Private images: Many young women are into taking nude photos of themselves and the situation is getting worse with the advent of the selfies. Emmy Omongin explores why girls are obsessed with taking the pictures and how all hell breaks loose when the photos leak to the public.
I asked a girl if she could ever take a nude photo of herself as we chatted on Whatsapp and guess what I got? A reply with two nude selfies, which she said she’d taken that very moment. I was in total shock. It’s not like I mind looking at them (of course if they’re not the Mama Fiina type) but because there’s totally nothing going on between me and this girl. How sure is she that I won’t leak them or even forward them to my friends who will perhaps leak them?
Nude photos (if they are to be taken anyway) are supposed to be shared between lovers, people with intimate relationships, not just friends (at least that’s how I know her unless I’m being ‘slow’ here).
Public figures such as Cindy, Princess Komuntale and Judith Heard have heard their nude or semi-nude photos leaked on social media, with speculation being that they were distributed by jilted ex-boyfriends. Could it be that they leaked their own nude photos just to seek attention? How did the photos even leak anyway? Why, even, would one take photos of themselves naked in the first place? These are all questions that pop up in one’s mind when they think of the rate at which nude photos are being leaked.
These days, when I try to open a gallery or even the file manager of most girl friends’ phones, all I get is, “Please input password.” Why? Because that’s the maximum protection majority of the girls use to apparently keep their nude photos “safe”.
Why girls?
“Girls love their bodies and will continue taking these photos. It’s the men who leak them who are stupid. I trust you with my nude photos and you go ahead and leak them? The reason I could probably send photos of me naked to strictly my boyfriend is because he asked me to send them to him, for his personal digestion not with his friends. Paranoid boyfriends would actually leak them or use them as blackmail,” Sonia Kirabo a student at Makerere University argues.
I think it’s really gross for a guy to take nude photos. Just imagine nude photos of Weasal, Chameleone or even Bebe Cool leaking, I believe they would be totally disgusting. And most times guys who take photos of themselves naked are never straight (read gay).
Thomas Ediu, a sales manager at Awdisonic argues: “Men never take nude photos, it is impossible. It’s the girls who are more interested in their bodies that take them. They probably want to flaunt them to their boyfriends.”
It’s perhaps the celebrities they call ‘role models’ influencing the girls to take nudes. The likes of Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj and others have been linked to leaked nude photos.
How these nude photos leak
Cinderella Sanyu, a dancehall musician more popularly known as Cindy and once a victim of the nude photos’ leakage says that it is usually the ex-boyfriends that leak them. “When you break up with them, they look for the worst way to hurt you. It’s always a big risk sending nude photos to your partner because tomorrow when you break up, chances are high that he will leak them, especially if you’re a public figure,” she adds, sounding so over it.
When semi-nude photos of Toro princess Ruth Komuntale leaked late last year, she had a exchange with the fellow who uploaded them on his Facebook page and asked him to remove them. “Those are intimate pictures I shared with my husband but all he wants to do is tarnish my name.” This was after social media was awash with news of Komuntale breaking up with her American husband of barely a year, Christopher Thomas.
Seeking attention
It is not always the ex-boyfriends who leak the photos. It may perhaps be an attention seeking plot by failed musicians who have got no one paying attention to their music. They would leak their nudes so that people identify them and hence listen to their music. It may be a fashion designer or even a model seeking attention.
Then there are Facebook pages, blogs and websites that want to garner more hits and one sure way of garnering them is by leaking nude photos of influential people. These social media platforms are targeting people that will sell their “brand”. That’s why a certain social media site got thousands of clicks when it spread a rumour of a sex tape between Juliana Kanyomozi and her “friend” a South Africa based Ugandan only identified as King Lawrence even though there was no such video on the site.
Why you shoudn’t do it
For starters, if you have never taken your nudes, do not try, never risk. There shouldn’t be any reason for you to take them. You’re going to dump that guy who is telling you to take them and you think all guys take break ups lightly? He won’t think of the consequences, the mass destruction he’s going to cause you and the stress and depression that comes with it is not worth the trouble.
Imagine you are now a respectable lady who made some horrific decisions in your early 20s, and sent guys naked photos of yourself.While none of them have leaked so far, there is a possibility that they one day will. Imagine going into a field where, if you’re successful, you’ll be in the public eye, well-known to some degree. You’re bound to worry that one day these photos will either be used as blackmail or be leaked… or that it’ll ruin a blossoming career. The world seeing you nude can be the worst thing that will ever happen to you. The best way of getting out of this drama is never to take these photos in the first place and at worst sharing them with anyone.
CINDY
“I didn’t take it too serious; there was nothing abnormal about me, it’s not like I had three boobs or something. As bad as it looked, I knew someone tomorrow would do something worse than me and mine would be no more. I also talked to my family members about it because they’re more understanding. They were always by my side and really helped me through it.”
Judith Heard
“When the bad news of my nude photos leaking hit me, I digested it, kept calm and composed myself because I knew I would make the worst mistakes if I had taken action without thinking. I never was in Rwanda as most websites and tabloids wrote that I had fled the country due to the scandal. I was in the country the whole time but I just kept a low profile. The best thing I can do is to put it behind me and move on.”
