RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: You go girl: I've had my naked photo stolen and shared online - Won't be shamed  Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:39 pm | |
| A little over a year ago, I was in bed with a male sexual partner.
“Can I take a photo of you?” he asked, out of the blue.
“Sure,” I responded, after a moment of thought.
He may not have been my husband or my boyfriend, but at the very least, this man was my friend. This was a man who not only read my articles on women's rights, but shared them and praised my work. This was a man who asked my opinion on current events and who gifted books to me, who seemed to find me just as interesting with my clothes on as he did with them off. This was, I decided, a man whom I could trust.
After he took the photo, he immediately sat back on his heels and sent it to someone else, as routine as sharing an Instagram snap of a great sunrise. I have forever wondered if the recipient asked him where the photo came from, and if he had permission to share it. Did they send it on to someone else, and if so, how many people did they share it with? I'll never know what the other person did with it; but I do know that somewhere out there in cyberspace, the image still exists – few things ever really disappear from the internet.
Confronted, my sexual partner seemed almost disappointed that I had ruined his fun. I dressed quickly, and when I came downstairs, his housemates were still up. “Your friend upstairs is not a nice man,” I spat, and I saw the look they exchanged. It was one of confusion, even anger, but not one of surprise. One of them put on a jacket and walked me outside to get a cab, but neither of them ever asked me what had happened.
The texts I received the next day were deeply apologetic and filled with excuses: I'm sorry, he wrote. I'm so disappointed in myself. I was drunk, I had taken drugs. I can barely remember what happened. For a brief moment, I considered involving the law – pressing charges and having him punished, outing him to the world as the man who had illegally shared my naked body. But where would that leave me? A footnote in an article online: 'the naked girl in the photo'. To anyone who had seen the image, I was already that person. I didn't want, or need, the entire world to view me that way as well.
I can remember lying in my bed after it happened and trying to process what I had experienced, and how I felt about it. I still do that now – lie awake in my bed and run through the feelings elicited from the event, indexing them and taking stock, like flicking through cards in a Rolodex. I felt hurt. I felt empty. I felt crushed; and I still feel all of these things and more. But at no point have I ever felt ashamed.
What happened to me was not my fault. What happened to Jennifer Lawrence was not her fault. What happened to Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, when their sex tapes were stolen and released, was not their fault either. Along with these women, I live in a society that commodifies and objectifies women's bodies so much that any loss or theft of consent is viewed as a victory on the part of the observant man. In an era when women are increasingly taking charge of their own body image on social and public media, as they have every right to do; there is a breed of men so disturbed by the lack of control they exercise over these women that they their only option is to steal whatever shreds of a woman's image they can get their hands on – an upskirt photo here, a nipslip video there.
On Tinder, men ask for 'nudes' and you're called a slut if you do and a prude if you don't. Any look through a modern porn tube website shows how high the demand is for videos of women being filmed without their knowledge or consent – it took me ten seconds to open my internet browser, type in the name of a wellknown porn sharing website, and find a video entitled 'My cheating ex-girlfriend doesn't know she's being watched'.
When my sexual partner took and shared a photo of me, I naively thought it was because he found me so attractive that he desperately wanted to share me with others. Like a prize – wasn't he lucky to have me in his bed? But truly, it has nothing to do with that. If sharing naked photos was about appreciating a beautiful woman's form, then the men out there clamouring for celebrities' stolen naked pictures would instead turn to the billions of consensually shared erotic images available online. The arousal experienced from viewing and sharing these images isn't based in eroticism at all, it is based in power; a sick kind of power that stems from a need to 'get one over' a woman, a 'gotcha!' kind of revenge that deliberately violates something we continually fight so hard to own – our bodies.
I have shared, and will continue to share, naked photos of myself with sexual and romantic partners. Just as I continue to wear short skirts, or occasionally drink a little too much, or walk home alone down dark streets. I would feel shame if I hurt someone, if I stole, if I was needlessly cruel. But I will never feel shame for sharing and enjoying my own naked body, which has been mine since birth and will be mine until I die. And for those suggesting that Paris should have just 'never filmed herself', or Jennifer should have 'never photographed herself', or that I should never have agreed to having my photo taken; I suggest you stop looking at us, turn your computer off, and take a long hard look at yourselves.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/life-and-love/real-life/ive-had-my-naked-photo-stolen-and-shared-online-20140902-3er33.html |
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