Nudity on social media sites

At some point in our lives, just about all of us have scrolled down Facebook or Tumblr looking for nothing in particular. Our eyes start to gloss over the posts as we vaguely remember what we were supposed to be doing on the computer in the first place. Then we see it: a nude photo of that kid we might have known in high school. You can almost hear the record scratching.

Wait, what? Did we really need to see that? After all, we didn’t sign up to see naked pictures of random people just because we have a Facebook or Tumblr. The point is, was that photo necessary? Did they have a good reason to post it? Depends.

Here’s the thing, people who post nude, or almost nude, pictures of themselves have their reasons. I see a lot of people doing it as a way of de-stigmatizing nudity. Their logic is that it’s just a body; it’s only taboo because we make it so, which is a good point. On Tumblr, there are a number of people who post pictures like that to make the point that it is just a body, not a sexual objection or something that has to be covered up. Fair enough.

But there is another side to this. A lot of employers check sites such as Facebook to see what their prospective and current employees are like online. Chances are your boss is not going to appreciate those pictures, regardless of how good your reasons were for posting them.

This is a common problem with social media sites; people will post whatever they want without really thinking about who can see it. Managing your security settings is a must regardless of what you are posting, but especially true if you have something on there you wouldn’t want a complete stranger (or your boss) to see.

I’m not saying you can’t post pictures of yourself nude on social media sites. All I’m saying is to take a step back and ask yourself if the reason you are doing it outweighs the negative that may come out of it. If you are that passionate about removing the stigma on nudity and “slut” shaming, then perhaps setting up a blog just for that would be better than having those pictures on your personal profiles. That way, you can share your ideas without worrying that it will come back to harm you.

In the meantime, the rest of us will just have to scroll faster to get passed the images of you in no clothing. Or, you know, we could do what we got onto the computer to do in the first place.

By Meghan Beatty