An appalling article was recently printed in USA Today: Cory Allen, an artist, has decided to display the nude photographs of Jennifer Lawrence in his exhibit “No Delete,” a collection of photographs that denigrate celebrities by highlighting their mistakes. The purpose of “No Delete” appears to be a warning against using the internet heedlessly, the very name hinting at the idea that whatever one posts on the internet follows them forever. Most individuals raised during the digital age will admit that their parents gave them the same warning. My question is “why?”
Not as in “why should people be cautious on the internet?” but instead, “why should we need to?” The answer is the same for the questions “why should we lock our doors,” or “why shouldn’t a woman walk alone at night?” The answer is that atrocities done in this world are by terrible people. But in the case of the internet, the blame slips off the shoulders of the perpetrators and lands in the lap of the victims.
Rape, unfortunately, often works in the same fashion. Rather than supporting the raped, many people interrogate them on the circumstances of the event. “Why were you wearing that? Why were you walking alone at night?” Questions quickly transform into accusations. “You deserved it. You were asking for it.” Society is not totally past this way of thinking, but the topic gets the media attention it deserves, and it is no longer politically correct to claim that a victim “deserved” rape.
Online ridicule is different. It’s socially acceptable to blame the victim. Maybe it’s because the public doesn’t see it for what it actually is: internet rape. In the same USA Today article, a commenter wrote, “If actress Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t want her ‘special’ pictures aired for all to see, then she shouldn’t have stored them in the cloud. We don’t raise the blinds and expect no one to wander by and notice what we are doing! She gets lots of publicity. Maybe that’s what she really wanted.” Few people would write to a newspaper that a rape victim “wanted to be raped.” It is much less likely that a newspaper would publish it.
Internet rape is a form of cyber bullying that has pushed many to suicide. For context, Jessica Logan and Hope Sitwell are two individuals who committed suicide after the distribution of their nude photos. Among cyber bully victims, two in 10 victims contemplate suicide, and one in 10 attempts it. Considering 43 percent of teenagers report being cyber bullied, it is time that we stop treating this matter lightly. Interestingly, cyber bullying, even in the general sense, correlates with rape. A survey states that 58 percent of cyber bullies claim that their victims somehow “deserved it.”
It’s disappointing that so many people, such as the commenter quoted, have adopted the “she deserved it” attitude of rapists and cyber bullies. It’s wrong to give Jennifer Lawrence this treatment. She wasn’t “asking for it.” She wasn’t even “raising the blinds.” This was an invasion of her privacy. If she had posted them on social media, I would understand this accusation, but as it was, she stored them in the cloud, her private account was hacked, and the photos were stolen. But we still shift the blame from perpetrator to victim. I’m not claiming that Lawrence should have been more careful – the proof is certainly there that she wasn’t – but that shouldn’t be justification for the leak.
Watching this scandal unfold is like seeing the Steubenville rape case and not having the closure of a court case. We need to grant the issue the attention it deserves. Protests against rape culture have prompted legislative action. The issue of internet intrusion should undergo the same process. Maybe the world can even convince Cory Allen that exploiting people isn’t art; it’s just a new form of an age-old crime.
TJ Parks is a freshman majoring in journalism, anthropology, and history.
