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Sending nude selfies is increasingly common behavior

Sending nude selfies is increasingly common behavior

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Research found the risqué behavior is twice as common as it was two years ago

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Hundreds of nude and revealing photos of female celebrities were released onto the internet last night by a hacker. Authorities have yet to identify the culprit and its also not clear exactly how he or she got access to these women's accounts, with iCloud the most widely reported service suspected of being breached. As the world digests the shocking breach of privacy, one common sentiment seems to be that anyone careless enough to take naked photos in digital form should be prepared for the embarrassment of having them leak.

"Also raises the awareness that you shouldn’t be putting nudes of yourself online...Maybe the lesson learnt from this should be "don’t be stupid"," read a comment since deleted on The Verge. This is shameful logic, trying to shift the blame back onto the victims. But it also ignores how very common it has become for both men and women to take and share naked images of themselves online and across mobile devices.

One in five American adults has received a nude photo

According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of teens reported sending or receiving a sexually explicit text, or sext, a jump of nearly double the 26 percent who reported doing so in 2012. The number of users among all age groups who say they have received a nude photo is now one in five, compared to 15 percent two years ago. A separate study from Purdue University found that among 21 year olds, 80 percent had sent or received a sext and 46 percent had sent a nude selfie. A report from the security firm McAffe found half of adults surveyed had used their mobile device to send and receive "intimate content" and half of those kept the images and texts stored on their phones.

Stars, in other words, are just like us. Sadly, because they're famous, hackers think their private moments are worth stealing and sharing.