This week, the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz, Germany ruled in favor of a woman who sued her ex-boyfriend to delete naked photos of her from his computer. Why this guy refused to just delete the damn photos instead of going all the way to court, no one knows. According to The Guardian, the court felt that the right to personality trumped the right to property:
“The Higher Regional Court of Koblenz… confirmed the personality right in Germany outweighed the property right to pictures and videos to the extent the materials contained intimate content. The court said the required consent to possess the intimate pictures and videos ended when the relationship ended.”
So basically you people are free to take as many naked ass photos as you want while you’re still with your partner, but once things head south, it’s time to completely delete them from existence.
The question, though, is do we need a law that forces people to ditch their naked photos as soon as they break up with someone? I think it’s a little ridiculous.
People are narcissists, and since all our cameras and computers have cameras on them, of course people are going to send nude pics. Every single one of you, no matter your income, education or sexual orientation, has sent a dick pic, a vag pic, a tit pic, a fully-clothed-yet-suggestive pic, an ass pic, a sexy pajama pic—any/all pics you can imagine. So everyone is guilty. Several months ago there was a video of a person who may or may not have been Cheyenne Jackson jerking and cumming for you on camera, and a bunch of friends and I watched the video repeatedly (fully clothed) to try to detect whether it was him or not. It’s him— we think.
Point is, Cheyenne probably sent this private video while he was on the road to someone he was dating as a sort of, “Hey, I’m thinking of you :).” But that’s the thing: XXX pics are place holders for when your lover isn’t in the room but you’re thinking about them/want them to think about you. It’s like, “Hey, beb, I know I can’t be there tonight, so here’s a video my dick!”
By the time you take an XXX pic and press “send,” these things are consensual, there’s no debating that. When you’re dating or in a relationship with someone who is far away, an XXX pic goes a long way to reminding you how good the sex you have is, or it somehow makes you feel closer to them. In the gay male sexual economy things get even more sketchy, because some of these bitches won’t even talk to you unless you send them a dick pic within the first two messages. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve received where people are like, “How big? Pics?” and I’m like “Lol, no.” Or, conversely, how many people have messaged me right away with 27 dick pics in a row, all taken from extremely creative angles.
Let’s just say I’ve been in relationships, and in some, pictures were taken and perhaps sent and stored. I have no desire to delete these pictures, but I also have no interest in showing them to people or publishing them on the Internet or defaming anyone, either.
It’s funny the German court ruled that the period of consent ends when the relationship dies, because what if someone would like to continue masturbating to their ex, or wants to look at their naked body from time to time because they can and because wow that dick was amazing?
All told, it takes a pretty sick person to try to defame someone by uploading or sharing to the world a nudie pic that was sent with utter discretion. It’s like, “Oh you think you’re showing me how much you hate me now by sharing my dick/tits/etc/with the world?” But guess what? People from sex tapes get book deals and reality television shows and make money. Nobody ever cares about the asshole who uploaded the photos in the first place.
—Follow Madison Moore on Twitter: @popgazm