There are very few people, famous or otherwise, that get my blood boiling quite like Donald Trump. To me he is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the United States and at least some percentage of what is wrong with the world. He is excessive. He is greedy. He is a total misogynist. And good god that hair. Seriously. What is with that hair?! I am so annoyed by Donald Trump, in fact, that I don’t even like to say things like “you trumped me” because there was a time in my life when I was fairly convinced that the word “trump” was actually Donald’s last name repurposed. (That time was up until about 6 months ago when my mom assured me that the word “trump” actually predated Donald Trump. I am still not fully convinced but I will give my mom the benefit of the doubt because she is really smart.) I mean, let’s be frank, what could be more ego-boosting than having a word created using your very own last name? (Get it? Frank?!?) So what has brought about this sudden Trump-inspired outburst? No, there wasn’t an Apprentice marathon on TV. No, I didn’t go to midtown to have my eyes assaulted with the myriad Trump-named properties. No, I didn’t attend a beauty pageant. I simply went online and noticed the following tweet, compliments of Donald Trump himself:
Kate Middleton is great — but she shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude — only herself to blame
Ugh. Nothing like a little victim-blaming to get the heart rate up! Way to be, Donald!
I actually had a conversation this past weekend with one of my customers in which he, also of misogynistic tendencies, said roughly the same thing as Donald but, being aware of his audience (read: me) attempted to tone it down a little. He failed. Basically he said that she is famous now and should know better than to go sunbathing topless to which I responded with strongly worded opinions. And then I thought to myself, why should I waste my brain-space worrying about images of the breasts of famous people? Well, here’s a little bit about why.
This issue is symptomatic of something way bigger which is that famous people and, let’s be honest, all women, are generally thought of as public goods — anyone can look, touch, snap pictures. Famous people and women have no grounds upon which to object because we should know better. Well, I am calling bullshit. Just as I should be able to walk up a flight of stairs without a nagging fear in the back of my mind that some creatch is going to snap an image of my underwear, Kate Middleton should be able to sunbathe topless in an environment in which she has a reasonable assumption of privacy. She wasn’t walking down Broadway in the middle of the day. She wasn’t standing outside of the Palace in London. She wasn’t on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She was in a private, isolated French chateau (is that what they’re called?) that she and her princely husband rented for the purpose of enjoying some peace, some quiet, and some not photographs. So some asshat with a long-lens camera comes and takes some photos and suddenly it’s her fault? At what point are we going to take the weight of responsibility and place it squarely in the hands of the person who made the immoral decision to violate someone else’s privacy rather than on the shoulders of the one with no actual control over said decision?
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how I had been in my bed and some guy yelled at me through my window. One of the first things I felt was the weight of responsibility. It was my own fault that some guy noticed my open shades and, rather than avert his eyes, decided to look through my window and yell at me. Upon further inspection, I realized how ridiculous my logic was. Sure, it would have been better if I had remembered to close my blinds, but it is not my fault that this man watched me sitting on my bed. I didn’t invite him to look. I didn’t hold a gun to his head. The only person at fault, clearly, was him. There is no way in which my logical brain will allow me to see the situation any differently. That knowledge, however, doesn’t make me feel any less violated. But the scope of my violation was so much smaller than Kate Middleton’s. If I felt as strongly as I did about this one person I can’t even imagine what it must be like to know that millions of people are looking at images of your naked body that you did not approve, did not ask for, did not want taken.
Now normally, I think that talking about famous people is a colossal waste of time. I think that people who make a living off of analyzing the lives of people they will never meet are lame. This, I think, is different. First of all, I am not making any money off my opinions at all (although I would like to say at this point that if someone would like to pay me for being me, that’d be awesome and I accept with a resounding YES!). Second of all, this incident is something that I think a lot of women can relate to, even if it might not seem like it at first. We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt violated. We’ve all read stories about women being masturbated to on trains, had photos taken of them, been touched inappropriately. This, in my mind, is not much different than that. Just because she is famous doesn’t mean she should be expected to give up her privacy, her rights, her anger.
Also, Donald Trump is scum and I wish he would go take a long walk in the ocean.
(I would also like to add that I am annoyed that I spent any of my free time at all on Donald Trump. He is a turd. And! Someone found my blog by searching “Rebekah Frank bartender” and it wasn’t me! Rock!)
franklyrebekah 
Well said, my brilliant one! Being famous doesn’t change who you are….assholes!