2015 Oct 5
by Rahal Wijewardene
“Just one” he says. “No one will get to know, don’t worry, it’s just for me baby.” he reassures her. It’s tempting, and why not right? He does after all always seem to know what to say, even in these scenarios. She trusts him and takes off her blouse and takes a selfie. Innocent enough, it’s just her brassiere, yet still it isn’t something she would want her mother seeing.“God you look so hot baby, you can’t stop there you have to show me more”. His response is quicker than the click of her reluctant thumb on the send button. An issue arises, she is reluctant, “I’m not comfortable with that…maybe some other time?” the hands which hold her phone quiver as she types and her pulse drops when she sees his reply.
“Show me more or I send whatever I have to everyone on my contact list, and I can assure you, they’ll send it around and then the people they send to will send it around, and the people they send it to will send it on, and it’ll just keep going… Right up until the point,
That it gets back to you.”
She now has a dilemma, of not only morals and principles, but also of patriarchal[1] society life and death. She firstly has the task of deciding whether she wants another individual to see her in her most vulnerable state, both physically and mentally.
Naked. Bare bodied. Completely exposed with nothing left to hide.
It isn’t that sending pictures is necessarily a bad thing to do, in our modern day driven by hormones and compulsion, it has become the ultimate portrayal of love and trust between two individuals who care for each other. Why this is is oblivious to me, I don’t agree that it is necessary within a loving relationship, but I won’t disagree with the fact that it could be enthralling and a great adventure for both parties if they both do truly trust each other with this great privilege one party is bestowing on the other. Where I see the issue, is when he who receives these photographs decides to stamp upon the very basis of why this girl chose to show him herself in her entirety, by showing it or sending it to his mates, their mates and their dogs. But then again, I suppose you’re supposed to interact with those that have something in common with you (being a dog).
Why is it that these individuals feel the need to create a mural, using their testosterone as paint that they are somehow superior and elitist because they can convince a girl to take off her clothes? Well done, you can write a persuasive essay. I got a gold star for that in the 4thgrade, I think that’s a more viable way of proving your masculinity actually! Every time you manage to get a girl to strip for you, you can plaster a gold star on your pelvis. To tell the world that, you, a misogynistic cretin fueled by testosterone, can only relinquish on your own because you the only way you could get a girl to do so is by forcing or coaxing her to do so.
I like this solution, because instead of the girl being humiliated, heartbroken, agonized, distraught, embarrassed and maybe even on the verge of suicide, you just look like a complete and insolent halfwit who feels better about himself when others see that he has achieved something with his life by thinking with his genitalia. But I digress.
She decides to protect herself from society bashing her for her heinous crime (the crime being trusting an individual, an individual she deeply cared about at that), removes her brassiere and takes another selfie. “You can’t show this to anyone okay?” it takes her a great deal of time to type out these seven one syllable words because each word carries so much weight, the weight of her entire life hanging in the balance.
“Of course not” he replies.
He’s having a beer with his mates, rambling about the “chick they had their way with just the other night” or something along the lines as such. He is silent, nervously smiling and laughing when glanced upon. “You’re awfully silent tonight! What’s the chick scene like for you bro!” The first thing that comes to mind is of course, the flashes of her naked body and he is faced with a dilemma. Do I tell them and seem cool? Or do I value this girl’s sanctity and her trust in me to send such a thing? Of course, it doesn’t take him a moment to decide. “I just got nudes from this chick the other night, lol no big deal but pretty nice tits man.” The shallowness in his tone is so evident your ankles would barely get wet. “You’ve got to send them to me bro!” “Yeah me too!” “Dude I’d bang her so hard!” the replies are colorful and in great variety.
Congratulations, you have just ruined a young girl’s life. Her ability to show her face in certain areas of town, her chances of becoming a prefect or running for student council, her friends new found judgement of her and their general thoughts of her, her ability to trust someone and even to let someone into her life the way she let you in. All gone, just like that. Her sanctity as a whole may even be up for question because the weight and pressure of such mental trauma, to take a few examples, of having either your mother, sister or form teacher see these pictures. Or maybe finding out your brother’s friends each have it on their phones and look at it each night before they go to bed.
That private moment, she thought she shared with a trusting, caring and loving individual, no longer exists any more than a unicorn or a leprechaun. Once she realizes this, her whole life crumbles in on her. She doubts every decision she makes, not just with regards to this, but questions everything she does. Simply to ensure, that she doesn’t make this mistake again. But did she really make the mistake? The mistake of trusting someone she cared about?
She gets a phone call, threatening to post all of these pictures on Instagram and Facebook if she doesn’t send more of the kind to a particular email address. She is in a cold sweat, struck still and silent without a clue of who this man is, how he got her number or how he knows of these pictures. What else is she supposed to do but send him one to keep him quiet, to ensure she doesn’t further humiliate herself, in front of audiences that miraculously haven’t been exposed to her “still captures of vulnerability”.
Each night she cries to herself, questioning herself and bashing herself for doing such a heinous act, when in reality, she did absolutely nothing wrong. She placed her trust in an individual, her fault was trusting this individual. But how could she not? He was after all so persuasive and ever so charming! He carried out the greatest fault a man could ever do to a woman. To relinquish the trust she had for him, he faltered her momentum in life and has led her down a deep dark alley, haunted by her peers, others around her, herself, but of greatest relevance, by him.
“Just one” he says. What’s the harm? It’s just him after all isn’t it?
For her sake, I truly hope he is one of the select few that ensure that it is “just him”.
But I hope she knows, when, it isn’t “just him”.
With it being “just him”, it could eventually be…everyone.
[1]Patriarchal: relating to or denoting a system of society or government controlled by men.
