Serious question: Is it incorrect to say that it’s inadvisable for public figures to take nude photos of themselves, or is it wrong to say that? The latter argument seems very well developed in this thread, and also not entirely unconvincing, but someone like the OP can nonetheless fall back on the position that the former argument is not so easily supported.
It’s a common refrain in other analogous contexts, too: sure, a person should be able to leave his doors unlocked with his valuables inside, or walk down the street naked free of any molestation or unwanted attention, but that’s just not the world we live in. It would be great if you could do that… but also you can’t, so don’t.
I don’t think it’s really a question of correctness, though. Advisability is in the eye of the beholder. All these decisions are risk/reward calculations that aren’t really subject to precision. Justin Verlander must have had some vague sense that taking naked pictures with Kate Upton increased the chances that his balls were going to be seen by the public. He must have disregarded that risk based on what he felt he gained by the experience. Having never had to stare down that particular barrel, I don’t think it’s really a factual dispute whether that was advisable or not.
How do you handle the rage of 42 burning suns 24/7?
I’ll momentarily set aside serious discussion of the issue to say that were I Justin Verlander, I’d say: “Yes, there’s pictures of me naked with Kate Upton. There are NO pictures of YOU naked with Kate Upton nor will there ever be, and you DON’T and will never have a multimillion dollar MLB contract either. Who’s winning, again?”
How often is someone’s phone/computer hacked and private, potentially embarrassing images and files distributed to the masses? I think this happens very rarely compared to the number of people out there who store private, potentially embarrassing information on such devices. This rarity should factor into our risk assessment.
Because even if this kind of theft occurred as commonly as other petty crimes, calling it “inadvisable” is subject to biased interpretation. For instance, I could declare it inadvisable to play American football because of the risk of head trauma, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who would attack that position. But am I wrong? I mean, there are lots of addle-brained ex-football players out there. It’s probably fair to say my judgment has a lot to do with me thinking the sport is stupid and pointless. People who don’t think football is stupid and pointless are willing to take on the risk of head trauma, and will strenuously disagree with me calling their interests “inadvisable”.
I don’t know why he had to make it personal.
The idea seems to be that, if before something bad happens, you classify behavior as increasing the risk of something bad happening, its okay. After something bad happens, if you mention that certain behavior increased the chance of it happening, its wrong?
Hello and welcome to the thread! Nobody “mentioned” that a behavior increases the risk of something happening. This story is about a crime and the OP and a few other posters mocked the victim. There’s room for discussion ways to protect yourself, he said yet again. It has to be done the right way, and I don’t think the OP even tried for that.
I see what you’re saying, but it’s not as if the question of advisability is *entirely *inscrutable and mysterious and thus not suitable for any outside comment. The downside is actually pretty tangible. The benefit is much harder to quantify, but in most cases is likely to be ephemeral. While allowing for a goodly amount of necessary uncertainty (or subjectivity), it’s hardly unreasonable to believe that, in most cases, the pictures were ill-considered: spur-of-the-moment decisions that weren’t subject to even an informal cost-benefit analysis and which likely would have been rejected if they had been. That’s not *obviously *correct, but, given where we are, it’s also on its face not obviously incorrect.
The probabilities absolutely have to factor in, that’s true, and of course they’re also very hard to estimate. However, the chances are probably a great deal higher for a celebrity than for you or me, and it’s not just hacked devices that one needs to worry about. I would actually be more concerned about a disgruntled lover, a careless lover, a careless me, and the possibility that I’m not even realizing some other way the pics could become public.
This is a pretty good example. It does underscore how much depends on preference, on the individual, and you’re right: it’s basically impossible to determine for someone else what is or is not worth a given risk. Over on Deadspin, they had series of interviews with some of the former players who sued the league over head trauma, in which they asked the players, “Would you do it again?” It was an interesting series, and most players said they would.
However, here’s the thing: if you asked all the victims of these photo leaks if *they *would do it again, what percentage do you think would say Yes? I’m guessing zero or close to zero, which if true would be another, less problematic way to gauge advisability.
Yes, I’m pretty sure Justin Verlander will survive the stigma of being known as the guy who’s having sex with Kate Upton.
Thank you but you are a little late with your “welcome” since I’ve been following this thread since its begining and have a post of the first page.
The post that you quoted was my attempt to summarize what I saw was the two basic themes since there seemed to be a lot of citing of extremes on both sides.
It was sarcasm. Perhaps it’s a little too early in the day.
I don’t think it’s a good summary. It kind of reads like a strawman argument.
Sure. Even if roughly, it’s a thing you can do. Essentially what you’re talking about is just a negligence standard, which people are constantly suing each other under - would a reasonable person exercising ordinary care do this thing, was the outcome reasonably foreseeable, and all that. I think it’s a calculation that’s relevant if you need to apportion blame, though. That’s what this would be about. To varying degrees depending on, like, how hard their passwords were to guess, whether they had two-step verification, how careful they were about hotspots, how many pictures they took and what they did with them, and all that, it’s each one of these people’s fault that everyone can look at their pictures if they want. If the difference between a half-percent blameworthy and four-percent blameworthy is relevant, then we gotta run these numbers.
So why is it relevant? It’s correct that victims-of-horrible-tragedy-X were responsible to some diminishing and technical degree for what happened to them simply by virtue of their showing up, right? It would be wrong, but not incorrect, to say “well, if you don’t show up to work/go to the movies/get on a plane you can’t die at work/at the movies/on a plane.” I’m not sure I much care to what extent it may have been fairly accurate to say something was inadvisable if there is or ought to be universal agreement that there was an intervening malicious act that is certainly almost entirely deserving of the blame.
If this is a debate about the extent to which it was these people’s fault that this happened, OK, sure. But there’s always a determined effort on the part of the people making these kinds of common sense calculations to point out that they are not at all apportioning blame; they’re doing something else.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Yes, I’m pretty sure Justin Verlander will survive the stigma of being known as the guy who’s having sex with Kate Upton.
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I picked that example for a reason. I’m sure you’re not suggesting his privacy wasn’t violated, so I guess one of us is missing the other’s point.
This isn’t a helpful guide to determining advisability, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see why I would say this.
Ever been at a crowded event and been groped or pickpocketed? Most people will find either one of these crimes unpleasant. Depending on the circumstance, it might even traumatize you so badly that you’ll never want to go to a crowded event again. But I wouldn’t say this reaction has any bearing on whether it is advisable to go to crowded events in general.
I remember reading a hypothetical on another board that makes me think of thread. The hypothetical is simple: if a woman wearing a string bikini goes to the beach and is verbally harassed, is she partially to blame for it? Is she being careless by wearing such a garment and therefore, less worthy of sympathy? Does her culpability change if she’s wearing a one-piece? What if she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt? At what point is it fair to say she’s isn’t “asking for it”?
On that board, I was surprised to see so many posters saying a bikini-clad woman carried should know better than to wear something like that and expect to be respected by strangers. I was surprised because to me a string bikini is about as innocuous as any other garment; I don’t see why a woman wearing one means standards of conduct can be thrown out the window. Apparently, other people seem to think string bikini = slut uniform and thus, a license to treat someone like trash.
It is perplexing, this idea that an woman must be faulted if she happens to be doing be arousing at the same time something bad happens to her.
I was mostly just making a joke.
Personally, I don’t see any reason why there should any stigma associated with anyone whose pictures went public. So you took nude pictures of yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman or if you’re a celebrity or an unknown person. I’m not going to think any less of Jennifer Lawrence or Kate Upton or anyone else because they took some nude selfies.
The only people who did anything wrong here were the people who stole these pictures and posted them online. They’re the ones who should be ashamed of themselves - and should be facing criminal charges.
The only “blame” I place on the victims is they should have been smarter. This type of crime has happened too many times in the past for any celebrity to think it couldn’t happen to them. They’re not guilty of any moral failure but they should have known better.
Let me restate this (because I botched it the first time).
It is perplexing, this idea that a woman must be faulted if she happens to be doing something arousing at the same time something bad happens to her.
Really? I don’t know of anyone else who has had their phones/iCloud accounts hacked into like this. What other celebrities are you talking about?
This article from 2012 has a chart listing many of them, although I can’t vouch for its accuracy. Most of the cases involved personal computers or mail accounts, but there are a couple that say they were leaked from a mobile phone.
Thanks for digging this up.
Jimmy Chitwood, you with the face – I guess what I’m ultimately driving at is this:
I think it is likely correct to say that, in a strictly value-neutral and judgment-free way, it’s a bad idea for public figures to take nude photos of themselves, and I think hardly anyone seriously disputes this.
A person who goes online and *says *that it’s a bad idea nonetheless opens himself up to immediate (and sometime vociferous) accusations of victim-bashing and slut-shaming. To be fair, in many cases that’s exactly what’s going on. And I’m very sympathetic to some of the arguments we’ve seen in this thread; I get why it’s problematic and why it draws scorn … and yet it remains a true statement. I can not fucking believe I’m making this argument, but this is what conservative types mean when they complain about a chilling effect on discourse from “PC culture” or some shit. Thinking certain things (or, at least, saying them) is simply considered wrong, and deserving of scorn, irrespective of their accuracy. And that can be fucking annoying.