Kate’s Win-Win

The media pumps are whirring overtime, running hot with steamy stories about Kate Middleton’s topless pictures.  The Duchess of Cambridge has been the subject of much lens-time since she became betrothed, then wed to the Duke of Cambridge, or Will Wales as he’s also know as to his military chums.  So what’s the big deal?

First, let us address Kate’s goods.  Not uncommonly among female humans, she has breasts.  Two of them to be precise about it.

Instead of rolling the muck, we’ll attempt to keep some kind of high tone to the proceedings.  We will use naval architectural terms instead.  Kate’s are in the corvette class, like the HMCS Frederiction (K245).  By contrast, Pamela Anderson another well know celebrity, who has willingly published photos of her breasts, would be described as something in the battleship, HMS Warspite (03) class.  

Second, Kate and William were in France on a private vacation and as celebrities, had ensconced themselves far enough away from prying eyes that there was a reasonable assurance of some kind of privacy from the ever-present photographers.  With that reasonable assurance of privacy, she chose to sunbathe topless.  This is a not uncommon choice for anyone to make on a hot sunny day, on vacation in France, but being a celebrity and constant target of photographers, she ensured that there was an overabundance of assurance that there would be no prying lenses about. 

Unfortunately, someone with a very long lens, almost a telescope, did manage to grab some shots of Kate’s goods.  Said pictures have been published, most pixelated to obscure the pigmented area of the areola, but a few have been unretouched.  To use the words of a pathologist, they are unremarkable. 

Which brings us to the essential question:  Who cares?  It would seem that too many people ‘care’ if that is the term, being coy about publishing, or not publishing, suing, or not suing, banning or not banning the photos. 

The analogy, addressed to our female readers would be this:  If your neighbour across the street were to set up a telescope, or a long lens camera to take photos of your morning ablutions or simply dressing before work, would you call the cops?  The answer is almost certainly, “Hell yeah! Slap that perv in the clink!” as it should be. 

Now, scale back your ability to respond by about half.  As a ‘celebrity’ you know you have a retinue of photographers who attend your every motion outside of the bedchamber, furiously fanning the shutter to get that one shot of you with a piece of carrot stuck in your teeth, or perhaps a glimpse of undergarment while getting out of a car. 

You are swarmed by them daily and in exchange for your ‘celebrity’ you give up even the slightest vestige of assumption of privacy.  Except you are also a human, who does get a piece of carrot stuck in her teeth, needs to adjust their clothing, or even simply stop somewhere appropriate to attend to normal bodily functions.  The photographers don’t give you that latitude.

The savage in me would love to see Kate find a way to stalk that particular photographer who got the topless shots and return the favour:  Publishing blurry, grainy shots of him (or her) picking their nose, coming out of the bathroom, or trying to shoehorn their mouth around an oversize sandwich.  The headlines of “Kate Hits Back at Furtive Foto Fondler” over a blurry snap of the photographer adjusting his package after coming out of a pub would be sweet revenge.  However, that isn’t going to happen, even with the resources she could bring to bear as part of the Royal Family.  They don’t play that way and won’t play that way. 

The more tantalizing response would be for her to announce that, yes, those are my breasts, that’s exactly what they look like.  Even have the photos enlarged and on the stage, if you want to truly press home the point. 

Then the twist: We’re suing the photographer for violating her privacy, to the tune of several million pounds. 

As soon as the case is decided, most likely in her favour, she will then donate the proceeds to Breast Cancer Research in the UK.

A sensible combination of complete disclosure that makes the photos essentially worthless and at the same time giving the media a beating with their own stupid fixations, wrapped in a fine covering of charitable awareness-raising for Breast Cancer research. 

Win-Win.