Poor Jennnifer Lawrence and other A-list Celebs Nude Pics Leaked Online

Jennifer Lawrence was among the list of celebrities who had allegedly had their nude photos posted online. (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

                                        
Hundreds of private, nude photos of A-listers like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton were allegedly stolen from their iClouds and leaked online Sunday night.

It’s an invasion of female stars’ privacy that some liken to a “sexual violation.” And though act is horrendous there’s hope in dark places: the swift, raucous outcry suggests we haven’t given up our collective sense of decency to social media just yet. And that’s worth something, isn’t it?

Lawrence’s people have confirmed the breach as a “flagrant violation of privacy.” All told, one screen cap of the alleged list of stolen pics names over a hundred celebrities, including Lawrence, Kate Upton, Alison Brie, Avril Lavigne, Selena Gomez, Scarlett Johansson, Rhianna and Kim Kardashian.

The list goes on and on, and with the exception of a mention of a pic of “Allison Brie and Dave Franco,” it’s entirely female.

As Roxane Gay wrote in the Guardian, the leak “is meant to remind women of their place. Don’t get too high and mighty, ladies. Don’t step out of line. Don’t do anything to upset or disappoint men who feel entitled to your time, bodies, affection or attention. Your bared body can always be used as a weapon against you. You bared body can always be used to shame and humiliate you. Your bared body is at once desired and loathed.”

And it’s not just famous women, as Gay notes many women face “revenge porn” harassment online, when jilted lovers post one-private pics for all to see. That’s why this celebrity event strikes so close to home — for many women, young and old, married and single, it could just as easily be them splayed across the internet for all to see.

Yet, there’s hope to be found in the collective condemnation of breaching that final wall of celebrities’ privacy. We may live in an age where you can document and share every moment of your life from dinner to delivery, but users still value the filter. They want the ability to control what is shared and what isn’t and the violation of Lawrence et. al’s privacy speaks to a primal fear that, one day, all of us could be so vulnerable.

That visceral reaction went as viral as the pictures.

Those who tweeted the photos found their accounts suspended, while many shared their disgust over the leak.