With the release of Orlando Bloom's au natural vacation photos earlier this week, the Internet entered into a state of mass hysteria; suddenly, the political worries of the upcoming presidential election were pushed out of the minds of many media consumers to be replaced by images of an unclothed Bloom with current lady-interest Katy Perry, talk of a certain phallus shaped shadow and a multitude of Legolas jokes.

Now, I am not writing this article to shame Bloom, or really anyone, for public nudity -- I'm a firm believer that being naked during actions in which your nudity is not the focus of the task is one of the best ways to become comfortable with one's body. However, I do think that the collective online response to the release of these photos -- which I believe were non-consensual in both their capture and their release to the tabloids -- says a lot about the way some of us think about bodies... Especially the naked ones.

The body is overtly sexualized in mainstream American culture. It is my understanding that there is a full set of photos from this vacation, in which Perry and Bloom are together in various stages of dress, and the nude shots of Bloom are of him doing such tasks as climbing rocks, moving through the water on a paddle board and standing. None of these acts are particularly sexually charged, just like the human body is not inherently sexual in an immediate way. However, for some reason, the Internet was unyieldingly focused on what they nicknamed, in all their maturity, "his little Legolas," something that made it to the mass media through the Stephen Colbert show.

Now, I recognize that we see the 'female' form onscreen and in print all the time, but the fully nude 'male' form is something American audiences rarely see. This is why it can make such a splash when it is shown on certain shows, such as "Game of Thrones."

But feeling deprived of the 'male' form is no reason to go looking at photos of someone's body without their express permission because even if your motivations are not sexual in nature, an action without consent when another cannot fully express his / her bodily autonomy is wrong. If you are not sexually motivated, but really want to see some nude human bodies, for whatever reasons you may have, then you can always find some sort of artistic pursuit to help channel whatever convictions you may hold... But acting without consent in an over-sexualized world can lead to slew of social issues, all of which are clearly visible in our society's past and present. If we are not cognizant and careful, then our future will be ravaged by them as well.

This is an issue that goes further than these nude photos of Orlando Bloom; many individuals, celebrities possibly to a more widespread degree, have been violated by the release of and consumption of nude photography and videos without their consent. Think- without consent and knowledge of one's comfort with nude exposure, a person cannot truly act in a way that does not violate the wishes of another... And while we do not need to cater to each other's every need, we do need to preserve each others' humanity.