I was a victim of bullying and revenge porn. AI-generated pornography terrifies me.
A personal story
Between puberty, navigating new social hierarchies, and cringe-worthy schoolyard crushes, eighth grade sucks for everyone. But for me, eighth grade was especially difficult.
Not only was I was starting to come to terms with my sexuality, but I was also simultaneously being bullied. Not for being gay, at first at least. No I was being bullied by someone I had previously called a friend. A girl, whom I had been friends with since fifth grade. We’ll call her K.
K and I were best friends. I had dinner with her family, spent the summer at the pool, and regularly spent the night at her house. I was in essence, her gay brother. We were besties.
K, however, was abusive. Whenever I would be silly, crack a joke, or behave in any way how she deemed “innapropriate,” K would hit me. Open fisted, medium to hard forcefulness, and usually on the back of the head. No visible bruises. It just hurt.
After going on like this for several months to a year, give or take, I had started to have enough. But I was also afraid that if I spoke up, K wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.
I was also afraid that if I spoke up, K wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.
One day we were leaving class and it happened again. I had had it. I screamed at her, told her to knock it off, and that she was hurting me. Probably not the best way to handle that, but hey, I was only 12 or so at the time. It was at that point our relationship soured. She ignored me anytime I tried to talk to her again. That was the end of K and I.
Even though we never talked after that, some of the other friends we had started inviting me to hang out with them. It wasn’t long before another girl in the group, S, invited me to her Halloween party.
Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I loved to make my own costumes. This year I was going to be a vampire. I got my victorian button up shirt, white face paint, black hair spray, blood red lip makeup, and a cape. I put it all on, had my mother paint my face and hair, and she drove me over to S’s house for the party.
I arrive and am greeted by everyone. K was not invited. Thankfully. At the party there was music, candy and soda galore, and of course snacks. We play games, giggle, scream, take pictures, and do everything tweens do when they are all hopped up on sugar.
At one point, we played truth or dare. after a few rounds of truth this and dare that, it was my turn and I pick dare. S dared me to put switch shirts with another of the girls who was there. I don’t remember her name, or what costume she was wearing, but she was wearing a grey spaghetti strap shirt. You know, the kind girls aren’t supposed to wear to school.
Being not afraid of a dare so easy, I oblige, taking off my shirt so she can go in the closet to swap into mine. She then hands me hers and I put it on. We all have a giggle. A bright light flashes as S snaps a picture, and we all laugh at us being normal, silly kids.
After a while, it was time to go. Our parents came to pick us up and we all went home, with our own shirts.
The next Monday morning, I was getting ready to go to school and I get a phone call. It was my neighbor and friend, M, she told me that K had gotten ahold of the photo of me in my friend’s shirt, in my vampire makeup, had printed out copies of it, and was going to pass around the pictures to everyone saying I wanted to be a girl.
…she told me that K had gotten ahold of the photo of me in my friend’s shirt, in my vampire makeup, had printed out copies of it, and was going to pass around the pictures to everyone saying I wanted to be a girl.
My hands went cold, my stomach dropped, and I went silent. I was terrified. M told me it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to go to school today, that she would try to talk her out of it, and she would report back. She told my mom what was happening, and she let me stay home. I had spent the whole day in bed crying, but by the end of the day I got a call from M. The news was bad. K had done as she intended, and nobody stopped her.
I stayed home the entire week. My mom had gone to pick up my school assignments and spent the day meeting with the principal to discuss K’s behavior. The school took essentially no action, and they didn’t take it seriously. K got off with a slap on the wrist and for the rest of my eighth grade year I was bullied and harassed by kids who I didn’t even know, my belongings stolen or thrown into the trash, and I had to dodge into my next class instead of hanging out with friends mid-period.
At the end of the year, I decided it would be best to change schools because I was afraid of entering that high school with a target on my back from the previous years experience. I also wanted to get as far away as I could from K. Luckily things started to turn around for me at the new school, but I never forgot about that experience.
It wasn’t until later in life that I learned about non-consensual pornography, what it is and how it can affect victims. I realized that I had had this experience early on in my life, when I was 12, at that Halloween party. What was meant to be only fun and games became weaponized by someone with ill-intent, and that they got away with it.
I was tormented by strangers, treated unfairly by authorities, and left feeling shamed, traumatized by the experience, and afraid to go to school.
I thought about if I had had this experience as an adult and had pornographic images of myself spread around to coworkers by a scorned lover. How people have lost their jobs, their livelihoods, had to move away from their homes because of a similar experience.
I also thought about how quickly the internet makes the spreading of these materials lightning speed, appearing in secret WhatsApp groups behind anonymity screens. Or maybe didn’t even take the images at all and a stranger went on their public Instagram and created artificially generated X-rated images of them and spread them all over Reddit, 8Chan, or Twitter and how violating that must feel.
My heart is always with victims, because I understand the pain. I also lived it, and I also got through it. And you will too.
It may take some time, it may mean you have to make some tough decisions, uproot yourself, lose money, and lose friends, but you will make it through because you are made of tougher stuff than you think. Therapy will also probably help, also.
Legal Support for Revenge Porn Victims
There is legal support available to you, too. Every state but two have revenge porn laws on the books, those are Massachusetts and South Carolina, but you can possibly still take action for other things. Look up your states laws here. Find a lawyer that has knowledge in these laws and you can pursue that way.
Removing Revenge Porn from Websites
Click here for information on removing your images from websites.
