How To Respond To Abuse, Rape and Revenge Porn

Options On How To Stop An Abuser From Getting Away With It

My friend Max looked at me dead in the eyes, serious as a synagogue and confided, “…I went back on Plenty Of Fish and saw that ‘Eric’ guy was online again. What a cheater! He’s not investing in getting to know me if he’s also chatting with who knows how many other men. I think I need to consider breaking up with him.”

“Max, you’ve never even met Eric. Why on earth would you expect a stranger to stop talking to other men on a dating site just because he started a conversation with YOU?” Le sigh.

Well, Max and Eric did meet up, and at some point they took a roll in the hay. Sadly, Eric only disclosed to Max that he’d been diagnosed with genital Herpes after they’d slept together, but that it was ‘nothing’ because he hadn’t had a break-out in a while.

Well, it wasn’t ‘nothing’ because shortly thereafter, Max was diagnosed with the same sexually transmitted infection that will live on in his body for life.

“I spoke with a lawyer about what my rights are. Now I basically have to prove that Eric only told me about the Herpes after we slept together, like I would magically have an audio recording of that conversation.

Then, I have to prove that we slept together in the first place, but of course I don’t actually swab my nethers after each time I have sex with someone ‘just in case’. So my only real option now, is to find out if he did the same thing to his other exes or to his past dates and ask them if they want to bring him to court with me. How am I going to manage that?”

So Max sucked it up and moved on, while Eric continues to ‘move on’ in more ways than one, hurting others and getting away with it.

My friend Esther is an ultra-orthodox Jewish girl from Brooklyn who secretly got into bed with a ‘good Jewish boy’ whom she’d known for a while. During their sexual encounter, Esther suddenly noticed that Daniel was recording their escapade. Esther stopped short and demanded he turn off the recording. It was too late. Esther’s sex tape was circulated on Watsapp over 5000 times and Daniel claimed it was his ‘friend’ that took his phone and shared it (snort).

Meanwhile Esther hid her face in shame every time she walked outside, struggling not to notice the whispers. Shortly after the video circulated, Esther contacted a close friend of hers who was a Jewish lawyer. Yakov tried his best to help Esther, but sadly there was no way to prove that Daniel himself (and not his ‘friend’) had circulated the Watsapp pornographic video. What’s more, the video that circulated clearly depicted Esther stating, “What are you doing?? Turn that off!”

Still, Esther had no case because she lacked evidence.

Quite clearly, the online dating world has taken us by storm. There’s lots of interesting people to meet, social networking to be done and even more great sex to be had…but are us millennials being smart about it? According to the statistics and those true life situations above…not so much.

According to VOX, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphilis have increased in the last few years and women bear the brunt of these infections by almost two times that of men. It is assumed that these rates drastically increased due to the prevalent use of dating apps that facilitate having more sexual partners, more easily.

If you’ve ever worried about revenge porn, you’ll be interested to know that over ten million Americans have been affected, with a prevalence of about one in 25.

So the question begs to be asked…how do we tumble with Tinder, kiss with Plenty Of Fish and fumble with Bumble while protecting our health and wellbeing?

Unfortunately, I too fell into some abusive situations was forced to figure it all out by myself. So I created a little guidebook for others to use, based on my own legal battles, just in case someone can benefit from the knowledge I’ve amassed.

So in order to effectively respond to abusive behaviour, we must first understand how it works.

The abusive partner must have all three of the following elements in order to be abusive. A. Power and control over you B. The perception of themselves as more deserving of a person than you and now all they need to get away with being abusive is a LACK OF EVIDENCE which gives them their much needed C. Impunity, or ability to get away with it.

Most people don’t break the rules unless they think they can get away with it scott free.

Unfortunately, by the time an abuse of your human rights has occurred, you’re usually stuck with the last option ‘C’.

So how can we stop the abuser’s ability to get away with their behaviour?

The short answer is: by legally empowering yourself.

Legal empowerment doesn’t mean you ever need to take any legal steps — it just means that you have gathered enough evidence for your demands to be met by the abuser, dating app, school, workplace, bar, lawyer etc.

Maybe you want the abuser’s profile removed from the dating app, maybe you want your photos deleted, an apology, or achieve whatever your justice goals may be.

But before we continue to discuss the process of legal empowerment let’s first validate that you’ve been through a shitty experience.

When you’ve been through a trauma, the most important person here is YOU.

So before deciding what you want to do about a trauma, make sure to prioritize self-care. Prioritize your physical and mental health.

For your physical health, you may want to visit your doctor for sexually transmitted infection testing and other common complications like a yeast infection, pregnancy or urine infection.

For your mental health, you may want to speak to a friend, a therapist or school counsellor or talk to a lawyer or police.

Once you’ve taken care of yourself, then you can focus on your legal empowerment and getting some type of justice, whatever that means to you.

Gathering evidence can include the following steps:

• Write a record about what happened with times and dates on Jdoe.io to see if this abuser did the same thing to anyone else (they usually do).
• Have a rape kit done up to 4 days after the assault occured (within 5 days)
• Collect pictures from the event, video footage, voice note, email or text messages from the perpetrator or a friend about the incident.
• Evidence to keep in a plastic bag can include used condoms, unwashed sheets, unwashed underwear, a rape kit, pictures of any minor or major injuries, a police report.

You can even create evidence through a recorded text or call with the aggressor admitting to the assault (even if it’s arguing with you, apologizing, or defending theirself, it helps to prove what happened).

Remember that you are recording yourself as well and that this may be used in court if you wish, so stay calm and collected and keep asking questions surrounding the action that violated your rights.

Then, when you are done with your process of doing your best to achieve your own form of justice, just know that YOU are still the most important person here.

YOU can go do whatever it is that your body feels like doing.

Because there is a time for everything under the sun.

Everything.

YOU can cry your eyes out.

YOU can scream at the top of your lungs.

YOU can play like a child and build a sandcastle.

YOU can eat ice cream.

YOU can sing, or write or draw about it until it finishes spilling out of you.

However long that takes.

Until YOU feel like YOU once again.

Because YOU are all that matters.

Tanya is a mental health nurse specializing in trauma therapy and women’s health. She writes for Rewire Trauma Therapy’s online therapy services: https://www.rewiretraumatherapy.com/