Question
I am conflicted and angry. I share a house with four friends and various people have come and gone over the two years I have been here – so some of them came through other contacts.
I discovered that one of the others has been putting pictures of me on the internet in various states, and I am blindsided by this. I only discovered it when a friend told me about it, as it had been sent to him by a colleague who knew we were friends. The worst picture is of me, drunk at a party, kissing someone with my skirt up way too high.
I am mortified and so very angry. I know this is wrong and that the law is now able to take this on, but I’ve been getting very conflicting messages from people about this.
I have a job that is very public-facing and if this gets out, I might be the one who suffers – people calling me a slut and, to be honest, I am ashamed of the state I was in. But, even worse, my flatmates are all making excuses for the person who took the pictures, saying he is not a functioning human being, has no friends and needs help. This enrages me even more as it means that not only am I to suffer the consequences of his actions, but I am supposed to forgive him for it too.
‘Although my current job has a structured career path and is secure, I find it meaningless’
‘I am divorced at 60, envious of my ex-husband’s new life and struggling with loneliness’
‘I’m dating a previously married man but I feel sad that I will always come second to his children’
‘A stranger entered our family and turned them all against us’
I tried to confront him, but he locked himself in his room and did not come out until I left the house. If I go to the police, they might think that at least I had my clothes on, that it is not a serious matter.
My friends are treating it as something I will laugh at later on, so they do not think I should do anything.
Answer
Anger and shame are such a toxic mixture – one emotion wants you to fight and demand justice and the other curls you in on yourself and wants you to hide. These emotions mean that you are conflicted by opposite urges and the rage can turn inward and create damage.
This can happen in many forms – you may be angry at everyone and lash out for the wrong reasons, you may take it out on yourself in the forms of depression or self-loathing, or you may withdraw and change your lifestyle for fear of this happening again. The incident you describe is not a trivial one and you have no choice but to accept it and choose your response.
We have a long history of victim-blaming, and you would not be wrong in taking this into account in deciding how to proceed, but there have been many people who have challenged that culture and even had the law changed (see Coco’s law, which created two new offences that criminalise the non-consensual distribution of intimate images). Furthermore, consent programmes have now developed to the stage that they are being held in secondary schools (they have long been conducted in third level). The discourse on posting non-consensual images has moved from one of the victim changing their behaviour to one where society realises that this can and does happen to almost anyone.
It will take courage to demand justice, but the alternative is that shame becomes the abiding guide to your actions, and you can see the danger for you in this. You did not cause or contribute to this situation, it rests entirely on your flatmate’s actions, and regardless of his personal difficulties, he bears full responsibility for the consequences. It may be true that he needs help, but this again is not your responsibility. As an adult, he is culpable for his actions.
Going to gardaí, who have trained personnel in this area, will actually mean the options being laid out for you. It may be that, at very least, your flatmate might be interviewed and cautioned. If there have been previous reports on the same person, it may even progress a case or add to an existing file. Speaking out challenges the shame, and taking action eases the anger as you will feel some path to justice is laid out.
What is worrying, though, is your friends’ idea that this is a laugh and that your flatmate is a helpless participant in a harmless incident. Your reputation is under threat, your privacy has been violated and your friends are not being very supportive. As these friends are important people in your life, it is important that they hear, and fully understand, the impact this is having on you, that they appreciate the impossibility of this person continuing to live in your space and the need to support you in demanding justice.
Your friends may not be seeing your vulnerability and perhaps this is because you normally present a competent and confident self, but the truth is that everyone can be targeted and harassed, and no one is exempt from the possibility of public shaming.
[ ‘It dawned on me it was not good to be so mistreated by a friend’Opens in new window ]
Ask for your friends’ support: put words on your experience; get them to accompany you to gardaí; get their back-up as you ask your landlord to move the perpetrator out and ensure that their eyes are open to the real and enduring harm that results from non-consensual circulation of images.
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