nude celebrities on the Internet

Along with almost every other communication technology ever invented, the Internet has been popular for transmission of pornography. One genre that has become particularly popular is images and videos of nude celebrities.

Background

The commercial demand for images of nude celebrities has been known for many decades. Playboy magazine is renowned for offering famous women large amounts of money to appear nude in its magazine, and more downmarket pornographic magazines search far and wide for nude pictures of celebrities taken unaware — for example, when they are bathing topless or nude at what the subject thought was a secluded beach, or taken before the individual was well-known. These paparazzi photos are in high demand among the yellow press.

Many images found on the Internet and in the yellow press are fake images, primarily made with various digital image manipulation techniques. In the US, the possibility of civil court action restricts the availability of such photos through the print media. On the Internet, the difficulty of applying court sanction makes circulation of such photographs much less risky. Untold numbers of such photographs circulate through Usenet, and fly-by-night commercial operators, often in countries beyond the reach of courts, also offer such photos for commercial gain. Copyright restrictions are often ignored.

Real images

Real images of nude celebrities fall into four main categories:

Film screenshots: Many actors and actresses have done nude or partially nude scenes in non-pornographic mainstream films. Screenshots from these films are circulated widely and can usually be recognized by the low picture quality (from video). However, increased popularity of broadband internet access makes possible the distribution of actual video clips and higher quality images, these usually copied from DVDs. Often screenshots of these scenes are displayed in several frames as tiles.

Paparazzi photographs: Occasionally, celebrities are photographed in revealing real-life situations; the most common scenario is a woman sunbathing topless, usually on a beach, yacht or by a pool. The photos are usually taken from a distance and rarely reveal more than breasts. These rare occurrences include paparazzi shots of fully nude celebrities such as Uma Thurman, Brad Pitt, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanessa Paradis, Janet Jackson and Alyssa Milano. Other types of paparazzi images of nude celebrities include 'nipple slips', in which low cut dresses, lack of a bra, an accidental fall of clothing or camera flash glares may reveal a celebrity's nipples. Examples include Alyssa Milano, Alexandra Kerry, Tara Reid, Sophie Marceau, Paris Hilton, Paulina Rubio, and Lindsay Lohan.

A final form is the increasingly frequent occurrence of an "upskirt" shot of female . Most such images show underwear, but some situations (such as celebrities exiting cars) have resulted in snapshots which show genitalia; these include images of Farrah Fawcett, Margaret Trudeau, Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears.

Nude photo shoots: Mainstream sex magazines such as Playboy or photographic art magazines such as Black and White routinely feature nude shoots of celebrities. Some celebrities have modelled for nude photographs prior to becoming famous. Such images are often later redistributed in digital form by the publisher, or by a third party.

Main article: Celebrity sex tape.

Stolen private materials: Rarely, private sexual photographs or videos are stolen or obtained from a former lover/spouse and show up on the Internet. Some famous examples are Tonya Harding's "wedding video", private videos featuring Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, a video made by Paris Hilton and her then-boyfriend, Rick Salomon, and a stolen video from Fred Durst's computer.

A few celebrities whose real nude Internet pictures have become mainstream items include Pamela Anderson, Tonya Harding, Tommy Lee, Chu Mei-Feng, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Janet Jackson, Paris Hilton, Jonny davis and Peter Wentz.

Famous Cases

• Blu Cantrell infamously posed nude in the pornographic magazine Black Tail before reaching mainstream fame.
• Sylvester Stallone featured in a pre-fame porn film called Party at Kitty and Stud's in 1970. [1]
• Similarly Jackie Chan featured in Hua Fei Man Cheng Chun another "pornographic" film. [2]
• Recurring in this pre-fame trend, Demi Moore also posed nude in Oui, a French pornographic magazine. Pia Zadora also featured nude in the magazine on a separate occasion.
• Celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have had several revealing images posted on the internet, these have been public displays attributed to 'accidental' wardrobe malfunction though many have recognised the potential for large media attention.
• On October 19, 1998, a website called ClubLove posted nude photos of Laura Schlessinger ("Dr. Laura"), which were taken in the 1970s by then-boyfriend and supervisor Bill Ballance, with whom she had an affair.

Fake Images

Fake images can, when found isolated, be confused for real images. They are usually made by cutting and pasting the heads of celebrities onto the bodies of nude models, although sometimes the parts of nude models are pasted onto a picture of a celebrity. Almost all fake images portray the celebrity in question doing things that normally the person would be unlikely to do, sometimes with people they don't know. Occasionally, fake images revolve around a theme of one of the celebrities works. For example, certain fakes of Keira Knightley have a Pirates Of The Carribean theme, and certain fakes of Angelina Jolie have a Tomb Raider theme. Fake pics can usually be found individually by an image search on google or other search engines.

There are websites dedicated to the genre that collect and display fake images or have a user community that makes their own. Most are advertised as "free", but however are often pay-sites. One site which is free, CelebFakirs.com[3], which is dedicated to such things as interviewing 'fakirs' and cataloging the history of celebrity faking is a notable general resource for fakirs and fake fans alike.

See also

• Celebrity sex tape
• Wardrobe malfunction

References

• "These Are Definitely Not Scully's Breasts!". Wired. November 2003. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/fakers_pr.html. — another article about the phenomenon.

External links

THE FOLLOWING SITES CONTAIN ADULT CONTENT

• A site dedicated to the fakirs behind the celebrity fakes
• A site dedicated to the exposing of fake images

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