CYBERSPACE — Victims of revenge porn and the simply-curious recently took to the Reddit-sphere to share their personal experiences of having their nudes unwittingly circulated about the web, or to just chime in with their two cents.
Redditor TastyJams asked users two days ago, "Those who have naked pictures on the Internet; how did they get there and how has it affected your life?"
The thread is now 1,607 comments strong; and in typical Reddit fashion, the conversation wavers between insightful commentary, witty banter and complete tomfoolery.
Interestingly, both men and women shared their stories on the forum. Though the men's stories tended to be more voluntarily in nature and were also less negative when compared to the ladies’ experiences — some women also reported little or no distress.
jdrobins wrote, “Remember the website IsAnyoneUp? Yeah I ended up on there. The friendly guy over there posted links to my social accounts. I woke up one morning with 100's of friend requests, messages and text messages from friends who frequented the site. Turns out my bitter ex decided to submit them about three years after we broke up.
“10/10 would have nudes posted again. Got a few dates out of it.”
And then there were the horror stories:
my_ex_is_a_dick wrote, “Throwaway for obvious reasons: When I was married, my then-husband and I made a homemade porn. I thought it was a good idea at the time and I was very wrong. Not too long after we made said porn, I found out he had been cheating and I left him. I had completely forgot that we had even a video until a co-worker came to me and said he got a very interesting email from my ex (they were friends) and showed me the link. That fucking asshole uploaded the video to porn site. He sent the link to everyone we know, including family. I was completely mortified to find out he had done this.
“Needless to say, I had to quit my job and move back to my home province. I was being harassed at my job (I worked in a factory, it was mostly men that worked there). I couldn't bear to see or hang out with any of my friends.
“To the younger female Redditors, no matter how much you trust and love him/her, do not make videos or let your S.O. take pics of you naked, that shit will come back to haunt you.”
And there were many comedic reprieves:
quadrupleog wrote “My mother relentlessly slut-shamed me for weeks after she saw my name and Facebook link on one site. [She said] ‘There I was browsing PornHub, when I came across your name — explain yourself, missy!’”
