day 20 & 21- 22/11/20 : Revenge Porn ~ Apologetic Double-Bill post

G'day folks. I may or may not have skipped my post yesterday. I've kinda failed this challenge considering its supposed to be 30 consecutive days but I would have fallen asleep at my desk and don't think sleep-walking Hugh has the mental capability to post jibberish so I'm going to let myself have this one off. Either way, today is going to be 2 thousands words to make up for it and I've actually sat down to type semi-prepared so let's get started.

Revenge Porn

The thing that prompted this post initially was the uncovering of a whole network of people down south sharing nudes of women online sourced from OnlyFans, upskirting, pictures in Gyms, private pictures, you name it. These people are essentially the dredges of society so if you'd like to sign the petition to make revenge porn a criminal offense down south, please sign here. I can't fathom the mentality of someone who would first of all sexually abuse someone by taking their picture without their consent and second of all circulate this picture with a whole network of creepy cunts just like them so I'm not even going to pretend to understand it. What I will talk about is my experience with it growing up through school. I've seen multiple posts since this story was posted by the Victims' Alliance that talk about it in a similar thread and, to a greater extent in much more gory detail. One that comes to mind is from the point of view of a guy who went to an all-boys school that was surrounded by this collective hivemind that anything outside of misogyny and this macho facade was being 'gay' and a 'pussy'. At this point, I feel this is pretty spot on and can find examples from when I was much younger that were pretty similar. With that said, when I was going through Rathmore, I don't think it was dominant to the same extent. I don't think anyone (atleast in my friendship circles) crossed the line into revenge porn, although I do remember being shown and being sent nudes from random people that I barely knew that had somehow circled their way to my group of mates. The general mentality I got - and I'll have to admit was probably part of - was one you can find in a bad 00's slapstick comedy where dumb guy dumb see boob and go aroooga. The weird and awful thing that I have on my mind is now that I've matured past that and just cringe at the idea that I found a fraction of a nipple tabboo, it gives me such a cramping feeling that this abuse and shaming is still so prevalent. Now, for me, it doesn't really enter my life so for a while it was as if it didn't exist - that it died along with my ill-formed views. I don't say this as an excuse or an attempt to justify a bunch of acne-riddled teens looking at nudes but just as an honest explanation. If you can't help but cringe and feel disgust at me and my mates, that's fair, I feel the same.

To stack onto this comparison, only recently in the past few days, there's been a near identical story of a student in Belfast who was discovered to be selling nude(s) on Discord to a similar network of degenerates. Once this was found out by the school, the kid got a relative slap on the wrist for what is a literal criminal offence, being distribution of indecent images of a minor.

-brief slightly humoursome intermission-

Right so I spent an hour there trying to find a specific poster that I had seen posted on people's stories about this and was scouring everything I had and couldn't find anything. I ended up making a Snapchat story asking people right if yous have any screenshots about this discord cretin can you send them my way. Oh dear god I didn't realise how bad it sounded. For a solid 5 minutes I had on my story something that easily could've read like, "lol hi if u have those nudes of minors pls send me them!!" and to top it off people that replied were saying, "It's the 'Ty, will delete this later' that did it for me". I want to die. I WANT TO DIE

-back to the heartache-

Before I go into this tirade, don't trust the information I talk about. A fair bit of it is collected from second and third hand information and I'm trying to rely on what has been posted by this perverted retrograde but even at, take what you read with a pinch of salt. I don't know for certain if the images were sent to a single individual or a network of people (although I believe the latter from what I've read) and while I've a good idea of what the school's response was, I again, can't say with certainty. I'm only going to use two quotes verbatim and I will make clear that they are from the horse's mouth - anything else is from second and third hand information so apply some healthy distrust to it. It hasn't yet (and very well may not) be brought to a criminal court so I'm not posting images or using names because a) everyone involved is a minor; and b) as we saw with the Paddy Jackson case, with sensitive cases like this, once people's identities are known, trying to bring it to a sentence becomes unnecessarily complicated and I don't want to be a contributing factor for why this cunt doesn't rot.

Moving on from this, let's talk about why I genuinely from the bottom of my heart think this guy is a cunt, as if it's not already clear to you. Usually, no matter how much I detest their actions, I feel some sort of protection for the criminal when its a juvenile crime, believing that at that point, they are largely the product of all the biases, socioeconomic factors and hardships that they've experienced up to this point and in some ways they're a victim in their own right.

"[At]least I miss triple maths".

My nudes weren't leaked and even I fucking detest everything about this. This guy is the exception to this rule for me. Why is that? Because it screams the sort of cavalier I-want-to-fit-in-so-desperately-I-don't-care-who-I-hurt attitude that I was talking about before. The fact that at the end of all this, after hurting so many people either directly or not, after having a weak-handed talk from his Principal about the iMpOrTaNcE oF rEsPeCtInG hIs PeEr'S pRiVaCy, and after whatever ounce of social ridicule, he'll walk back into school after his three day suspension, he'll have a giggle with his group of his mates and for that brief second, believe he's top dick cause he did all this and is fucking scot-free and very well look the people whose personal images he sold in the eye, get his grades and be out the door as if nothing fucking happened is a b s o l u t e l y f u c k i n g w i l d. I shudder at the thought of what sort of precedent this sets up. It reminds me so much of the Brock Turner rape case in the US where somehow, through some astonishing mental gymnastics, the value of some eery cunt's 'reputation' and 'future' is worth more than a person's dignity and very own existence. Fucking bonkers mate.

This brings me onto my next point: the school's response. Three day's suspension. Three day's fucking suspension? Here, I feel while I still hate them that bit more for how they've responded, I do understand it a bit more cause I went to a similar, academically-driven, faith-focused school that showed a plethora of strikingly similar examples. This, as far as I understand, is their mentality: A student gets caught selling nudes to people on the internet - that's bad publicity. The school is off to damage control - that's what matters to them- as they try to contain this story within the boundaries of the school (true to that, trying to find any posts or news about this was pretty difficult). Obviously, parents will find out so they come up with the illusion of punishment (i.e. the three day suspension), the illusion that they really care about what happened whilst simultaneously holding onto the position that they are the moral arbiter and spiritual instructor for all of their students. They have some senior faculty member approach whichever women were affected and stress how, "his whole future shouldn't be determined by a mistake." Maybe they really believe that sentence or maybe they don't, regardless, what matters is this girl, who's already feeling utterly terrified and paranoid mind you, doesn't find the support and conviction from her friends and family to make a report to the police or the education board. In my heart of hearts, I truly think that's exactly what was going through the school's mind.

"[THIS SCHOOL] CARES MORE ABOUT GIRLS WEARING LEGGINGS, THAN A STUDENT WHO DISTRIBUTED INDECENT PICTURES OF MINORS ONLINE FOR MONEY"

The above is what posted by a student on the walls of the school. I should say, if you see this poster somewhere, the name at the bottom is NOT the actual pedo-fuelling scum that distributed the sexual images. It's the name of the guy who put up the poster so once again, please do not dox anyone involved as the problems erupting from it can be unimaginable.

With all of that said, there's a few other things to touch on. With the original posts that I saw shared online, it was repeated that girls weren't allowed to wear leggings in PE for fear that they would, "distract male teachers" and how assemblies emphasised how pastoral care treasures "hearing both sides" (I am Jack's complete lack of surprise). This shows bare a cruel, sexist and debilitating double standard demonstrated within this school and, atleast in my experience, within schools in the North in their generality. Cast your mind back, my reader friend, at the talks hosted by police or some suspicious looking dude who led talks about the importance of not sending explicit pictures of yourself to your partner otherwise uh oh public shaming !! whilst naughtily wagging a finger and smirking. There are so many countless redundant talks I can't count on my fingers that equated to victim-blaming because the school board didn't have the strength nor conviction to actually address the root of the problem - men. Aw you may hate it mate but honestly like can you actually remember the first or last time whoever tried taking your talk might have whispered, "Hey uhhh maybe just have some decent base level of respect for your partner and just women in general ?" No, of course not, because it was treated like a completely separate issue. Oh no no no, revenge porn doesn't happen because there's some spiteful piece of shit sending a picture of an ex-partner about, it's because the girl wasn't careful about who she trusted. It's not because men are yet to learn a lesson in a smidgen of self-control or basic respect, it's because of the taunting aura of any women that dares to show flesh in public. Eat my fucking hole. You could take a picture of your face and if that's all there was, there'd somehow still be a problem. I understand why you can argue that it's an issue for outside of school or something family should have taught but how can you reasonably rely on the personal interests of family (if they indeed are present) to enshrine these lessons whenever it can easily become a standard part of curriculum. If, as children, we're taught how to be sociable creatures and how to interact with another and yet, with the same righteous breath, we're split into separate castes- as if one is taboo and simultaneously tantalising to the other; we're then told of our differences and become molded by the collective consciousness of premature and unchallenged understanding of the 'other' that makes up our friend circle and then, at the end of all of this, still expect one gender to treat the other as if they're not a separate species and not tremor to think that you should intervene and maybe, I don't know, teach basic fucking respect and not expect huge persistent problems then you are simply fucking deluded.

I could most likely find more reasons to fuel my deep disgust at these people but I think this is a good time to stop. I've littered today's post with disclaimers which might sound clunky but I really feel they're necessary. If you really want something more to come of this like I do, sign petitions, push and shame the school and don't let this be forgotten about as a passing fad. As much I hate the cunt, do not distribute the cretin that did this nor anyone else's names or personal details online as doxing creates so many more issues as everyone we're talking about is a minor (except the school faculty. Once again, you're cordially invited to eat my ass.) The name on the poster is the name of the guy who put it up, if you see anyone treating this poster as if it is showing his name, please inform them of such. Whoever posted it had the same ferocity and vitriol against the school and this cunt as you and I do and they don't deserve to be mischaracterised like that for trying (and, in some ways succeeding) to bring attention to the issue. [EDIT: Removed any mentions of the school by name rather than risk identifying any minors]

Before I do sign off, so much of my post today was about this school and the one guy. Today I kinda went along with the pretense that you have a good awareness that this is most likely prevalent in most schools as well as in multiple male-dominated social circles so unless it wasn't already clear - this is not an isolated incident. If you're angry, please feel free to wanna be fucking vindicated and tear down at the roots social and academic cultures that promote the idea that this is somehow acceptable.