Voices of Victims is a series of anonymous submissions by victims of revenge porn. The post below has been lightly copy-edited but otherwise reads exactly as submitted. Remember: You are not alone.

 Almost seven years ago, I left my abusive fiancé. He’d been taking explicit photos and videos of me, and sharing them without my permission already, using them as blackmail to force various sex acts from me that I was not comfortable with, while pretending to be a “hacker.” He was attending West Point at the time, and he said he could get expelled if they were revealed, so I did everything, despite my discomfort. Until one day I said no, and he raped me instead, claiming to not remember it after the fact.

 

But when I got up the courage and left, he released all of my photos and videos to porn sites and several classmates’ emails, despite the fact that I’d been under eighteen at the time of their taking (and below the age of consent in NY for some of them, at sixteen). As well as that, he released my phone number and address and email, pretending to be me, and I received phone calls and emails from strange men who wanted to visit me. I had to ask several websites to take down nude pictures of me, and received no response from many of them. And on top of everything else, he continued to contact me for years through his various girlfriends who claimed he wanted to repent. It’s been three years since he last contacted me, but I never know if he’ll do it again someday.

My pictures have been lost to the ether, and I cannot find them via search, but who knows if they’re still out there, and I never know if there are people in the world who think that I sent them photos while he was pretending to be me, who can track me down with my name and find me and my family like my ex has before. I’ve been humiliated; I’m scared to make contact online (which is important, as I’m an online-publishing author), I have relationship issues with my husband because of this. I still have nightmares about it. I’m still ashamed. I wish I could erase this from my past, and I wish there were a way to help others going through it. So if I can, I want to, and if that’s by speaking, then so be it.
If you’re a victim of revenge porn you can contact our victim advocates here.