The naked form still maintains an allure for almost all of us with a deep fascination expressed for seeing people, particularly ‘celebrities’, in all of their naked glory.

The UK press is full of stories today about Orlando Bloom, an actor, going nude on vacation with his girlfriend, Katy Perry, a singer (who maintained a bikini throughout).

Even the ‘heavier’ UK papers weighted in, with articles in The Guardian and the Independent, while the more downmarket Daily Mail got in on the act by then adopting a typical Daily Mail approach by comparing nude, male celebs with various bits of fruit and veg.

Of course, the ‘weightier’ papers have to have a more ‘intellectual’ approach to the story. The Indie goes with ‘what rights of privacy has Bloom got?‘ The Guardian takes a feeble feminist line with ‘Hollywood’s double standards‘ (clue: what he does on holiday has nothing to do with Hollywood), while the Daily Mail’s is ‘how does he measure up?‘. This is the same Daily Mail who, as early as tomorrow, possibly, will fume against naturist beaches being an affront to good old British values (while using about 40 photos of naturists to ‘prove their point’).

Incidentally, by ‘weightier’ or ‘more intellectual’ papers I mean the ones read by people with a reading age in double figures. None of them are the thought-provoking, challenging reads they might once have been.

So here are the (pixellated) photos, splashed all over the press. ‘We are saving you from seeing a man’s genitalia’, they scream. What they’re doing is probably getting people to start typing ‘Orlando Bloom naked’ into their search box…and then claim any race to the bottom (! see what I did there?) has nothing to do with them.

I searched, I found in about 10 seconds on the Daily Mirror website with a ‘click to flip’ photo offering censored and uncensored versions.

The Daily Mirror, former champions of the left-leaning Daily Mirror are now as sad and tragic as the actual Labour Party have become in recent weeks, but at least they have had the balls to actually publish an uncensored photo. And it was through that paper that I learned that Mr. Bloom is ‘frustrated and angry’ about the photos being published.

Frankly, I’m never convinced about the ‘stars’ reaction to photos of this ilk. These people must be aware that they’re liable to be photographed at any moment, and that it can never be guaranteed the paparazzi aren’t around. Too often it seems that these are entirely controlled ‘photo ops’. I often think ‘has she/he a film to promote?’ or ‘is his/her career on the skids in worse and worse selling films and is this an attempt to promote a flagging career?’

We’re no strangers to real life or SL nudity here at SL-FKK. We couldn’t, however, let the UK media’s prudery go without replicating their attempts to disguise a penis, something 50% of the population of the world possess, and almost every member of the other 50% have seen in real life.

Trine