On August 3rd, 2016, my childhood collided with my current "adulting" lifestyle in a most unexpected fashion. I first saw Lord of The Rings when I was five years old, and I don't remember much from my early years of childhood, but that initial introduction to J.R.R Tolkein's characters garnered my first crush and, eventual, first love of my life: Legolas. I even had a life size poster of him, which I kept in my room for about a decade before finally being shamed into throwing it away (don't give in to peer pressure, kids). Anyway, once I realized that Legolas actually did not exist, but rather was a character played by the very-real, very-hot Orlando Bloom, my obsession shifted.
Over the years, I have had other celebrity crushes, but those came during my teen years and many were quick to get over. Orlando Bloom stayed with me, albeit hidden behind my mask of decorum that is befitting for a young lady of nineteen years. But my childhood love very quickly became adulthood lust when I logged on to Twitter and saw Orlando Bloom trending. And then I saw the censored pictures of him on the paddleboard. And then I saw the shadow (you know what shadow). And then I hunted for the uncensored ones.
It was a marvelous few days, where I got to experince that childlike glee again (although, for a decidedly un-chlidlike reason). And then sanity returned and despair hit me.
I had actively searched (if you count clicking on a twitter link as 'active') for a celebrity's nudes, taken and released without their consent. I was one of them. One of the pigs and people of low moral fiber who I had vilified many a times (most notably, in 2014 during the iCloud leaks). Didn't that make me a hypocrite? My actions seemed to be in direct conflict with my feminist ideals. I try to be as fair in my expectations for men and women as possible, and it's a double standard if I'm outraged when females are exposed, and enthusiastic when male celebrities are splattered all over the internet, right? Twitter seemed to agree with this argument:
V disappointed in so called feminists retweeting the Orlando Bloom photos, just in case you don't realise, consent wasn't given for them.
— SeleneMortimore (@amberhands) August">https://twitter.com/amberhands/status/761216125669... 4, 2016
Eh, not quite. Looking at Orlando Bloom's nudes doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite, or any less of a feminist than I was before. Or at the very least, if you are trying to convince me that yes, in fact, it does mean that, you better not cite the 2014 incidents. There's a big difference between taking photos of yourself for private use, and then having those photos released without your consent by someone committing a crime (hacking is a pretty serious offense, mind you), and brazenly stripping outside, in public, in front of others.
There was at least one other couple on the beach with Katy and Orlando, and these two are celebrities, pretty big ones (Orlando definitely) at that. Katy Perry had only days before performed at the Democratic National Convention. Should they have the right to their privacy, and should it be allowed for paparazzi to stalk them half away around the world? Yes, of course and absolutely not, but we don't live in that world. Maybe he knew there was someone there taking pictures, maybe he didn't, or maybe he just didn't care. He walked all around that beach nude, for no apparent reason other than he wanted to, and his trust was not betrayed. He had no real expectation of privacy.
This isn't like he was naked inside his home, and photographers zoomed their lenses in and took pictures where he did have the expectation of privacy, where what he did was no one else's business in the slightest. This isn't like someone took up-skirt pictures of him, which in some states is technically legal, even though it is so obviously wrong. If it were either of those situations, or if he took photos of himself strictly for his girlfriend Katy Perry, but she released them to the world without his consent, I wouldn't look for them, and I would be calling for appropriate legal ramifications.
Are there people (women, some whom consider themselves feminist and some who do not) looking at these pictures and objectifying him? Yes. Is this wrong? Yes. But there are also people speaking out about his objectification. And frankly, the objectification of female and male celebrities is a completely different topic and one that would need it's own five hundred word article.
If you want to talk about feminism and the Orlando Bloom pictures, we can talk about the general public's response to them. No one was really shaming him, except for those poor souls who same anything and everything to do with sex anyway. Jokes about size were made at his expense, but his public image was not tarnished. No one is calling him a slut or trashy. Would the public be as accepting about the pictures if it was Katy Perry who was completely naked and not him? Doubtful, given both the left and the right's response to the revival of Melania Trump's nude modeling pictures. Now that's where you can bring up the double standards that apply to men and women, and that's where you can really expect the feminists to cause a stir.
Maybe this is all a defense mechanism to justify my actions to myself, but even if it is, give me a break, my childhood was just destroyed in the most wonderful of ways.
