My Nudes Were Shared Without My Consent When I Was Seventeen
Back then, I had no legal recourse. Where is the law now?
When I was seventeen and in high school, a naked picture of me from when I was fifteen was distributed amongst my classmates. This was done without my consent and as an act of retaliation. You can hear me talk in depth about this experience on the Sex Ed Podcast (season 2, episode 5: A Personal Story of Revenge Porn), but I’ll fill you in with some quick details here.
This was back in 2008, so (of course) it involves Myspace. I pissed off my ex-boyfriend’s best friend and the way he decided to get revenge on me was by messaging nudes of me that he had been hoarding on his phone for over two years to as many people as he could think of. This included random classmates from my current high school, my boyfriend, and even former classmates from the private school I attended 2nd-8th grade. And…you know…whoever else.
I ended up telling my parents and going to the police, who were quick to tell me the only way they could prosecute the man who did this to me was to bring child pornography charges against him, since I was fifteen when the photos were taken and he was almost twenty when he shared them. They also wanted me to know how foolish I was for “posting these pictures online” and I should expect…
