGBANGTH3ORY 47 points an hour ago If any group of people could make that happen it would be the Reddit Army and r/TheFappening permalink save parent report give gold reply [–]TheJanders 34 points an hour ago I shall donate! However we should make our own fund so we can 1.Tell how much we have raised on our own, and 2. Get credit](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/prostate.png?resize=487%2C327&ssl=1)
Sorry, guys, that doesn’t make what you’ve done ok. And if you’re truly concerned about prostate cancer, why on earth did you wait until you needed some good PR to launch a fundraising effort?
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, meanwhile, one concerned fellow attempts to stand up for the hidden victims in the scandal: men. No, really.
Even some of the commenters feel obliged to point out that, er, the hacker almost certainly is a dude — not just because the leak originated at 4chan, or because the overwhelming majority of the pics are of women, but also because, you know, women can’t STEM.
![dfgdfgsd444 -4 points 7 hours ago Implying women know shit about computahs. permalink save give gold [–]ConanTheHynerian 2 points 6 hours ago* I know you're probably just joking but statistically, it's a fact that men hold most of the STEM degrees so maybe it is fair to say that most women don't know about computers and the hacker was probably a man. permalink save parent give gold [–]FlyBunnyy 1 point 3 hours ago Why is this getting downvoted? permalink save parent give gold [–]elwahrio 1 point 2 hours ago Because it sounds misogynistic](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/womencantstem.png?resize=379%2C479&ssl=1)
The strangest reaction to the scandal from an MRA that I’ve run across so far comes from the new Twitter account of A Voice for Men’s PR gal Janet Bloomfied (the one she created, in violation of Twitter’s rules, to get around her recent ban). After mocking celebs for taking private selfies or posing for their partners, Bloomfield posted a topless, headless picture of, presumably, herself, commenting “Is this me? Maybe. I text nothing I don’t want shared. #DontBeDumb.”
Apparently Bloomfield doesn’t quite understand the difference between posting nude photos of yourself and posting pictures of other people that have been obtained and posted without their consent. This isn’t particularly surprising, as MRAs in general seem to have trouble understanding the finer points (and the blindingly obvious points) of consent.
The enthusiasm with which so many male Redditors – and skeezy dudes in general – have greeted this latest leak of celebrity pics makes one wonder if it is not the celebrity of the women in question that is the draw but the lack of consent. After all, there are plenty of other celebrity nudes out there that the celebrities in question consented to have taken and published.
For a lot of those downloading and/or posting the pics of JLaw and Kate Upton and the rest, I suspect the real thrill comes not from seeing the nude bodies of these particular celebs – which, after all, are pretty similar to the nude bodies of porn actresses that can be found everywhere online – but from the violation of privacy that these pictures represent.
There is a real sadism here, driven in part, I suspect, by resentment that many female celebrities don’t agree to appear nude in their movies or to pose nude or topless for magazines. Sharing these stolen nudes is a way to punish JLaw and other female celebs who have so far refused to share every inch of their bodies with their male, er, fans.
It’s a toxic stew of entitlement, resentment, and misogyny. And no amount of donations to prostate cancer research will make up for it.
Ugh, I just perused that reddit thread in which they were talking about prostate cancer donations and stumbled upon this gem from someone named Aerowen 69
Asshole wants to be rewarded for charity with more privacy violating pictures. Lovely.
@WWTH, Ick. ICK. ALL OF THE ICK.
WWTH: More pictures? Stretch goals? I wonder if the words “Federal crime” haven’t sunk in with them yet.
Or, I have an idea! They could just donate money to a prostate cancer charity and NOT release any nude photos without consent! Then it could be a win-win situation!
Yeah, I know that’s not happening, because these people are terrible. These people are frighteningly terrible, because its pretty damned obvious its not about looking at nude pictures of women, it’s about doing it without her consent. That is pure getting off on boundary violations. That is pure creepiness.
Hell, they could donate to charity and still get boobs — they’d just need to get people with boobs to consent to show their boobs! But setting up a fundraiser where X dollars gets Y sexy woman // act // whatever would require work, and consent.
Two concepts utterly lost on these “activists”.
Sorry, sparky et all are right, it’s not that they don’t understand consent, and that’s they actively don’t want it.
I hate to sound stupid, but what does ‘STEM’ mean? trying to look it up online is hard since google thinks I mean stem-cells ^^;
“Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”.
Protip: the search word “acronym” helps a lot with stuff like this.
Science-tech-engineering-math. Basically a shorthand for “all the hardcore fields,” the ones in which governments say they want people to obtain, and that women are allegedly biologically ill-equipped to grasp.
StOdad: STEM means Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Y’know , all the “real” sciences that women can’t do because ladybrains.
Argenti: Firefighters have been known to sell calendars filled with sexy photos of themselves for charity. So, it could work, but yeah these guys aren’t interested in putting any kind of work into it. And they’re creeps who get off on boundary violations.
They’re really just not very good people. At all.
Ninja’d twice!
Hell, from what I’ve heard, there’s a group of porn stars in Japan who are letting people touch their boobs as long as they donate a certain amount of money to an AIDS charity. So, this stuff is actually happening, but these guys still can’t get into it if the women in question agree to it.
DUDES! CONSENT IS A THING!
For instance, one of my favorite teachers motivated his students by telling them he’d let them dye his hair any color of the rainbow they desired if they all passed his class.
His hair was funny colors for a summer. It was fantastic.
The fire department here does St. Baldricks day. The teams with women tend to do better, because most of the guys are already pretty much close cropped… and when the fundraiser is “Donate to fund cancer research for kiddos and we’ll let kids with cancer play with electric clippers and make these people bald!” We can get pretty good donations. 🙂
So, dudes, if you want to raise money for charity, DO IT THE LEGAL AND FUN AND WONDERFUL WAY!
With, you know, people who are okay with doing things for charity and have a sense of humor about it.
The fire department here does St. Baldricks day.
That sounds like a cunning plan.
I think that the prostate cancer donations are kinda a squicky meta-joke about masturbation.
Never say never–especially if it’s something horrible. There were, indeed, people crowing on various comment threads about those thefts and how it proved they were superior to the masses because they never use debit cards, just cash.
That said, you are correct that there was a difference in tone–they were painting themselves as smarter, rather than more moral, than the victims they were blaming. In this case, of course, we instead get both intellectual condemnation and moral condemnation.
So I don’t normally go to BuzzFeed for news, but I just stumbled across this article.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/fake-nude-photo-hashtag-for-solidarity-with-jennifer-lawrenc
Apparently, some 4chan users tried to start a hashtag trend where other women share nude photos of themselves “in solidarity with Jennifer Lawrence.” I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since it came from 4chan, but did they really think that would work?
Spoilers…it failed.
Apple investigated themselves and found themselves not guilty in the data breach of the iCloud.
I once saw a letter to an advice columnist, in which a husband complained about his wife. You see, she had not only NOT consented to filming their sex acts, but she had expressly DENIED consent. “NO, I will NOT allow you to film me having sex with you! Sex is not for film!”
So, he said he hid a camera, and secretly filmed their sex, so he could watch it later. When she caught him at it, she was furious! She had a hissy fit, and said she was leaving him! OH NOES!
Dear advice columnist, how do I explain to my wife that she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, and she needs to come back, and make me a sammich?
The worst part is that the advice columnist – a WOMAN – tried to give him advice about making it up to her. Had I been the advice columnist, I would advised the wife to seek legal counsel at once, and sue for damages.
What he did was tantamount to rape! I tried to explain that in the comments, but was shouted down by a bunch of jerks who said she was “just being too sensitive,” and “ought to do her duty and please her man,” and “you can’t have rape in marriage,” and other such rage-inducing nonsense.
So, in short, I think you’re right, Dave. It’s about the lack of consent. It turns them on, much more than the actual pictures ever could.
The only good thing about them cheering on such behavior is that by making their attitude public, women can see, and know who to avoid. That’s the ONLY good thing. Meanwhile, they are encouraging rape culture, and rapists think it’s cool to do stuff without consent, or even with an active denial. As long as they get their jollies, it’s all good, right? ARGGHH!!
Sound like Apple had fun paying with itself.
That is one of the oddest things to me about advice columnists. They often counsel people to continue a relationship with a person who has repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. Hello? WTF?
That’s one of the things I like about Captain Awkward. You’ll find none of that “make things work at all costs, somehow” advice there.
Knowing when to say goodbye and walk away is a vital life skill, imo.
In case of an ACTUAL apocalypse, I do not want to be among the survivors. I’d much rather be dead, and in Heaven, thank you very much.
Now, as for Sim apocalypses, those are fun to play. I think I’ll go play one right now, and forget about these jerks for a few hours.
Bye!
What really pisses me off is that leaked nudes are seen as something that negatively reflects on the woman’s part and not the asshole that leaked her private pictures.