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Nope, they were the one who posted tweets about, and photos of themself with the pups online (though they seem to have scrubbed their Instagram now). It wasn't the media that went out and dug up private photos. This is "live by the sword, die by the sword" material; Brinton deliberately made use of a public platform to be open about their, uh, non-conventional interests in order to mainstream them and remove shame around it etc. Well, then they don't have a leg to stand on when the "guy who likes to shave his head and wear lipstick and heels and do BDSM stuff is accused of bizarre crime with possibly, who knows, sexual kink undertones" reporting happens.
I don't think they stole the case for the contents (women's clothes) because they can get those themself anyway, but who knows? Maybe it was all part of a 'thrill of the forbidden' indulgence. Maybe they just really liked the case and wanted it. (Why not buy one of their own?) But if you're going to be kinky in public, then this is the kind of speculation that you are inviting, because this is the world we are living in.
This is exactly what I mean by private life being made public by the media. This is usually how this sort of stuff happens - the media obtains photos (publicly available photos as well as nonpublic photos), write articles based on what they found, and then publish those photos to millions of people. The media blew this story up. Brinton merely posted about these on their personal social media channels as anyone else would do. Yes, the photos were still 'public' beforehand. But they are now hugely popular talking points because of media involvement, not due to Brinton. Now of course both sides of the media are making this a huge story for obvious reasons.
Of course, anything you put online has a chance to get out into public despite your personal intention. But that's not what I'm talking about here - you and other commentators are baselessly assuming that Brinton intentionally and willingly is using these sorts of photos to create a public persona for their brand. I'm just pointing out that the media are the ones doing this, not Brinton. The media wants us to think certain things about Brinton to drive clicks on both sides.
If you have a social media account under your own name and you share photos about your life, you have consented to those photos being viewed by anyone who cares to view them. As such, you cannot reasonably complain about your privacy being violated when people (including journalists) pull photos of you from a publicly available source when you yourself gave your consent for those photos to be viewed (and, by extension, shared) - up to and including if they use these photos to present you in an unflattering light.
A journalist gaining illicit access to your iCloud account in order to steal naked photos of you which you did not intend for public consumption? Unethical, a legitimate violation of your privacy, illegal in many jurisdictions. A journalist downloading photos which you yourself published on a public Instagram account under your own name? Fair game and entirely legitimate journalistic practice.
All of the above goes double if you are a public figure employed by the government and paid by the taxpayer.
If you share nude photos of yourself with your boyfriend, then your boyfriend shares them with other people without your consent, that is absolutely a violation of your privacy. In many jurisdictions (including my own) it is in fact a criminal offense. But if you post nude photos of yourself on a public platform, you have given your consent for those images to be seen by anyone who cares to see them. Or to put it another way, a porn star who voluntarily consents to appearing in a pornographic film cannot reasonably claim that their privacy was violated when the film is published for public consumption.
Sam Brinton's Instagram is private, although I don't know if this is a recent change. Brinton's Twitter is public, which means that any content posted there is fair game for a journalist to use, including journalists who do not share Brinton's politics.
I don't understand what the second sentence is supposed to mean. Do you mean to imply that Brinton was coerced into sharing photos about their kinks on social media? I would be very surprised indeed if someone put a gun to their head and forced them to post photos about their kinks or whatever on Instagram.
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I'm leaning towards the kleptomania thrill-seeking angle because it's the only one that really makes sense of all of the facts.
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