Pornosophy:Turning Away From the Sight of a Celebrity’s Breasts and Tushy

Uploading of nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and other celebrities has resulted in cries of outrage across the Internet and elsewhere. It’s one thing for sites like 4Chan to post the usual run of the mill pornography, but another to invade someone’s private trove of pictures ("Nude Photos of Jennifer Lawrence Are Latest Front in Online Privacy Debate,” NYT, 8/2/14).Years ago a stolen video of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee cavorting on their honeymoon created an outcry, but the issue of hacking rather than simple thievery is more threatening due to its potential pervasiveness. And there are those who wonder why celebrities would be storing nude photos of themselves in the first place and those like Lena Dunham who defend them. “The ‘don’t take nude pics if you don’t want them online’ argument is the ’she was wearing short skirt’ of the web. Ugh,” Dunham Tweeted. But besides the stars who have suffered from the invasion of privacy, there is the plight of those morally minded sleaze bags who have had to figure out a way to prevent themselves from transgressing. One of the methods often employed to avoid this kind of immoral voyeurism is to say that the only difference between the illicit photo of Kate Upton on the internet and the one you saw in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is that now you can see more of her breasts and her tushy. And so what? Breasts are just breasts and a tushy is simply a tushy. The problem is that this logic ruins the enjoyment of all pornography. If it makes no difference to see Kate Upton’s or Jennifer Lawrence’s breasts or tushy, why would one want to see any strangers breasts or tushy?