Good boys and ghouls listen to their boo! Consent on and offline

By Danika, TeenSource Blogger

When it comes to consent and consensual sex, there are so many different social, political, and pop culture-related issues that could be brought up that it’s difficult to even know where to begin. However, a recent event which has been taking place over the course of a couple of weeks now, has been the release of thousands of hacked nude photos from celebrities' iCloud accounts, aka “Celebgate”. The leak especially targeted Jennifer Lawrence, along with other stars such as Kate Upton, Ariana Grande, and more recently, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and Vanessa Hudgens.

I can’t count how many naked pictures I saw of other girls I went to high school with. It was like, at one point, everyone had seen everybody else naked via photo. A girl would send a picture to a guy and then a week later they’d get in a fight and he’d send it to everyone in the school. I would be at parties where one of the girls would be texting a guy and convince him to send her a picture, and he would have no clue how many people she was actually showing that picture to right then—and they would all just be laughing away at it, showing it to everyone else at the party.

What I am willing to bet, though, is that my peers didn’t realize that what they were doing was not just fun and games, or fulfilling some silly personal vendetta, but that it was actually sexual assault. Imagine someone coming into your home, tearing your clothes off of you, shoving you out into a street full of millions of people, only to have a majority of them call you “whore” or “slut” and make comments such as, “well, if she didn’t want to be called those things then she shouldn’t have walked outside without any clothes on!”

That is essentially what is happening throughout this whole “Celebgate” fiasco, and basically what happens all the time amongst teenagers. Bottom line is: it’s never okay to do anything with or to another person's body without their consent. And a nude photo of another person is still their body!

I don’t know what it is about nudity—everybody wants to see each other naked, especially celebrities! We love to gawk and to gossip. Maybe it’s just because it’s so often a hidden part of us, maybe because we’re immature and still like to laugh at each other’s “private parts”. No matter the reason, as tempting as it may be, let us try to be the bigger person. Take note of the vulnerability you feel in the morning by your naked body. Imagine your picture out there for show, exposed for the world to see. And imagine what a better world and what an improvement in our relationships it would make if everyone respected one another’s right to consent not just to sex, but to privacy as well.

Did you know you have other rights too? Click here to learn more about all your rights as a teen in California.