Is it a bird…is it a plane…no, it’s SUPERINJUNCTION!

Last year the world was saddened by the news that Tyler Clementi had jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after his roommates secretly filmed him having sex with another man. Almost instantly the world condemned the voyeurs – journalists, TV personalities and the Twitterati all fell over themselves to say how unspeakable it was. How could they be so callous, so thoughtless and cruel, as to humiliate and degrade this person for nothing more than their own amusement? Lock them up and throw away the key. Charge them with murder. Out of interest, are these the same journalists now throwing their rattle out of the pram because they’re not allowed to report what sex toys a television personality sticks where?

For the record, I don’t like super injunctions. They’re a ridiculous way to regulate the press and an unfair method for ensuring privacy. I do, however, agree that most of these details should never have been published in the first place. And before you get all self righteous and start talking in your Watergate tone about freedom of the press, let’s keep in mind that we’re not talking about the brave exposure of government corruption here, we’re walking about whether the guy from Ballikiss Angel takes it up the arse. We’re not discussing matters in the public interest, we’re talking about matters that the public are interested in, and there is a difference.

Let’s say a premiership footballer is having an extra marital affair, or a soap star has some compromising photos’ of her taken in the nude. Why, exactly, is it more important, more correct or more defensible to print these details and images of those celebrities than it would if it were you? Well, some may argue, they were asking for it. Of course, they haven’t actually asked for it. They’re more ‘asking for it’ in the way that you’re ‘asking’ to be sexually harassed if you wear something revealing. Which is to say, if enough people behave badly, to the point where one might reasonably predict it, then their behaviour is no longer to blame and it’s your failure to circumvent it that is now the problem. Celebrities have been stalked forever, ergo they know they’ll be stalked, ergo if they don’t want to be stalked they don’t have to become famous and therefore their decision to do counts as permission. In the same way that, once apon a time, it was so obvious that a black man would be lynched for dating a white women that it was actually his fault for kissing her. He should have known better, if he didn’t want to get beaten up he shouldn’t have been with that girl. And if you don’t want deeply personal details and images of yourself in your most intimate moments to be shown to millions of people, you shouldn’t be interested in acting. It’s clearly a reasonable cost, right?

Then there is the idea that there should be a cost. The idea that someone who has that much money and that much fun for so little work irritates us. I remember this feeling from when I was at primary school, and I also remember even then begin a little bit embarrassed to have thrown a fit about it. Heads up, your job will be no less boring and your pay no less crap simply because you’ve tarnished someone else’s experience. I can’t decide to punish bankers, or entrepreneurs, or heiresses simply because ‘there has to be some down side’ because I’m not responsible for seeing to it that there is. It’s a nonsense argument.

Then there are those that argue ‘well, they don’t mind the press intrusion when it’s in their favour’. As if they’re in a relationship with the Press and they never give head. The press aren’t doing them a favour – the press are never doing them a favour. No newspaper, anywhere, ever, has decided that a celebrity WON’T sell copies but included them anyway out of niceness. What actually happens is that journalists go along to press calls because it’s in their interest, and because it’s their job. And as you’ve done this reasonable thing, to both of our benefits, it stands to reason that you would let me take that as far as it will go. You’ve let me see your professional wedding photos, ergo that means I can take pictures of you naked on your honeymoon using a long lens camera. You’ve given me banking advice in your role at the bank, it makes sense that I can wake you up in the middle of the night for mortgage information….

And then there is the argument that we somehow have a right to know. We have a right to know whether Tiger Woods is sleeping about because I have a right to know if I’m buying my Nike shoes from an adulterer. I don’t know why I don’t equally have the right not to bank with an adulterer, or buy my bread from an adulterer. I don’t know why the person who teaches my children, or nurses my grandfather, or pays my own wages, should expect less scrutiny from me than someone who entertains me on Saturday night ITV. So this guy is making it rich off a possibly inaccurate reputation as a dedicated family man. What if Doctor is handing out NHS leaflets on safe sex and is himself going to private sex clubs, can I announce that? My teacher says I can’t drink to excess, but I found a picture of her drunk when she was at uni, can I expose that? Can I take you at your word and expose any detail of your private life that I believe contravenes it? No?

And if none of the above arguments make sense, then what is the justification? What separates the journalists openly arguing for free speech from the college students watching Tyler Clementi on a laptop….?

Nothing.

The reason we look at celebrity sex tapes is the same reason we stole a girl’s diary and read it aloud at school. Because we’re interested and nosey and want to know the details more than we care about her feelings. We think it’s tragic that this cost a boy his life, but what we’ve done to the soap star is no more or less horrendous because she does or doesn’t top herself. Just it won’t be any more or less horrendous if it happens to another student, simply because that student ‘should have known it might happen’. And I think it’s time we looked at ourselves, because we are those people. We are the bitchy girl at school. We are the bully with a webcam. In fact we’re worse. Because like all teenagers who get caught doing something, our first reaction has been one of blind and ridiculous defence, as if anything we say or do contracts the following:
You have a right to stick whatever you want up your arse in private, even if you do act for a living.

Surely?