Leaked, lewd photos can spread like wildfire in digital age
When it comes to taking nude selfies, the best advice is: Don’t ever do it. Especially on a digital device in today’s digital age. Unlike a printed photo, digital photos can’t be shredded once they’ve been let out into cyberspace.
You’re thinking, “Why would I ever do such a thing?”
I don’t know. Just saying… Approximately 10 years ago, a Valley high school principal found that out in embarrassing fashion when her nude selfie was somehow passed around the district and the community in which she worked before ultimately ending up in the hands of the media.
Multiple local news outlets ran with it. The juicier the better sort of thing.
In the photo, the principal, 39, had her hair pinned up, was looking serious as she held her cell phone with both hands, using what looked like a bathroom mirror to reflect her pose.
One local news outlet posted the same digitized photo, albeit with part of her face shielded.
The remaining bulk of the Valley media published the nude-selfie tale, but either included a shot of the district’s administration building as a backdrop to the story or published the district’s official photo of the poor embarrassed woman.
According to local source I spoke to at the time, the rumors about the photo, why it was taken, and how it ended up in the public realm in clear unadulterated fashion, no less, ran the gamut from the benign to the salacious.
The benign comments suggested, some of which were posted on social media, that the principal was simply taking the photo for her own purposes, and her image was just one of those naked photos that people sometimes take of themselves to keep track of how well their bodies are holding up over the passage of time. Nothing wrong with that.
For example, people in the midst of a weight-loss, get-fit program will catalogue their progress by taking photos of their naked torso. With the idea that no one else will ever see them, much less gain them online access.
In fact, if you use any online search engine, you will find entire sites dedicated to the practice, with one caveat: the people don’t include head shots. They can’t be identified.
Most photos are those captured in the early stages of weight loss, so don’t look for pretty. Actually, wearing a bathing suit will satisfy the same purpose if keeping track of your progress is the purpose behind the nude selfie.
Local Gossip
At the heart of that story was the question: who first texted the photo?
The rumors ran the gamut, and no big surprise, they were talked about on social media.
One Facebook poster wrote: “Somebody stole the picture and began circulating it and (tried) to ruin her life and career over a photo that’s clearly not even sexual. If being naked is a crime these days… Wow, people. Just wow.”
Another social media poster wrote: “It’s absolutely disgusting that a TV station would use a nude photo not authorized by the person in it, even if it’s blurred.”
The moral of this story is, don’t ever take a nude photo of yourself. Besides, 20 years from now, it will only cause you emotional pain.
“Look at me now. OMG.” Because with the way the cloud works, hacking, AI, and the phone backing up to the computer, not to mention black-hat hackers on the prowl, it’s too easy for a nude photo to fall into the wrong hands. Not to mention, you lose your phone, and it’s not password protected.
If that should happen, good luck if you have photos on it that have the potential of being made public.
It should also be obvious, if you’re dating someone, or even married, for that matter, don’t share nude photos with your significant other. You suffer a nasty breakup, divorce, and therein lies the danger.
In fact, there was, may still exist, a website run by a sadistic guy who would allow men to upload nude photos of their former girlfriends or wives.
Nice guy who probably hates women because one of his former wives once laughed at his small…brain.