One thing brought up by this theft of celebrity nudes is the question of why we take naked photos in the first place. I don’t mean that in the victim-blaming sense of “that’s so dumb, why would you ever take a naked photo because obviously everyone will see it.” Although I do think it’s remarkable that naked photo leaks and thefts have seemingly done little to deter this impulse; clearly, taking naked photos is an important part of many people’s sexuality. We’ve taken, and allowed other people to take, naked photos of ourselves since long before the age of the smartphone or the portentous “cloud.” For as long as photography has existed, so too have nude photographs. But why?
-Salon
