Kate Middleton and Invasion of Privacy

We love our celebrities, and sometimes, we love to hate our celebrities. We want every piece of information we can get on them and revel in any little bit of gossip.

This is the reason the news media and paparazzi are able to get ridiculous sums of money for fuzzy images that are taken through nefarious means, through outright invasion of privacy and harassment.  If there were no market for these images – if we stopped buying and criticized the magazines and newspapers that published these images – then that harassment would stop.

Is it right to invade someone’s privacy, to harass them and invade their lives, just because they happen to be a little bit famous? Kate Middleton was doing nothing wrong, lying topless on private property to get a little sun, having some private time with her husband.  It’s nothing that any other woman wouldn’t do, if she could be guaranteed the privacy. I know I’ve lain in my own back yard, reading and sunning myself, with my bikini top tossed to the side to avoid tanlines. 

But then, I live in a very unpopulated area, with a tall privacy fence, and I have the benefit of not being famous enough that a photographer would try to scale it.

And when men are found and photographed in these situations, it is treated as a victory for the fellow. Look at how free he is, look at how lucky he is.  But when a woman is photographed in the same circumstances, her reputation is considered to be compromised.

Oh, those old Victorian mores that we can’t seem to get rid of.  We have to judge a woman harshly for doing something completely normal, with her husband, in a place they both considered private, just because some photographer managed to snap some photos without their knowledge.

Congratulations. Now we know that Kate Middleton does in fact have breasts. What a revelation. Was it really worth invading their privacy to find that out?