My Ex Uploaded Videos of Me to Pornhub Without My Consent || Consider Before Consuming Podcast

I'll tell you when I first found my videos many many of these videos were of me barely holding my head up falling over um clearly inebriated intoxicated or drugged of some sort um it was it could not have been more clear that these videos were non-consensual and even the comments many of the comments were laughing about you know the things that were happening in the video it was clear it was crystal clear [Music] yeah first things first I just want to say thank you for joining us on the podcast today thank you for having me absolutely we feel honored that you're here today and for the guests that aren't as familiar with who you are I think we should give you the opportunity to introduce yourself can you do that and just kind of talk about what your day-to-day looks like nowadays yeah I'm a paralegal and I live in Tennessee I'm a mother I'm a Survivor of image based sexual abuse unfortunately yeah so I mean sitting here now I'm I'm sweating I'm shaking I'm nervous um but you know at this same time it's important to me so I do want to I do want to share my story I do want to help other people if I can you mentioned the image-based abuse that you experienced can you speak to that a little bit more and explain when was the first time that you found out that you had been victimized yeah sure so I was actually married most of my adult life and around 2016 we got a divorce and I started online dating that's where um where all of this really started I met a man online named Brandon and we began to see each other initially something was off something didn't feel genuine and I ended up not talking to him for for many many months we ended up talking um getting back together or getting back to talking many months later um through Instagram and in the beginning Brandon was very um I guess what you call love bombing he was saying all the right things doing all the right things he had invited me to go on a trip with him as a friend at this point to Las Vegas he had a basketball tournament that he was going to and so I agreed to go with him as a friend over the next two months he continued to love bomb me he was the most compassionate sweetest most romantic man you you probably ever meet you know I thought he was great and during that time I completely fell for him so by the time that the trip to Las Vegas came around we were in a relationship we were exclusive we were saying I love yous uh you know and I completely trusted him I completely fell for him while we were on the trip there were some things that happened happened that I should have probably realized at that point but I didn't unfortunately I suffered from a lot of repressed memories there was some drugging that happened on the trip there were a lot of things that I didn't remember initially there were repressed memories there was a lot of trauma it took a lot of time for me to work through I didn't find out see we took the trip to Las Vegas in 2018 I didn't find out about the videos until 2020. so during that time period after the trip Brandon and I ended up deciding that you know relationship wasn't going to be where it was he wasn't truthful we had some issues so we ended up just being friends so for over two years we were friends with benefits which I didn't know at the time but the entire time that we were brand together Brandon was recording me so there were three different kinds of videos that were made at the time there were hidden camera videos that I had no clue that were even being made there were date rape videos mainly on the trip to Las Vegas where I didn't even have a recollection of a lot of the things that happened um you know and then the third type of videos um which leads to when I actually discovered the videos is when he actually pulled his phone out on me during intercourse and um so now there's a fourth kind of videos which is now they're they're deep faking um content with my face so um in 2020 when I first found out what happened was Brandon and I had met up we had went out for drinks and afterwards we went back to my house during intercourse Brandon pulled his phone out on me which caused me to be alarmed of course um I'd never known him to really do that before and I I assumed that if he had recorded something you know it would only be for for himself I never really said hey put the phone you know I wasn't real clear um I had been drinking that night and um after that happened I had a lot of things that were coming up in my mind you know what if he did record what if he did post it what you know what he could have done with this video if there was one you know um so initially I continued to see him the next time that we went out he asked me um to perform oral sex and I said you know I didn't trust him I would have to put something over my head because you know he might pull his phone out on me and it was it was kind of a joking thing at that point I didn't realize what was really going on and so Brandon went to his backpack he always brought two backpacks when he came over and he went to his backpack and he pulled out a black face mask with only a hole for the mouth so kind of like a ski mask with only a hole right here we had been out drinking that time too so um after that encounter I began to wonder what type of person carries a bag with a face mask in it you know um so it was the combination of him pulling the phone out and the mask and he had been acting funny there were a lot of a lot of signs and symptoms that I I should have seen along the way but I didn't and in hindsight and looking back when this actually happened beginning I guess around 2018 around that Vegas trip I didn't realize it at the time but I was actually self-medicating I had repressed memories I was trying to cope with things that I'd that weren't even in my present mind that I knew you know I didn't even know I was dealing with these things right um so I I was I was acting out I was very hypersexualized you know different than my typical self and I didn't know at the time that those are actually common symptoms of coping with trauma you you mentioned that your comment that he might pull out his phone that you were hesitant to engage sexually with him because you were scared that he was going to pull out his phone and you mentioned that you were joking about that comment but in reality I would imagine that that comment actually had some truth there and that you brought that up because it was concerning to you absolutely Brandon knew that I would not consent to being recorded there was actually a man that I had met online through a dating app and when I met him in person he had um had his phone on record and it was in his pocket and you know I had talked about this odd encounter with this strange person so he knew that I would never like I mean before this like I wasn't into porn I wasn't on porn sites I wasn't that kind of person and um I guess that made me an easy target that prompted you to search for it and that's how you originally found them yeah so basically the first thing I did when I I started thinking well what if he did you know make a video What If He Did record it what if he posted what if you know so my mind started going through these things and that's when I uh went on and I typed in porn and of course PornHub pops up because that's the number one you know me in my all of my naiveness I type in Vicky I never expected that it would pull up Vicky but it's in your name populated videos of yourself yes sir oh my goodness yeah so can you speak a little bit more to the grooming process that occurred because I think it's easy for someone who didn't experience this to judge and say I wouldn't have done that yeah and and to be perfectly honest with you in my life I would have done anything Brandon asked me to probably I was in love with this man um you know he had built such a foundation I thought he was my soul mate you know I didn't um as far as what he did I mean you know when we before the trip to Vegas he was calling me he was texting me constantly all day every day he was saying all the right things he cared about me he cared about my kids he cared about my family you know he um he was always good morning sunshine you know like all these little I guess cliche texts you know but I fell for it I don't know I I typically you know don't but but I did I fell for it hard I hope that you don't blame yourself for that because my the fact that I wanted you to re-emphasize The Grooming process is because I have empathy for you because I think 99 of us would have acted the same way that you did because of the grooming that occurred you thought that you guys were soul mates and he broke that trust and it seems like the cliche text that he was sending and The Grooming process it was all just strategic do you do you speculate now that all of that cliche or that like those expressions of Love do you speculate now that that was all just very strategic and part of his plan it 100 was um things that happened on our trip to Las Vegas it was premeditated there were things that were included in the videos and things that had to have been packed ahead of time and I was actually assaulted not only by him but by his friends on this trip um and there are videos actually active on PornHub now and um you know when I re when I originally reached out to Pornhub when all of this when I found out in 2020 they wouldn't take the content down and I did testify against them at the Canadian Parliament hearing I did have conversations with their attorney um I've had so many conversations with them I actually ended up filing a lawsuit against them Pro Se um I'm a I'm a paralegal so you know I was like okay I can't afford to give someone 10 to 30 000 to to get this lawsuit even started um so let's do it myself so I did I typed up a lawsuit I served them in Cyprus um and I ended up dismissing that lawsuit they did eventually take down the um the initial videos that were under my name so it was uh Vicky something and that's what the model's name was so they eventually did agree to take those videos down but now there are all of these other um performers that are claiming all of these videos that are actually me and they just don't care they're making money and um so they refused to take my content down at this point so I have had to learn how to get up every day hold my head high go out and face the world and and knowing that this is online originally when I resigned from my paralegal position that is why you know for over a year and a half I continued to get up to go downtown Nashville to walk downtown and face everyone on the street um you know the looks that you receive the comments that have been made to me I can't even tell you um it's just been so much um so for me I wanted to um I wanted to take some time off to kind of give myself that time to allow myself to heal to to learn to love myself again to like you said forgive myself for the parts that I blamed because you know I'm not without fault in this situation nobody is perfect but I didn't deserve what happened yeah you're definitely the victim here and yeah even if you were going through a challenging time and you were you were coping at the time you didn't know that you were coping you you're the victim here and so I just want to validate that well thank you for that and the the sad part of it is is the people that suffered the most were my children um because I wasn't able to be the mom that I should have been during this time so I have I have two children I have an 18 year old son who is off to college now finally um which I could not be more proud of and then I have a nine-year-old daughter that has Down syndrome so I'm a huge advocate for her all of this caused such hardships I mean you can imagine having a 16 year old son when you're going through some trauma like this um and at the time a six or seven year old with Down Syndrome you know it was it was a lot I initially moved in with my mom and let her kind of help me through this period I'd lost about 30 pounds I couldn't I couldn't eat I couldn't I couldn't take care of myself there were so many hardships that I thought would never end and you know I still struggle I still have days where I don't want to get out of bed you know days where it's hard but um but there is life after exploitation and you know it helps me to know that I'm not alone in this so many other survivors have come forward and they've told their story and you know there are a lot of people that aren't coming forward that this has happened to too and you know I don't fault them for that I never wanted attention I never wanted to come forward the thing that really made me come forward I guess it was several things but it was um hearing how a child like Serena flitas had gone through this it was um Fury with PornHub for not taking my videos down and so when I saw what all of these non-profits and everyone was doing you know against PornHub to stand up and I heard about that Parliament hearing I never thought that they would actually you know listen to me or want to want to hear my story but I reached out and they did did and um that's when I kind of realized for the first time I'm not alone and that that changed everything I've had so many people come forward and support me people that have been through this people that haven't you know other uh victim rights Advocates I can't tell you all the amazing supportive trauma-informed people that I've encountered on this journey and it it makes me sad to know that there are people out there that haven't had that support that haven't found those things and um so for me I just want them to know you know we are here as survivors we are here and you know if they want to reach out I I'm always willing to support and help someone you know find resources that they need anything that I can do to help someone else that has been through this I just want to let that sit for a second because what you said about your kids and how this is negatively impacted them goodness gracious that is that is a serious thing my son who was 16 at the time and he's now 18. he completely supports me speaking out he could not be more proud he is um you know we've we've managed to work through those hard times that we had and our relationship is stronger than ever and he's very supportive very aware you know I would never speak out if he said no I don't want you to do this mom you know I I would completely respect that because I do put my children first but I'm lucky that he he's supportive the cool thing about relationships is when you go through challenging times together they can become strengthened they become even stronger through the difficulty and it seems like you've been able to maintain that healthy relationship with your kids despite this victimization have you noticed that your activism is part of your healing process I would say it's not necessary for a Survivor to do that to heal but for me um the first speaking out was at Parliament and that's what opened the door for me for all of that support that I found for all of that so it was definitely healing for me um the next you know I took some time off after Parliament where I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be real vocal and it took a while for me to come back around and we actually a few of us survivors actually went to DC and that experience speaking at the Symposium with um within cozy and Exodus Cry they they put that together and allowed us survivors to come and speak and it was um I ended up crying and I hated that because I wanted to you know to show up and be so strong and just you know but I ended up crying and that's just the reality of it but it was it was um it needed to be let out and it get it gave me this um this power that I felt like I was taking my power back I was not gonna hide from what happened to me I was gonna own it and if someone judges me for it then that's a reflection of them that's not a reflection of me so um it did it helped me to grow and gave me strength that I really needed to get through this I speculate that one of the things you're doing for other people as you are engaging in activism and educating on this is that you're acting as a light at the end of the tunnel for other victims who have experienced assault or image-based abuse or both or whatever the situation is yeah I mean when you know when you look back at all that all the time through this I've been Stalked at my home by an unknown man on two different occasions like I have witnesses uh when I initially went to the police the police didn't believe me they they basically re-victimized me interrogated me they didn't even have Brandon come into the police station until three months later and um I could I could speak for hours on how horrible that was but the entire process all of the the stalking the harassment the doxing like I could write a book just on that alone there's so much that that survivors go through that people don't understand um but all of those things they you know it's easy for me to feel beaten down but I have children and they're depending on me and you know I'm just I'm not going to let it control my life someone else someone else did this you know someone else chose to make this content I did not choose this and I'm not going to let it basically Define who I am the goal of this podcast is to help people consider before consuming and your story is one showing how porn and sex trafficking are interconnected it's they're not separate Industries it's one industry and it's the sexual exploitation industry and so again as we have these heavy conversations the reason why we have them is to help other people consider before consuming and also to help other survivors and be in their corner you know a lot of times um people don't understand why it's so traumatizing you know it's just sex or it's just your body or it's the fact that I never chose this so you know doing this without people's permission I I think a lot of guys may think it's uh humorous or you know funny it's not it is so traumatizing for me I felt like I was raped by each person that viewed this content because I didn't I didn't consent for this to be out there and to compare it to being raped I know it you know it sounds extreme but that's how I felt I mean you you can't imagine having everything taken away from you um I can't tell you the amount of money the amount of time I have spent hundreds of hours taking down videos I've had handfuls uh dozens of other survivors Reach Out people that you would never guess have been through this and not everyone's coming forward and I'm I'm not the only person that has had a deep fake or you know edited content it's actually prevalent on PornHub right now I think what's happening honestly is some of these webmasters or I'll call them pimps they're basically they have girls that they may be managed so what's happening is some of these videos that are non-consensual obviously are being maybe purchased or found somewhere online I can't say what somebody else is doing but then they're taking them and they're altering the image and then they're putting it out as if it's their own and when you're dealing with edited content it's so hard because unless you have the original video the original metadata like you can't prove that a video has been altered or in what way you can only look at the metadata and say okay it's been altered but all of that's deleted now we can't get back so it creates this um almost impossible problem and that's why I wanted to mention the protect act to you that basically creates a way for image-based sexual abuse survivors to remove content and it create it's a a standard for identifiability that has not been there before so currently Tennessee our revenge porn law you have to be identifiable so let's say somebody takes a video of you and let's say they change it a little bit it looks kind of like you but you know they've removed your birthmark they've changed freckles and there's no way for you to prove that that's you when someone else is claiming that it's them especially if they edit it to make it appear more like them so um what this bill does is it creates um an expansion of identifiability and it allows you to be identified by birthmark by voice by distinguishing features all of which I could I could meet that burden because in in my assault videos um at least one of them I actually say my abuser's name now the couple that claimed my videos their name their names are Laura and Lori so there would be no reason for them to say Brandon so if this if this new Act is passed the protect act it would create a means for me to have this illegal non-consensual edited content of me removed and it also would create a a punishment for sites like PornHub if they don't remove the content so it creates a a penalty you know for them if they don't if they don't remove it because right now there's no deterrent there's there's no way that they're going to be have to pay there's no justice served and so they just continue with their exploitation is that kind of what you're saying you and to speak on that a little more there are laws I mean the forest and they're not being interpreted correctly so I actually printed it off the uh the sex trafficking law and I wanted to if that's okay I'd like to kind of go over is this the law in Tennessee or Nationwide Federal okay yeah so this is the United States Federal sex trafficking law so basically what it says is anyone who knowingly benefits or receives anything of value from a participation in a venture and then it goes through which is engaged and blah blah blah but basically anyone that engages in a commercial sex act by using fraud Force coercion or any combination of the three it should be enforceable under the federal United States sex trafficking statute right but the problem is is that they they I met with the U.S uh attorney Assistant Attorney and she told me that there was no money exchanged I wasn't a prostitute I didn't receive anything of value so it's harder to meet that commercial sex act standard but when you look at the definition in the federal law of what sex trafficking is and you look at that commercial sex act commercial sex act means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person so that means if Brandon made a video and he owns the video that's something of value even without selling it without I mean it's there yeah him selling it it being monetized on PornHub all of those things are in addition to so when you look at was I forced into a commercial sex act with for Force fraud coercion or any combination of the three yes I was I was forced into this with fraud I mean I never I never agreed to this so um the fact that I never received any money makes it harder for me to say okay this is a commercial sex act if I were a prostitute and I had voluntarily chose you know to make to engage in sexism you know then I would meet that it does meet the standard but it's not being enforced that way the people who are profiting off of it there's two at least three parties that I can identify that are profiting from your image-based abuse the first one is Brandon the second one is Pornhub and any other website that is profited off of your video videos and then the third party is you said it's a couple in Finland who have claimed your video they claim to my videos and there was nothing I could do originally to get it down now that that particular account is down I don't know who's claiming these other accounts it could be the same couple it could be another you know pimp online I don't know all I know is that Brandon made something of value through Force fraud coercion or any combination of the three and it does qualify sex trafficking um but getting a district attorney or even a United States Attorney to prosecute it it's impossible you know it's so hard when you do everything you can just to try to get videos down to try to get some injustice to get some help in nobody's helps they actually re-traumatize you and re-victimize I think I know the answer to this but I just want to ask it so justice has not been served to two Brandon no and actually um I think it was a couple months ago and I'm really bad with time frames just because of all the trauma my memory is not as well as it used to be but a couple months ago or so Brandon actually threw an anonymous account well I say Brandon someone sent me a video of Brandon masturbating through Instagram through a fake account so a screenshotted the video the person that sent it to me immediately unsent it but I have the screenshots and I went to the police and they told me to file for an order of protection because this man has continually harassed me anonymously online for over two years um I thought I finally had the proof you know here it is his you know it's him his body genitalia exactly so um I went for the order of protection hearing the judge refused to look at Brandon's private areas uh Brandon said it wasn't him and the judge ruled against me he would not take my word despite me having been with the man for all this time and knowing um like I said he never examined Brandon he asked me if I had dated anyone since Brandon and I said well yeah and he said well maybe he's the one that sent you the video if the protect act had been in place 10 years ago how would your experience be different yeah it would create means of identifiability that akao me was removed it would basically give me my life back yeah and so when people ask me well you know why are you speaking out why are you you know telling your stories because I want to help others but I also want my abuse off the internet I want a means to um to remove it you know I want I want there to be laws that can be enforced and even though you know like I said the the federal sex trafficking law isn't my favor I do meet the standard in December 2020 is when Nicholas Kristoff wrote the article the expose titled the children of PornHub when you found out about your image-based abuse had did that article exist no okay um so I found the videos it was August uh the beginning of August of 2020 so if I remember correctly I think the Nicholas Kristoff story came out was it December 24th I think it's December 4th 2020. yeah so all of this um was all around the same time and um I remember getting so excited I remember when the story came out and I remember going on PornHub typing in Vicki blank and that performer was gone and I was so happy I remember calling my mom I was like oh my God they took the videos down you know so happy and that was the first time that I I found that the videos had been removed um I didn't know that removing them off of PornHub meant they would pop up on hundreds of other sites because they were no longer protected by PornHub so apparently when a model has content on PornHub it's exclusive they scour the web and they remove it if somebody else tries to post your content so they protected my content or my illegal content when when it was being claimed on their site but once they removed it which was during The Purge and they actually responded to me just I think two days before the parliament hearing um telling me that they were going to fingerprint it and that it would not be re-uploaded um but you know all of that I feel like pushed them to remove and to fingerprint and so that article was very big for me that that article changed like it was it was a big moment in my life um when I found that article and those videos were down um but like I said they popped up on other websites and I have a Excel spreadsheet with at least 200 sites that I contacted personally and spent all of my time getting these videos down and some of them you just can't get down some of them the who is hosting information is hidden and you can't get access and so if it's in another country and the um the actual poster of the site won't remove the content and you can't get to the person that owns it it's just it's so hard um and I can't send a dmca takedown notice because I'm not the copyright owner I didn't make these videos so while I'm in them and I'm you know um I own my body I don't have the copyrights of the content because I didn't create it when people learned about Nicholas Kristoff's article the children of PornHub and then how PornHub responded by purging a significant amount of their site and then they also changed that only verified I say with their quotes verified users can upload so they did make some changes and to a layperson they might look at those changes and be like okay now PornHub must be an ethical place to go consume again using air quotes ethical porn but the reality is is that that's not the case and the reality is is that there's still they still there's no system in place to eliminate sexual exploitation image-based abuse like you've talked to revenge porn there's no system in place currently uh you mentioned that the article when you found out about the the children of PornHub article when you found out that your videos had been removed it was a big deal for you but also I think a lot of activists and people who are fighting for for justice and to end sexual exploitation they would say too little too late yeah but when you're as um as low as I was at that point in my life even breadcrumbs you know they they felt like um oh yeah it's a big you know yeah I'll tell you when I first found my videos many many of these videos were of me barely holding my head up falling over um clearly inebriated intoxicated or drugged of some sort um it was it could not have been more clear that these videos were non-consensual from this statement you couldn't give consent at that point exactly um and even the comments many of the comments were laughing about you know the things that were happening in the video it was clear it was crystal clear we as an organization we were really excited when Nicholas Kristoff wrote that article we were able to record an interview with him for the listeners to want to go back and listen to that it's episode 35 of consider before consuming but one of the things that interesting about what he said what prompted him to write that article was he went on to Pornhub and he was searching through videos trying to look for Content that would easily be identified as non-consensual he said that he saw an image of a woman and she was unconscious to the point where the perpetrator touched her eyeball without her responding and that is what prompted him to write this expose yeah I commend him for that that article like he said it it changed my life it gave me hope and um you know so shout out to him good job yep exactly it was a big win and but also we want to acknowledge survivors and those who have been victimized by the porn industry because Nicholas Kristoff he wouldn't have written that article if all of the survivors hadn't been doing their part in fighting and and doing their activism and so again it comes back to you we want to say thank you to you because you are showing up and from Individual to individual from me to you I want to say keep going and we fight the new drug we want to say that we admire you and that we're in your corner and I do want to leave you with the opportunity to have the last word during this conversation what can we do as an organization and what can our listeners and viewers do to support you yeah so um to support me is to support others so believe survivors listen to survivors and I guess the thing that's so easy is when it doesn't involve you or it's not you going through something it's easy for you to look the other way stop looking the other way this is happening is happening not only to me I'm just one of the few people that choose to speak up it's happening to thousands hundreds of thousands probably um you know worldwide and so to support me means to support all survivors [Music] thanks for joining us on this episode of consider before consuming consider before consuming is brought to you by fight the new drug fight the new drug is a non-religious and a non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising Awareness on its harmful effects using only science facts and personal accounts check out the episode notes for resources mentioned in this episode if you find this podcast helpful consider subscribing and leaving a review consider before consuming is made possible by listeners like you if you'd like to support consider before consuming you can make a one-time or recurring donation of any amount at ftd.org forward slash support that's ftnd.org forward slash support thanks again for listening we invite you to increase your self-awareness look both ways check your blind spots and consider before consuming

Channel: Fight the New Drug

Views: 77,700

Keywords: Suvivor, Image Based Abuse, Image Base Sexual Abuse, Revenge porn, porn, sex, anti porn, pornhub, nonconsensual, ex boyfriend, my ex boyfriend uploaded videos without my consent, Consider Before Consuming, CBC, CBC Podcast, FTND, Fight the New Drug, education, educational

Id: xGT7GtLZj1E

Length: 40min 2sec (2402 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023