Guest post: Revenge porn - 'I felt completely helpless'

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For six months last year, when I was 20, my ex would publish explicit pictures of me online to his blog.

He'd upload them, I'd find them, I'd beg him to take them down. He would apologise profusely and take them down. Then the whole cycle would start again a few weeks later. People could like, comment and share the images. There were images of other girls posted up there too, all with derogatory slurs attached to them. I didn't know their names, so I couldn't warn them about what he was doing.

It completely consumed me. I would search every day for the images daily to make sure I could get them down. Every time I begged him to remove them, he would be so apologetic. There was always an excuse, and he'd always try to turn the conversation around - he'd ask me how I was, whether he could call me. I was convinced that if I was civil to him, then maybe it would stop.

I didn't tell anyone for six months, because I was ashamed. I didn't know who to tell, or where to turn. My confidence was completely shattered, and it all felt endless. I was trapped. Eventually, I went to the police. The officer told me there wasn't much they could do. They could 'have a word' with him and file a domestic incident report, and that was it.

I had to do something, just to get it to end, bring it to a head. I decided to tell everyone I could. Going public with my story wasn't an act of bravery - it was an act of desperation. I wanted help.

The response I got was phenomenal. Friends contacted me to say they were scared of where their images would end up. One friend told me that a similar thing had happened to her, only she'd been too ashamed to tell anyone. Another said that when she was 16, a man had used footage of her to blackmail her in to sexual activities. It was horrifying.

I started researching and came across the term ‘revenge porn’. There were entire sites dedicated to revenge porn, that profited from the pain and misery of young women. It sickened me to know that people were actually seeking out images taken or uploaded without the subject's consent, that they had such a lack of respect for women.

I became convinced that it should be a criminal offence in itself, so I asked my friends to sign a petition and contact their MPs. The petition got over a thousand signatures within 24 hours and more people came forward to tell me their stories. Many had been too ashamed to go to the police, and often, the ones who had tried had been sent away. Some of the stories were from girls as young as 14 - they were too ashamed to tell their families and had nowhere to turn. Some had considered suicide because they felt so trapped.

Parliament listened. MPs like Julian Huppert and Maria Miller fought hard for change and they showed victims that they had nothing to be ashamed of. On Monday night, the House of Lords unanimously agreed to criminalise revenge porn – which means it is only a couple of steps away from becoming a specific criminal offence. The police will receive new guidelines and victims will be taken seriously.

I'm thrilled with the amendment. I hope victims will begin to realise that they have nothing to be ashamed of and I hope no one else has to feel the horrible, endless loneliness that I did. I hope perpetrators will give up their sick hobby, scared of proper retribution.

But the amendment alone is not enough. Victims need support and help to get their images down from sites that are built to profit from their pain. We need to be teaching teenagers that consent is vital in all areas of sexual activity, and that explicit images are not a tool to be used to harass, humiliate and blackmail others. I want young people to grow up knowing how much power those images can wield - they need to understand that not only will uploading non-consensual, explicit images of somebody have devastating consequences on the victim, it will also lead to a criminal record.

In February 2015, the government announced that posting "revenge porn" on the internet would indeed become a criminal offence.
You can find out more about their #NoToRevengePorn campaign here, and access their resources here.

I think it's very interesting though also that as a society we blame girls for being naive about boys' true intentions yet when they grow up to be wary of men we slap them with NAMALT and accuse them of being man-hating. Just another double bind.

Apologies for the tangent.

Not a tangent, very relevant.

There's someone in relationships right now asking if it's reasonable not to send naked pictures to a man who is behaving in a very entitled fashion in bed anyway. At least she has somewhere women focussed to go and ask. I suspect if she was a few years younger and asking mates on Facebook or whatever, she'd get a lot of "yeah, shows he really likes you, Hun" type responses...

YonicScrewdriver I think that is a hell of an unfair generalisation about young people. For one, if someone was to post 'Should I send naked pics of myself to my boyfriend' as a status on Facebook, many people, young or old, would be saying how inappropriate it is to ask such a thing on Facebook (do you have a social media account/ have young people as 'friends' online?) Of course, it's different on a forum such as Mumsnet, because they are anonymous.

Secondly, I think you underestimate young people. I don't think many would egg their friends on to buy a guys love/ affection with nude pics of them. You would have to be a extremely immature person to say something like "yeah, shows he really likes you, Hun-" very, very few people would say something like that. Girls (and boys) are also capable of doing it because, well, they want to, not necessarily because they want the recipient to go out with them.

I'm young (21) and even when we were younger noone in my friendship group would encourage each other to do the cyber-nasty with other people. It should just be between the people engaging in it, like any other sort of sexual exchange.

I apologise.

My mental shorthand in issues like this is to ask where is the malice? Are women doing anything remotely malicious in this equation? No of course not!

Men who are sharing pictures of ex partners in order to shame and humiliate are acting with nothing but malice. That is where the blame should rightly lie.

Women whom have endured this should feel the full weight of public opinion on their side. The men however should feel nothing but shame.

No bother Yonic

Hannah - appalling and so many girls and women face this.

Got to say, though, that it's not helpful to shut down debate by shouting 'victim-blaming' whenever people look beyond condemnation of abusers.

I was referring to Officer Van Helsing. I think Scouse makes a valid point, but there's this Pavlovian barracking of anyone that dare suggest we as individuals all need to guard against abuse. It doesn't detract from where the blame lies.

Barring possessing remarkable powers of precognition what are women supposed to do? Men who do this don't go about wearing badges advertising that they are likely to do this.

Or should women not have the liberty to express themselves sexually how they choose? That sounds like an untenable step in the wrong direction.

I understand your argument Dervel, but the fact remains that you can't become a victim of revenge porn if there are no images.

There is a clear difference between a system that minimizes and excuses abuse (as Buffy refers to) and practical advice for mitigating against risk. You can't treat both the same.

You know for a fact that all revenge porn is created with both parties' consent then Damsilli?

We were talking about freely given images. If you want to extend the issue to non-consenual images then fine, but as such images are probably illegal, we can probably agree that it's an appalling abuse and move on.

Even if it is, are you saying that no women should ever put full trust in any men ever?

Why are you extending to a ludicrous and absurd length? Does your position rely on you so doing? Advising people to be careful is not advising them to never trust anyone not ever. Rather obviously. I think what you've done here is what they call a 'straw man' position.

What part of the debate do you feel I've "shut down" by calling scouse's post victim blaming btw?

Again, rather obvious. Scouse makes a lengthy post giving their opinion and you reply with:

#everydayvictimblaming.

Do you really need me to explain how this comes across as an attempt to categorise Scouse's opinon such that it may be discarded? Clearly you don't think it need even be engaged with, simply labelled with your little hashtag and dismissed.

Thank you for your smiley, although I'm not sure if you were being friendly or it was some sort of self-gratification. Here's one in return:

. You're welcome.

So stating that someone is victim blaming, when they are, is shutting down debate? It is victim blaming to blame the victim for the perpetrators actions. What is there to debate anyway? It should be dismissed.

And scouse wrote a paragraph, not a lengthy post.

Sorry, I'm really struggling with the sheer dogmatism of thought on this forum at the moment. I'm not seeing the point of discussing things if people just repeat the same mantras over and over.

That's not aimed at you Buffy, btw. - Wrt your post, I agree. And I think this is yet another conundrum where women have a disproportionate level of complexity and risk. Getting the balance right between open and trusting social interaction, and the vulnerability that one inherently creates by so doing is a difficult and risky process for us all to manage. Teenagers - and female teenagers in particular - are especially vulnerable here as they start to behave as adults and move away from the protected gaze of their parents (most household). The point that I am trying to make is that, within this complicated and gender-imbalanced scenario, it is possible to take a line that seeks to mitigate against risk and educated people about risks. But, if we take a myopic view that anything like that falls into the category of victim-blaming, then we actively work against our own safety.

As you said before, there are systematic means by which the mistreatment of women is minimised by painting them as being complicit in their own abuse. I think we need to be able to separate those factors out and recognise them as being distinct from what I can only call common sense. As I said before, the fact remains that if you don't send naked photos, you can't later see them pop up on the internet. Educating women such that they recognise that they don't need to send them is not victim-blaming.

The greater need is to educate boys and men not to pressurise women into giving them those photos and then to educate them that if they do make them public then they are committing a crime. The women haven't done anything wrong. Keep the focus on the behaviour that's wrong. Continually reverting to what women do detracts from that.

"dogmatic". Imagine my surprise.

If we compare this sort of crime with say a burglary or mugging there isn't the same culture of victim blaming occurring.

So of course you can talk about strategies to minimise it. Currently in the current social climate you cannot do so without cementing attitudes that scapegoat women in sexual matters (although such may not be the intention).

Until the victim blaming element is removed you cannot have the minimising discussion without incrementally making things less safer and we will see more men feel safer to behave in this reprehensible manner safe in the knowledge that society will be at least as focused of turning the spotlight on his victim.

I can't say it any better than Buffy but I think a benefit of this law is that it's making a public statement that the person who betrays trust and puts these photos online is a criminal.

There is nothing criminal in consenting adults taking the photos in the first place and it hurts no one. Not everyone will want to do it obviously, but there does seem to be a subtext that it's morally wrong in some of the arguments that say "well, I wouldn't do it" which I don't agree with.

"but I think a benefit of this law is that it's making a public statement that the person who betrays trust and puts these photos online is a criminal."

I agree.

Well ditto. Imagine my surprise that not a single thing I said is discussed in your reply Scallops - in fact you now label debate as being 'reverting to what women do' as if there's some nefarious and retrogressive steering away from blame. You seem to see things as being mutually exclusive and so if one thing is the 'greater need' all other things should be disregarded because they will detract from placing blame. How are you measuring need by the way? By effectiveness? I suspect not, but rather by principle. I have no problem with you having a different view, what I have a problem with is the fact that you think my view isn't worth discussing whilst your view is sacrosanct.

This is just proving my point: dogmatic categorizing of 'victim-blaming' as a censorious silencing mechanism - in this case the discussion of women's safety. Pretty poor in my view.

Cementing attitudes with who dervel? Do you feel your attitudes cemented any? Or are we not talking about 'us'?