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Almost every tabloid in the world and all the celebrity worshipping sites on social media picked up and proudly displayed nude photos of Orlando Bloom frolicking on a paddleboard in Sardinia with Katy Perry on August 4, 2106. Perry was not nude. The secret photos presumably captured by paparazzi have strangely enough produced more discussion about the sexual equality of men and women than it has comments about Bloom’s assets that were hardly visible.

The difference between how the United States views nudity in general and how the rest of the developed countries view nudity is a part of the source of the controversy. While nudity is common and accepted in more adult cultures, the U. S. clings to an antiquated view of male and female nudity. The politically correct movement toward banning all media that objectifies women as sexual objects has not gathered much support against male objectification.

Bloom was neither an exhibitionist nor a knowing participant in the display of his bits that came close to breaking the internet. The public spurred on by the media behaved like they were not aware that those parts of the human anatomy exist.

Lengthy and erroneous diatribes about the acceptance of male nudity as either funny or inconsequential compared to the U. S. perception that female nudity is in some way shameful and degrading to women have commenced nonstop. One commentator claims that men view naked women as sex objects in magazines and pornography while the Centers for Disease Control cites that women make up 40 percent of the market that readily and daily view pornography on the net.

There is no doubt that women and men are used as sexual objects in advertising, politics, sports, and any other medium that sells. Bloom may be hailed in the future as the man who brought some reality to the discussion of sexual equality.