By Zelda
Have you ever sent someone a nude picture of yourself? Perhaps to your significant other, a stranger online, or maybe a so-called ‘friend with benefits’? With the arrival of applications like Snapchat, where one can send and receive photos that can only be viewed for some seconds before being deleted, the practice of sending nudes has become even more accessible. Still, it is generally heavily frowned upon. Leaks, scandals and countless blackmailing attempts regarding such pictures are seen as discouragement for anyone who is tempted to resort to the sending of such a picture. But have you? It would not surprise me if you did. And if you ask me, it might not be that wrong to actually send out a nude picture.
The issue of privacy is of course, crucial. On the 31st of August, 2014, over 500 nude pictures of various celebrities were posted online by anonymous hackers. The event, cleverly referred to as ‘The Fappening’ caused a major stir in the media. Naturally, the security and privacy of online services were questioned. If this happened to them, it could happen to all of us. Of course, a private picture of a regular college student would not solicit the same kind of attention as that of a Hollywood celebrity, but still the thought stuck. In the big scheme of internet privacy, the question of how these pictures were leaked is interesting. Apple, of course, investigated this event, but came to the conclusion that the leaked images were caused by direct attacks on these specific users of their service. This would imply that your pictures are more or less safe in your iCloud, unless a skilled hacker is actively looking for them. Yet, we should not forget another player that, as most of us are aware these days, may have access to the pictures you store : intelligence organizations, such as the NSA or our own lovely Dutch AIVD. If whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden are to be believed, the NSA and other similar organizations have access to pretty much everything you do online, including your daring pictures; and perhaps even more worryingly, employees of the NSA have been reported to be trafficking internally in nude pictures of others gleaned through illegal means.
At our age, assessing long term risks can be a tricky issue. It is often said that adolescents are more reckless in their behaviour, since we are not good at planning and seeing future consequences clearly, something of which we are forcefully reminded when pulling an all-nighter to still write that paper or cram for that exam. This could also apply to the taking and sending of such pictures. Youngsters simply do not realize what the impact of it on their life could be, hence why they do it. Of course, older generations also engage in risky behaviour; but we are different in the sense that we are ‘born digital’ and therefore much of our risky behaviour is now translated over the Internet.
However, I believe this is not the only side to these kind of pictures. Yes, it is very sensitive material. Yes, they should never be send to anyone you do not trust – and even if you try to contain it, the possibility of them leaking always exists. Yes, you can never know for certain where they end up. But that is why in my opinion rule number one for taking any kind of sensitive pictures of yourself should be to make sure your face or other identifying factors are never on it, simple as that may sound. After all, even people you trust can end up going behind your back, their phone can get stolen or hacked. When it comes to things like this, it is truly better to be safe than sorry.
This already saves you from various problems that could arise. Still the question remains: why do people even take and send pictures in the first place?
Here is why: it is fun. They provide a great way of teasing someone, which may I add does not have to be in an obscene way. As a female, I consider exchanging semi-nudes to be a very delicate business. You never know when the balance is going to topple, when a picture of someone’s privates (the infamous ‘dick pic’) might drop and surprise you. I have always had the feeling that once that happens, there is no going back. And if you ask me, there is no lighting or angle that can make genitals seem any classier than they are, no matter how hard you may try. However, contrary to common-belief, semi-nudes can be very classy and do not necessarily require that much actual skin showing. I sincerely hope that the majority of the nudes going back and forth at this very moment do not feature people’s genitals. The belief that women enjoy receiving pictures of men’s crotches is one of the biggest illusions men have created for themselves in the past decade.
Besides, consider this: nudes do not have to go anywhere. One can take such pictures simply for themselves to enjoy. It may sound selfish or arrogant, but I think it is totally healthy to admire yourself every once in a while. We are in the prime of our youth after all, or well, close to it. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. However, considering the fragility of online privacy, it could be a more responsible idea to enjoy it through different media than the digital one. Who knows, perhaps sending nude pictures in the good old-fashioned way (does anybody remember letters and postcards?) could mean the revival of the physical mail system.
Zelda is a student who wishes to remain anonymous for this issue of TR.
