I was shocked when I recently got wind of the fact that an old friend of mine is being blackmailed by an ex-boyfriend. When I prodded her for details, she disclosed to me that the ex-boyfriend was extorting money from her by threatening to publicise a series of intimate photos she had sent him over the course of their relationship. She proceeded to show me a few text messages they had exchanged.
In one text, he was demanding Sh2,000 to buy shoes or else he would WhatsApp the explicit images to her very strict parents. In another conversation, she was pleading with him to give her time to get money as she was down and out at the time. But he was having none of that. He told her that whatever he needed the money for couldn’t wait. What a douche! You would think he was demanding money he had worked for and that was rightly his. I was thoroughly disgusted.
I implored her to stop giving in to his demands and begged her to give me his number so I could set him straight, but she declined, saying that she did not want to aggravate him and push him to follow through with his threats. I could not believe that my friend had resigned herself to a life of blackmail by that worthless piece of scum. I was incensed by her decision to continue submitting to his demands.
I know my friend is just one of many women who have found themselves as potential victims of revenge porn. We live in a world where it has become acceptable and easy to send risqué photos to our significant others. It is a really intimate thing to do and can help strengthen a relationship by communicating trust. However, it creates a potentially traumatic vulnerability to becoming a victim of revenge porn. Revenge Porn is when people share and publicise nude photos or videos of their ex-partners without their consent, with the intention of embarrassing them. The photos could be sent to friends or family, uploaded on social media sites or even porn sites. I was horrified to learn that there are porn sites that exclusively deal with revenge porn.
It can be quite shocking to discover that somebody you trusted intimately can knowingly do something to hurt you so deeply. You feel embarrassed, helpless and betrayed. You may want to blame yourself, but it is really not your fault. The situation is made worse by the unsympathetic holier-than-thou masses that resort to victim shaming. They reckon that if you never wanted the pictures to become public, you would not have taken them in the first place.
As mortifying as it may be, the only real way to tackle revenge porn is to face it head on and deal with it. Don’t just ignore the problem and hope it will go away or submit to demands like my friend. If you let yourself to be blackmailed, the demands will only become more and the amounts of money being demanded will become higher. The worst part of it is that even after you meet the demands, the offender might still go on to share your explicit photos.
