Blaming the Victims

      It was not a scandal.
      It was not a leak.
      It was not their fault.
      And I am fucking tired of hearing people make comments that imply these young women deserved to have their private photographs stolen and distributed illegally because they are a) famous, b) “stupid enough to have nudes on their phones”, or c) both.
      By now, I’m sure you’ve probably read about the big “hack” of iCloud that allow some skeevy son of a bitch steal – VIOLATING THEIR PRIVACY – the private (often nude or semi-nude) photographs of a bunch of female celebrities. Keep in mind that none of the bajillions of dick pics that I guarantee you were ALSO stored along with those female photos in the cloud, were released. A lot of finger-waggling about how if you don’t want your nudes stolen, you shouldn’t keep them on your phone or cloud account (or take them in the first place). A lot of slut shaming. A lot of victim blaming.
      And I’m fucking sick of it.
      When hackers stole a bunch of credit card info from Target last Christmas, did we all cluck our tongues and say, “Well, that’s what you get for shopping at Target. You were asking to be victimized”?
      No.
      FUCKING no.
      We were, quite rightly, angry at the perpetrators. We shook our fists are Target for not protecting our data and we took our business elsewhere, to a place we hope was more secure. But we didn’t blame victims.
      This whole thing is no different.
      There is nothing inherently wrong about taking nude photos. Put your bible down. The naked body is the most natural thing in the world,
      What IS inherently wrong?
      Stealing those photos. Distributing them illegally. It is tantamount to a violation of sexual assault. Without their consent, their bodies have been flaunted and displayed to the world. And that so many of you disgusting sons of bitches are blaming these ladies (and all the other ladies – yes, and some men – whose exes post their nudes on vengeful ex websites for petty post-break-up kicks) for being targeted by some skeezy THIEF is just flat-out appalling.
      Yeah – this is just a rant.
      That’s okay. I am SO FUCKING SICK of rape culture. Especially because so many of us (yes, me too) don’t even realize when we’re perpetuating it. We don’t realize that every time we cluck our tongue and say, “Gee, if she hadn’t been wearing that short skirt, she wouldn’t have gotten gang raped at that frat house”, we are SIDING WITH EVIL.
      And that’s bad.
      BAD Society. Bad!
      I posted the following in response to a friend on Facebook the other day, just after the theft occurred. He’s in green, I left myself and Cassidy un-anonymous because… well, we’re right. 😛
rant_victim_blaming
      This wasn’t the end of it, and the commentary goes on, but the fact of the matter is that blaming the victim is sick and wrong. Society needs to wake up. This is 2014, damn it.

Signed, Josie
Note: Images are “Mannquin 1, 2, 3” by (kgreggain) from SXC.hu

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