Lawrence Calls Nude Photo Hacking a ‘Sex Crime’

Photo Courtesy of Marco Manna, Flickr Creative Commons

In today’s society, we seem to have an ongoing reccurrence of female public figures being exploited by pictures that expose their bodies. On Aug. 31, multiple nude pictures of Jennifer Lawrence, one of America’s most powerful actresses, circulated on the Internet. These photographs were obtained by a hacker through her iCloud account, which she calls “photo hacking” and believes should be punished as a “sex crime.”

In Vanity Fair’s November issue, which hit national newsstands on Oct. 14, the 24-year-old actress addressed the severity of this sexual violation.

“Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” Lawrence said. “It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world.”

It doesn’t matter who you are, what gender or age you are or what you stand for. What matters is that we are all humans. We should all be treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else. We all deserve the right to privacy. Our society has become so accustomed to private photos being leaked online that it has become the norm, no longer recognized for the cruelty it does to those who suffer from this exposure.

Instead of punishing those who perpetuate sexual violations and crimes, our culture tells offenders that it is the victim’s fault and that they deserved it. After all, they were the one who consented to take the pictures, so they are asking for them to be leaked online for anybody to see.

As a society, we are extremely misguided with our actions. The famous Gandhi quote once read, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” We are blaming “society,” yet we are society. To make it a better place, we must change our behavior.

During her Vanity Fair interview, Lawrence admitted that she at first began to write an apology, but changed her mind. “I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years,” she declared.

Kudos to Lawrence for recognizing that she isn’t the one to be condemned.

Lawrence expresses the legal consequences of the hack, and tells the contributing editor of Vanity Fair, “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these websites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

It’s time to rise as a society. It’s time to empower those to make the right choice. It’s time to respect individual’s rights to privacy. We cannot continue to demoralize other people. You do not have to be the negative person who perpetuates damage upon another. You can be good. We can be good. Society can conclusively be good.

sdarian@ramapo.edu