No, you may not see me naked!

I’m not particularly fond of Jennifer Lawrence. I think she’s an overrated actor, and has tasted too much success too soon. As if apathy towards her wasn’t enough, news trickled in last month about her alleged affair with Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin. And, that’s when I decided I don’t like her. Coldplay is sacred, and Chris Martin is God-like. How could she steal the man of my dreams! Not like Martin was waiting for me to waltz into his life and sweep him off his feet but, you know, a girl can dream, can’t she? So, when news about her intimate pictures getting leaked broke on the Internet, I smiled a wicked smile. And, there was also this one part of me which wanted to look at the photographs. After all, she IS a beautiful woman! Also, I wanted to check out my competition, since stealing Martin away from her isn’t going to be easy!

That’s when I received a message online from somebody who’d seen a music video of mine on the telly. Since a while now, I’ve been receiving a lot of mails from fans who want to be ‘friends’. I presumed this was another of those. But, it wasn’t. It was so utterly cheap that I immediately reported the user and clicked on the ‘block’ tab. Here’s what was in the message: ‘Ma’am, love your feet in the video CrossTheLine. Why don’t you put up pictures of your feet in different shades of nail-paint?’ I was outraged. This was sexual harassment. If this happened in real life, I’d put the man behind bars. But, because this was online, one couldn’t do much. That’s when it hit me. Jennifer Lawrence is a girl, like me, who’s been subjected to cyber harassment. Looking at her private pictures without her permission would be as bad a crime as hacking into her online storage and leaked her pictures. 

I’m not a celebrity. This lech, who was objectifying me and attempting to assault me online, had only seen a video which I’d CHOSEN to share with the world. And, THAT had made me cringe! I can scarcely even imagine what’d have happened had he got his hands on my personal stuff! These pictures of Lawrence, and a host of other successful, beautiful actresses, doing the rounds of the Internet are their personal property, which they haven’t shared with us. So, why should we look at them? Just because they’re famous does not give us the right to get cheap thrills by peeking into their personal lives. To all those men who had a jolly good time looking at said pictures I wish to ask- How would you feel if your wife/sister/girlfriend/mother/aunt’s private pictures were to be splashed all over the Internet? To see body parts of ladies you love lusted over, criticized, ridiculed by sleazebags? Take a moment, and ponder.

Just because a girl is comfortable with her body, and has posed in the buff on magazine covers/in films, does NOT mean we have a right over their bodies and can demand to see them whenever we feel like! They are NOT our property. When will we stop treating women as public property? This is the sort of mentality that leads to sexual assaults. I shudder to think that a woman is not safe anywhere, neither real life, nor cyberspace. I’ve tried to make peace with ‘Don’t stay out till late. It’s unsafe’. I refuse to deal with is ‘Don’t go online. It’s unsafe!’

A famous person is expected to live his/her life in public. And, most of them do it willingly. Who doesn’t love their fans? But, let’s treat them like human beings. They too have emotions, you know. Beyond the flashbulbs and greasepaint, they’re regular people, like us. I don’t think Lawrence would want me to look at her naked pictures (I wouldn’t want her to look at mine!) Hell, I don’t think she’d want anybody apart from the person she’d sent them to, to see her naked. Let’s respect it, folks, and back off. And, if we’re dying to see unclothed women, there are plenty out there who happily share such pictures of themselves. Hello, Sherlyn Chopra!