Do the Orlando Bloom photos reveal a double standard on male nudity?

If you’ve ever fantasized about seeing Orlando Bloom naked, shady paparazzi have given you your chance.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star was photographed (probably without his knowledge) paddleboarding naked in Sardinia with his bikini-clad girlfriend, Katy Perry, and the shots have been splashed across several tabloids.

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People freaked out online, applauding his move to paddleboard in the buff, while discussing how much time they’ve spent tracking down the uncensored photos.

A slew of GIFs even popped up on social media ridiculing how obsessed everyone is with the photos.

It’s markedly different from the reaction in 2012 to photos of Kate Middleton sunbathing topless, released by the French magazine Closer. People called them “shameful” and criticized the magazine for daring to publish them.

Unfortunately, this double standard isn’t rare. “Our media tends to sexualize men far less than women,” Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist, tells Yahoo Beauty.

“Naked women are turned into a ‘forbidden and shameful’ space, which makes it titillating, which then sells.”

Shaming of female nudity is also a form of control, Durvasula says. “Men have more privilege in most societies, and as a result have more control over perception and negative branding of their nude imagery.”

Expectations play a role. Women often struggle not to be seen as sex objects, but if they are photographed naked, people may assume they’re uninhibited, hypersexual, and of questionable morals, according to David Frederick, Ph.D., an assistant professor in health psychology at Chapman University who conducts research on body image.

“This judgment can be especially true for women who are in roles where they are expected to be feminine and pure,” he says.

Men seldom run into the same problem. When they’re naked, we tend to see it as funny, natural, and even sexy — it just doesn’t have the same taboo attached to it.

“It’s similar to our reactions about sex — we either turn it into a joke or into porn,” says Durvasula.

“Male sexuality hasn’t been fetishized and eroticized in the same way, and so it becomes easier to joke about it.”

Male nudity can also make people uncomfortable, which means that they’re more likely to laugh at it.

“Little girls don’t sneak off with naked pictures of men, the way little boys do with women,” says Durvasula.

“It means that the visual image of female nudity has more power from an early age.”

Frederick agrees that we’re not totally at ease with 100 percent male nudity.

Images of shirtless guys are common, but it’s still pretty rare to see photos of men naked from the waist down — and it can be especially jarring for heterosexual men.

“It forces men to view other men as sexualized, something that they are not used to doing, and to engage in direct comparison with another man, which can raise concerns over how their penis size and physique compare,” Frederick explains.

“Some people tie together masculinity and penis size, so these comparisons affect not just men’s feelings about their body, but also their feelings about their masculinity.”

But the photos of Bloom may also arouse emotion for women, Frederick says. The photos “feature an attractive man, but one whom women feel some personal connection to, because they have seen him in movies and interviews for over a decade. The photos feature him mostly nude, but with his genitals obscured, leaving something to the realm of fantasy and imagination.”

So, cue the excitement and jokes, quite apart from the fact that Bloom’s privacy was violated. We’re seeing this reaction on social media “because there is less judgment about his morality or purity,” says Frederick.

Unfair? Totally.

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