Inside the world of grown women who play with eerily lifelike ‘reborn dolls’

reborn.com, FUSION

Like any doting mom, Sabrina loves getting her baby girl Jaylah ready for bed. First she undresses her, changes her diaper, and slips her into oh-so-cute baby pajamas. Next she feeds her and gently pats her on the back for a burp. Finally, she places her in her crib, where she will sleep through the night without crying once.

Jaylah does not cry because Jaylah is not real. Jaylah is an eerily lifelike doll.

Sabrina is one of tens of thousands of collectors around the world, mainly women, who buy and sell realistic baby dolls known as “reborns” that they treat like real children. These collectors feed them, change them, dress them, talk to them, and comfort them. They even take them out in public, sometimes passing them off as actual infants.

While they’re not new—a decade ago, the British documentary My Fake Baby profiled the “mommies” of reborns, raising the internet’s collective eyebrow—the dolls have gained new exposure in the past few years thanks to a burgeoning YouTube community of reborn videos. Popular reborn mommies on the site boast hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

To adults who don’t play with dolls, these women can appear, well, crazy. Which is why most reborn mommies on YouTube add a disclaimer to their channel to the effect of “I know the dolls aren’t real.” Instead, they describe their interactions with the dolls as “role-playing,” in the same way a cosplayer might dress up as a superhero for Comic-Con. Their fans understand the dynamic, but when reborn videos reach an audience outside of their niche community, commenters often barrage the moms with insensitive comments.

Comments like “This is weird as f**k.”

But for the women who love their reborns, which can cost between $200 and $3,000, the dolls are simply a fun distraction and a comforting hobby. And mental health experts don’t see anything wrong with the imaginary mommying. In fact, it even has the potential to do a lot of good.

Since reborns first started being created nearly three decades ago, they’ve been used for therapeutic purposes. The early versions of the dolls, which were made by artists who transformed store-bought vinyl dolls into realistic ones by adding real hair, eyelashes, and weight, were purchased mainly by mothers grieving the loss of a child. But these days, while they still fill an emotional need for some women, most collectors just love playing with them.

Sabrina is 19 years old and lives in Denmark. She’s been collecting reborns since 2010 and makes videos of herself interacting with Jaylah and other dolls as if they were real babies. In one video, Sabrina gives Jaylah a bath using real baby supplies. Jaylah then “poops” (spoiler: it’s pudding) and Sabrina has to clean up the mess. “If you haven’t noticed, Jaylah likes to poop a lot!” Sabrina says in the video. She even takes her dolls out in public—sometimes for videos and sometimes for fun. “I like to pretend I am a young mom,” she told me over email.

Sabrina assured me that she knows the dolls aren’t real, she just really likes the experience of role-playing. “I love reborns because they make me happy,” she says. “There’s something about them, I can’t really explain it … I love to hold and cuddle them. And I love to make videos with them. They help me when I’m upset. It’s just an amazing hobby.”

Sabrina has more than 98,000 YouTube subscribers and most of her videos average 10,000 to 50,000 views—some have garnered as many as 5 million. Once a video reaches a certain number of views, she’ll disable the comments. As the videos reach a mass market, she says, the likelihood of receiving negative comments increases. “I get hate comments every single day,” she says. “But I don’t really read them. I delete them and block the user.”

For most reborn mommies, the joy their hobby brings is worth putting up with haters.

“They’re only creepy because they’re so real-looking,” says Stephanie, a 30-year-old collector and reborn artist in California, with 93,000 YouTube subscribers. She understands the dolls can elicit certain negative reactions—her own dad was repelled at first—but she has given up trying to battle the stigma. “Some people still comment, ‘oh, you’re crazy’ or ‘you’re psycho’,” she told me over the phone. “I don’t actively fight against it because it’s a battle you’re never gonna win.”

For Stephanie, the dolls aren’t just a hobby—they’re also her job. She and her partner make and sell reborns and run a popular reborn YouTube channel, which boasts millions of views. A single doll can take 40 to 60 hours to create, she says, with all the work done by hand. (Fun fact: Jimmy Kimmel’s people recently commissioned a doll from the couple.)

Stephanie says she loves what she does. “I’ve always loved baby dolls,” she tells me. “Every time I get a new doll I get excited over it. They’re cute to look at.” In fact, Stephanie says, one of her biggest pet peeves around the hobby is that collectors feel like they need to justify why they own the dolls, to convince other people the hobby is normal. “I see it as a fun collection, and I don’t need to explain it.”

But why do onlookers react with so much judgement—disgust, even? After all, adults enjoy other role-playing hobbies, from video games to LARPing, without the same degree of shaming. (Albeit, some shaming.) And many people form emotional attachments to objects, from cars to jewelry to figurines, which our society generally accepts. (Generally.) But an adult who role-plays with dolls? People automatically assume he or she is mentally unstable.

I reached out to psychologists for more insight, and the basic reason may be that adults who play with baby dolls in this way are rare. “Biologically, we are wired to punish non-normative behavior” says Pamela Garcy, a Dallas-area therapist. “It’s part of group survival.”

If playing with dolls was suddenly mainstream—like, say, playing Pokemon Go has become—the public’s reaction would likely be more accepting.

The dolls also creep people out because, as Stephanie suggested, they look so real—a phenomenon known as the “uncanny valley” effect. When we encounter objects that are almost but not quite human, many of us feel uneasy and uncomfortable. For some, reborns may even elicit a low-grade fear.

“People are expecting a doll to look like a doll and a baby to look like a baby,” Garcy explained. Combine this with the rarity factor, and you’ve got a recipe for repulsion.

“The way the person interacts with the doll—even if it’s on a make believe level—if the other person assumes it’s a baby and then they are mistaken, it goes back to this concept of non-normative behavior and they don’t want to be associated with it.”

But according to Garcy and others, the collectors aren’t actually displaying any problematic behavior—and they may even be deriving genuinely positive mental health benefits.

Jessica is 35 and lives in New Jersey with her mom. The last few years have been rough for the pair—they’ve been homeless off and on—and in 2014, Jessica was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from an earlier trauma. Then, last summer, she discovered reborn dolls and they instantly lifted her spirits.

“I started researching reborns like crazy, and then I started planning for one of my own!” she told me over email. “Then my Mom and I started to take notice that it was helping me, having something else to keep mind off what has happened.”

She named her first reborn Bella, and says, “Holding Bella is calming, just like holding a newborn baby. It releases the maternal side I think.” Jessica is right—according to psychologist Karyn Hall, who practices in Houston, because reborns look and feel real (they are weighted like a newborn), simply holding the doll can release oxytocin, the feel-good bonding hormone.

But Jessica she still doesn’t take Bella outside or even tell everyone she knows about her for fear of how people might respond. “I was bullied growing up,” she says. Also, “I’m afraid they’ll try to have me committed.” She does have a YouTube channel, which she’s trying to grow (it only has a couple subscribers) and loves watching other reborn mommies as well.

Reborns’ therapeutic potential may even deserve more attention from the mental health community. “I think that what’s happening is that, for people who are scared, it is a way of connecting without fear,” says Hall, who specializes in trauma, emotion regulation, and coping skills. “There’s no fear of rejection and no fear of not being accepted. There’s a connection, and it’s very powerful.”

Think of it this way: Elderly patients in nursing homes are often given stuffed animals for comfort and companionship. (Who can forget Paro, the lovable robotic seal from the Netflix series Master of None?) Children are also given dolls and teddy bears to soothe them and end up developing real feelings for them. “That stuffed animal is vested with all kinds of tactile and emotional qualities,” says Carl Pickhardt, a specialist in adolescent psychology based in Austin. “The kid hunkers down with it and they feel warmth and love—there’s a huge amount of emotional valence there.”

Part of that strong emotional connection comes specifically from the make-believe aspect of the interaction. “The role-play becomes very, very important,” says Pickhardt. “If you can create a role-play that it is extremely detailed, that can enhance their reality.”

The same can happen with an adult who role-plays with dolls, the only difference is that we see this type of behavior as non-normative—in part because if feels so childlike, which makes us uncomfortable.

“Why would we not give adults permission to go out in public with their love objects? I don’t know,” he pondered over the phone. “Maybe there’s some kind of prejudice against that. As in, if you are an adult you should just have adult relationships.”

Which is a shame, says Pickhardt.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

Inside the world of grown women who play with eerily lifelike ‘reborn dolls’

This male comedian makes vagina jokes that are actually funny

Conan

Usually when male comedians make jokes about vaginas they are—how do I put this—f*cking terrible. They’re all vaginas are gross, periods are scary, women suck. Blah blah blah.

But one man is proving you don’t have to be a douche when you joke about the female anatomy. Meet Matthew Broussard, a stand-up comic who was once named “Houston’s funniest person.” Broussard recently appeared on Conan, where he devoted nearly his entire set to jokes about vaginas.

This may sound like a recipe for disaster, especially for someone who looks as bro-ey as Broussard—but it wasn’t. Rather than focus on the sex aspect of the vagina, Broussard, whose mother was a biologist, made a series of medically accurate jokes using adult terms like “vulva” and “Skene’s gland” (starts at 1:09).

He also brilliantly skewered the fact that nearly every part of a woman’s reproductive system is named after a man.

Comedy. It’s funny because it’s true.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

This male comedian makes vagina jokes that are actually funny

You’re an Olympian. You have your period. Now what?

Shutterstock, FUSION

On a good day, your period is a mild annoyance. On a bad day, however, it can feel like a thousand tiny elves repeatedly kicking you in the abdomen. So imagine, if you will, that you’re on the world’s largest athletic stage—competing for personal achievement, glory for your country, and a coveted medal—when Aunt Flow decides she wants to be a part of the action.

More than 10,000 athletes from around the globe are expected to descend upon Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week for the summer Olympic games, and about half of those athletes will be women. While men have biological imperatives of their own, women have a literal cycle that, for most, results in at least a few days of vaginal blood-letting each month. But does menstruation have a real impact on athletic performance?

The short answer is that there is no short answer to how periods impact female athletes. Despite a wealth of clinical studies on how all manner of bodily ailments affect athletes, there’s (maybe not shockingly) a dearth of hard facts on how intense physical training affects a woman’s cycle, and vice versa.

Georgie Bruinvels is a PhD student at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, in London, and she is focusing on her research on this very topic. (Specifically, how the menstrual cycle affects iron levels in female athletes.) But before she could dive into her research, Bruinvels had to check out all the existing data, and she was disappointed to find that she came up short—too short.

In a June editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Bruinvels and her colleagues pointed out just how lacking the current body of research is on periods and athletic performance. After reviewing 1,382 sport and exercise studies that involved more than 6 million participants, the authors found that women were much less likely to be included than men. Why? “The complexities of the menstrual cycle are considered major barriers to the inclusion of women in clinical trials.”

The authors also reported that 41.7% of exercising women believe their period has a negative impact on training and performance—but due to “the dearth of sports and exercise research in women, explanations for this are lacking.” While heavy bleeding with an undiagnosed iron deficiency could explain what these women experience, they added, no one really knows.

“This area really is lacking, which was why we wrote the editorial,” Bruinvels told me in an email. “We wanted to highlight this [void] and encourage people to start researching in this field. Which hopefully it will. I appreciate it is a long process but we have to start somewhere!”

Getty Images

No athlete wants to have her period while pulling off moves like this one.

Despite the lack of research, female professional athletes can take certain measures to decrease the likelihood that menstruating will interfere with medaling. Dr. Petra Casey is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Mayo Clinic, and in a recent phone conversation, she offered a bold solution for avoiding your period at game time: ditch it altogether.

“The mindset of ‘I must have a period every month’ is really changing quite a bit, and women are much more accepting of irregular menstrual periods, or no periods, and some people actually want no periods because of the convenience,” she told me. “It’s very advantageous if you don’t need pads when you’re running or swimming. There are no health issues with that. In fact, it’s quite healthy to not have a period for a long period of time.”

The popularity of IUDs and hormonal birth controls that cause fewer or no periods has lead to this change in attitude. And Casey says that fewer periods can reduce the risk of anemia or endometriosis, since the body experiences less monthly blood loss.

Casey also pointed out that some female athletes lose their periods anyway as a result of their fierce athleticism—particularly endurance athletes, like runners or triathletes, who are exceptionally lean and have a Body Mass Index (BMI) that won’t support a period. This is called “hypothalamic amenorrhea,” which Casey said is a “protective mechanism” by the body when it knows it doesn’t carry enough body fat to sustain a pregnancy.

Luckily, even if an athlete loses her period for a time, Casey said she shouldn’t worry about any longterm effects on her reproductive health. Once a woman scales back her activity and gains weight, her period typically comes back as normal. Even for very young athletes, like gymnasts, they may just start their period a bit later in adolescence without concern. “It’s a very reversible process,” Casey said.

That said, doctors will often take special precautions to make sure adult athletes who stop menstruating stay healthy. “One of the things we worry about in female athletes when they don’t have periods is, do they have enough estrogen to sustain bone maintenance and prevention of osteoporosis?” Casey said. That’s why doctors will put these women on a hormonal birth control to replenish estrogen.

When I asked Casey whether professional athletes who regularly menstruate might struggle with their cycle’s effects on performance, she echoed Bruinvel, saying, “I don’t know if we have enough data to say with certainty.”

Some athletes and coaches do pay special attention to the menstrual cycle and what it can do to hurt or help performance, despite hard evidence. Hannah Macleod, a member of Great Britain’s Olympic field hockey team, told the Telegraph in January of last year, “We actually had our menstrual cycles tracked by our coach for a year prior to the [last] Olympics. It was to get an idea of what stage we’d be at, during our cycles for the games.”

Macleod said menstruation is “something we have never been shy talking about.” From her perspective, “There’s a vast difference from athlete-to-athlete in terms of what they suffer. Some players get a bit moody and lose coordination. Exercises can feel a little bit harder, and it can change your body temperature.” She said the players continue to provide the coach with updates, but despite the free flow of conversation, her teammates still feel embarrassed by their periods.

The Olympian’s comments came in the days following a loss at Wimbledon by British tennis player Heather Watson. Watson blamed the defeat on extreme period symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, and low energy levels, but noted that these symptoms are still not taken seriously by the athletic community.

Former British tennis champion Annabel Croft came to Watson’s defense, calling menstruation “taboo” in tennis, and commenting that “Women’s monthly issues seem to be one of those subjects that gets swept under the carpet and is a big secret…I think women do suffer in silence.”

Thanks to modern developments in birth control, though, perhaps female athletes are figuring out individualized ways to suffer less and focus more on the task at hand: going for gold. If nothing else, self-medicating may be the best band-aid we can hope for until exercise scientists start to include more women in their research. For now, if the big day comes for a female Olympian’s 500-meter swim, uneven bars routine, or basketball game and menstrual blood is an extra accessory, her only choice may be to stick in a tampon and pray she sticks a mess-free landing.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

You’re an Olympian. You have your period. Now what?

These stunning photos show the ‘invisible’ jobs women do around the world

Jonathan Torgovnik

When searching for stock photos of women at work, one typically finds pages of ladies in business suits, sitting behind desks. Less common are photos of women in developing nations cleaning homes, collecting waste, sewing fabric, or selling goods in local markets. Yet for millions of women across the globe, these too-often “invisible” jobs empower them and enable them to provide for their families and communities.

A new collection of photos aims to better showcase these workers. The inspiring series from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Getty Images Reportage, and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WEIGO) highlight women from six different countries engaging in work that “is often informal and outside state regulations or protections,” according to a statement, yet crucial to their well-being.

“Most people are surprised to learn that informal employment is more than half of non-agricultural employment in most developing regions,” Rhonda Douglas, the global projects director for WIEGO, said in the statement. “Informal is the new normal, and these photos highlight the immense contributions of informal workers as they go about their daily lives. The dignity of individual workers shines through in every photo.”

The photos, which are available for public use, come from India, Ghana, Thailand, South Africa, Peru, and Colombia. We’ve selected some of our favorites, but the entire collection is visually arresting and educational.

India

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Reportage

These two women work at a factory that makes modular roofs for slum houses. According to Getty, the women enjoy the supportive work environment of the factory, which collaborates with a local trade union to train the women and ensure steady daily incomes.

 

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Reportage

This mother and daughter spend hours every day on the floor of their small home, Getty reports, hand rolling Indian-style cigarettes called "bidi." The same trade union that protects the factory workers above ensures they have bargaining power and visibility.

 

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Reportage

Every evening, this woman sells jewelry at a local market, allowing her to earn a small income to support her family.

 

Ghana

Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage

This market vendor has been trading tomatoes for 34 years, according to Getty.

 

Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage

This head porter, or "kayayei," is earning money to start a cloth vending business.

 

Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage

This woman sells school uniform fabric at a local market, where she is a longtime vendor.

 

Thailand

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Reportage

These women work in a small factory producing bronze silverware, a traditional Thai craft.

 

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Rep

This woman works at a small garment factory on the outskirts of Bangkok with 15 other workers, Getty reports.

 

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Rep

This woman sells her homemade clothing at a local market.

 

South Africa

Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage

 

Jonathan Torgovnik

 

Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images Reportage

All three women pictured above work as domestic workers.

 

Peru

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRLIMA-001" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/ Reportage by Getty Images Reportage

 

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRLIMA-002" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/Getty Images Reportage

 

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRLIMA-004" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/Getty Images Reportage

All three women pictured above work as food vendors. They are all members of a network of self-employed workers, Getty reports—one of several organizations of informal workers in Lima that works closely with WIEGO.

Colombia

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRBOG-024" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/Getty Images Reportage

 

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRBOG-049" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/Getty Images Reportage

 

Special Instructions - Full release: all subjects signed our form of model release MRBOG-018" width="670" height="447"/>Juan Arredondo/Getty Images Reportage

All three women pictured above are recyclers and waste pickers in Bogota.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

These stunning photos show the ‘invisible’ jobs women do around the world

Men who face this ordeal are more likely to divorce

via Shutterstock

Men love to grill. Women be shoppin‘. There are a lot of silly gender stereotypes floating around out there. Luckily, as a culture, we have finally begun to realize how damaging they can be, especially for the ladies. But did you know they can hurt men, too—particularly when guys fail to live up to society’s decidedly retro expectations?

In a new study that echoes on previous research, Harvard sociologist Alexandra Killewald found that husbands who aren’t able to play the role of “breadwinner” are more likely to get divorced—and, surprisingly, not (just) because their family is suffering financially.

For the study, published in the American Sociological Review, Killewald analyzed marriage and divorce data of 6,300 couples from 1968 to 2013. Her goal was to investigate various predictors of divorce—including wives’ employment, husbands’ employment, share of household labor, and overall finances—and how those predictors have changed over time.

To accomplish this goal, Killewald separated marriage data into two groups: those who married before 1975 and those who married after 1975. To keep things fair, while crunching the divorce data she also controlled for a plethora of variables including race, religion, education, marital fertility, and length of marriage.

After analyzing the data, Killewald found that in marriages prior to 1975, a husband’s full-time employment status did not predict his chances of divorce. For example, an employed husband had a 1% chance of getting divorced the next year, versus an unemployed husband who had a 1.1% chance. Pretty even, right?

Instead, risk of divorce was highly dependent on the wives’ share of the housework. Women who only did 50% of the housework were more likely to get divorced than women who did 75% of the housework. At the time, women were expected to take care of the home and children, and when they didn’t live up to that expectation, their marriages suffered for it.

The good news is that times have changed. More women are graduating college than men, women make up half of the labor force, and dual-income households are becoming the norm. And thus, since fewer women are relegated to housewifery, their share of household chores is no longer a predictor of divorce: Killewald found that women who did 50% of household labor versus 75% were equally likely to get divorced. (Hooray?)

The bad news is marriage stability may now be dependent on a man’s ability to find employment, which is lame considering how challenging the current job market can be (especially for men). In marriages after 1975, men who were unemployed or only had part-time employment had a greater chance of getting divorced in the next year compared to men who were employed full time.

In the later cohort, an otherwise typical couple with a husband not employed full-time has a 3.3% predicted probability of divorce the following year, compared to 2.5% if he is employed full-time. Across wife’s employment and housework categories, the predicted probability of divorce varies little for this cohort.

While the difference may seem small, it’s statistically significant.

You may be thinking, well, this is simply a financial thing—if one partner is unemployed, the couple may face financial stress and the marriage will suffer. But Killewald controlled for overall income. “The association between husbands’ employment and the risk of divorce remains after adjusting for financial circumstances,” she told me over email. “So it doesn’t appear to be the case that it’s just the loss of money that increases the risk of divorce when husbands are not employed full-time. In fact, I don’t find that couples are more likely to divorce when their household income is lower.”

What Killewald did find is that, despite our culture’s slow shift toward egalitarianism, men are still expected to be breadwinners—or at least contribute to breadwinning in some way—and when they don’t, their marriage suffers. “While contemporary wives need not embrace the traditional female homemaker role to stay married, contemporary husbands face higher risk of divorce when they do not fulfill the stereotypical breadwinner role, by being employed full-time,” Killewald said in a statement.

But why? Outdated social norms, of course. “The results are consistent with the theory that marriage is a social institution that has gendered norms of behavior associated with it, including the expectation that husbands are employed full-time,” Killewald told me over email. “But I can’t tell whether that expectation comes from the husband, the wife, or even outsiders—like peers or extended family.”

Previous research backs up the study’s findings, but it offers little insight into the source of this expectation and the pressure many men feel.

A 2011 study from Ohio State University found that unemployed men were more likely to get divorced than employed men, with unemployed men both initiating and being served with divorce. The researchers reached a similar conclusion as Killewald, writing: “Women’s employment has increased and is accepted, [but] men’s nonemployment is unacceptable to many, and there is a cultural ambivalence and lack of institutional support for men taking on ‘feminized’ roles such as household work and emotional support.”

The latter part of that statement is vital, particularly bearing in mind that men who are unemployed still don’t take on the brunt of the housework (in the way a non-working woman might). Sure, it’s possible that men are simply slacking—or they might feel uncomfortable in a so-called “feminized role,” thanks to pre-existing gender norms. Or a combination of both.

The growing body of research on this topic does reveal one clear truth: Gendered expectations placed on both women and men can negatively influence our relationships. And while there may be a growing trend of men aspiring to “house husband” status and breaking down traditional norms, we’re still a long way off from a total dismantling of the patriarchal system.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

Men who face this ordeal are more likely to divorce

We’re all ‘one click away’ from accidentally sending our naked photos to the world

Omar Bustamante/Fusion

Over the weekend, NBA star Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors and Team USA joined the growing list of celebrities who have accidentally sent out a naked photo to many more people than intended. You might call it the Weiner list.

On Sunday, Green included a photo of his penis in a public Snapchat My Story. He deleted it 10 minutes later, and like former Congressman Anthony Wiener, who mistakenly publicly tweeted a photo of his bulging member in 2011 rather than sending it as a direct message, initially claimed he’d been hacked.

Hacked….. Can't win right now

— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) July 31, 2016

But Green quickly realized that story was going to fall apart under the full court press of the media and so he admitted to making the foul shot. Before a Team USA practice in Houston, he apologized and said it was “clearly not what I was trying to do.”

“We’re all one click away from placing something in the wrong place,” Green said. “I suffered from that this morning.”

Wise words. We are indeed. Before technology came flooding into our lives, with cameras, microphones, Wi-fi and sensors packaged into almost every consumer product we buy, it was much, much harder for your naked body to make its way into the public sphere.

To get a nude photo of Jackie Onassis Kennedy in 1972, the paparazzi had to find out what private Greek beach she was on, take a fishing boat to it, use a camera with a telescopic lens, and then hope she actually decided to sunbathe nude. Then magazines had to buy the photos, including Hustler, and print them. “I made over $20 million on those photos. It was the best investment I ever made,” the Hustler’s Larry Flynt told the Enquirer of his decision to publish them in 1975, three years after they were initially taken.

That still happens, as Justin Bieber found out when he walked around nude during a vacation in Bora Bora last October. But now you don’t need the paparazzi to get nude photos. Thanks first to the Polaroid camera, which allowed people to take naked photos without having to drop them off at the local photo development place, and then digital cameras, and finally smartphones, we can now easily take naked photos of ourselves at home (or wherever the fancy strikes you). Thus was born unto the world the close-up genital shot.

And with all the cameras in your house, your own products might turn paparazzi and take nude photos of you, as when Metafilter founder Matt Haughey had his naked photo emailed out by his Dropcam, which had automatically taken the photo of him because it sensed movement in the house.

These sensitive photos aren’t locked up in a safe or hidden away in a bedroom drawer. No, they sit on our digital devices or in the Cloud, just one bad smartphone swipe (or hack) away from going public.

That we might give intimate photos meant for one person to countless strangers instead is a consequence of the smartphones and social media apps that have become so deeply embedded in our lives. As sex has become sext, we’ve put an incredibly intimate act onto the same platforms we use to publish all the other details about our lives, and made it much easier to inadvertently invite colleagues, friends, and randos into our virtual bedrooms.

It’s one of the many ways sex has changed in our modern world, a theme we’re exploring this week at Fusion. Our stories will detail all the ways we will—and won’t—be having sex in the future thanks to technology. Join us here.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

We’re all ‘one click away’ from accidentally sending our naked photos to the world

We’re all ‘one click away’ from accidentally sending the world our naked photos

Omar Bustamante/Fusion

Over the weekend, NBA star Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors and Team USA joined the growing list of celebrities who have accidentally sent out a naked photo to many more people than intended. You might call it the Weiner list.

On Sunday, Green included a photo of his penis in a public Snapchat My Story. He deleted it 10 minutes later, and like former Congressman Anthony Wiener, who mistakenly publicly tweeted a photo of his bulging member in 2011 rather than sending it as a direct message, initially claimed he’d been hacked.

Hacked….. Can't win right now

— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) July 31, 2016

But Green quickly realized that story was going to fall apart under the full court press of the media and so he admitted to making the foul shot. Before a Team USA practice in Houston, he apologized and said it was “clearly not what I was trying to do.”

“We’re all one click away from placing something in the wrong place,” Green said. “I suffered from that this morning.”

Wise words. We are indeed. Before technology came flooding into our lives, with cameras, microphones, Wi-fi and sensors packaged into almost every consumer product we buy, it was much, much harder for your naked body to make its way into the public sphere.

To get a nude photo of Jackie Onassis Kennedy in 1972, the paparazzi had to find out what private Greek beach she was on, take a fishing boat to it, use a camera with a telescopic lens, and then hope she actually decided to sunbathe nude. Then magazines had to buy the photos, including Hustler, and print them. “I made over $20 million on those photos. It was the best investment I ever made,” the Hustler’s Larry Flynt told the Enquirer of his decision to publish them in 1975, three years after they were initially taken.

That still happens, as Justin Bieber found out when he walked around nude during a vacation in Bora Bora last October. But now you don’t need the paparazzi to get nude photos. Thanks first to the Polaroid camera, which allowed people to take naked photos without having to drop them off at the local photo development place, and then digital cameras, and finally smartphones, we can now easily take naked photos of ourselves at home (or wherever the fancy strikes you). Thus was born unto the world the close-up genital shot.

And with all the cameras in your house, your own products might turn paparazzi and take nude photos of you, as when Metafilter founder Matt Haughey had his naked photo emailed out by his Dropcam, which had automatically taken the photo of him because it sensed movement in the house.

These sensitive photos aren’t locked up in a safe or hidden away in a bedroom drawer. No, they sit on our digital devices or in the Cloud, just one bad smartphone swipe (or hack) away from going public.

That we might give intimate photos meant for one person to countless strangers instead is a consequence of the smartphones and social media apps that have become so deeply embedded in our lives. As sex has become sext, we’ve put an incredibly intimate act onto the same platforms we use to publish all the other details about our lives, and made it much easier to inadvertently invite colleagues, friends, and randos into our virtual bedrooms.

It’s one of the many ways sex has changed in our modern world, a theme we’re exploring this week at Fusion. Our stories will detail all the ways we will—and won’t—be having sex in the future thanks to technology. Join us here.

link to source

If you think you have a STD, there is something you can do about it! The only way to know for sure is to be tested.


GET TESTED NOW. SEE TESTS & PRICES

This feature is for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the care and information received from your health care provider. Please consult a health care professional with any health concerns you may have.

We’re all ‘one click away’ from accidentally sending the world our naked photos