What being a victim of revenge porn is really like
I was being blackmailed by a stranger that hid behind a computer screen.
I woke up every morning with 50 texts and emails from friends, family, and employers that received a personal message from this anonymous blackmailer, containing nude photos with a description of my name, my age, and where I went to school. Great, right? He found all this info on me via LinkedIn.
After a three-month journey of pure humiliation and anxiety, I finally accepted that this was the reality of my life.
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Many people who I’ve told this story to have wondered:
How did you deal with it for 3 months?
Cried.
How did it go away?
Time.
How did you solve it?
I didn’t.
Did you ever figure out who it was?
Nope.
I couldn’t even put a face to my perpetrator because he used fake names and photos with every attempt he made to contact me.
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Unfortunately, this happens a lot, where the perpetrator will not identify himself. This makes it very difficult for law enforcement to move forward with any charges. Technology and the law have yet to catch up with each other.
Not only did this affect the sanity of my life, but my friends’ lives too. My attacker was also trying to harass my friends under my name. Over the three-month duration of his harassment, my blackmailer decided to get creative (clearly, he had too much time on his hands). He made fake profiles of me on every social media platform and harassed important employers, friends I barely talk to anymore, and even some family members.
I had to deal with this every day while continuing to go about my daily life acting like everything was fine. I wasn’t letting this pathetic human, who couldn’t even identify himself, control my life and emotions.
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I ignored every single attempt he made to contact me. He used fake photos and names every time and I knew it was him. I figured if I ignored him long enough, he would give up. Sure enough, he did.
The last message he sent me was through Facebook and he was pretending to be a woman named Heidi. I wouldn’t wish his madness on my worst enemy.
A close friend of mine had this happened to her years back, I felt like she was the only one I could talk to. 21-year old Katherine*, like many of us, shared explicit content with her former boyfriend and ended up being shamed for it.
When this stranger hacked into her computer files, he found a video he wanted. He made her video go viral and made it look like she posted it herself and was in the act of producing it. The truth was, this random man on the internet, whose IP address was tracked to Sweden, was posting her video on adult websites. Every time she found a video of herself, she requested it be taken down. He would find ways to contact her and say things like, “If you take it down one more time, I will post it on three more sites.”
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“It was the most helpless I’ve ever felt,” she says.
“He would post everything he hacked on this site, then boast about himself and tear the girls apart, making awful comments about their bodies,” she says. “People would also request girls for him to hack; it was awful.”
“I contacted lawyers and the websites. These sites were run overseas, so our laws had no meaning,” Katherine recalls. “We had no power whatsoever; my only option became to sit back and let it run its course, which meant being publicly humiliated for years. It still gets brought up to this day, but I’ve tried my best to put it in the past.”
Because I knew what had happened to Katherine, my worst fear about taking my own issue to the police was the lack of info I had on him, and worries of the police just laughing me off.
I shouldn’t have to feel this way about my privacy being disrupted. No victims should ever feel guilty of their actions that may have caused the violation. You are allowed to show off your body and feel sexy. You are allowed to have a sexual persona. You are allowed to wear what you want, look how you want, and share it how you choose.
Why do the victims suffer the consequences the most?
If you or a friend is in danger of sexual harassment online, there are hotlines available for help.
Help Hotline: 877-995-5247
The National Sexual Assault Online Chat
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-786-2929
