Don’t Let Revenge Porn Derail Your Career
When a former sexual partner threatens to leak your nudes, all you can do is try to control the narrative
When the now-former Congresswoman Katie Hill became the victim of revenge porn earlier this year, the news felt deeply, troublingly familiar. The whole scandal — Hill resigned from Congress after a conservative website published nude photos of her — echoed another one from not that long ago: In 2014, private photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, and a host of other celebrities were published online without their consent.
While the culprits behind that crime were prosecuted, one of the hackers received only eight months in jail. Meanwhile, as was the case with Hill, the women who suffered the privacy violations saw their livelihood impacted as a result — one Nickelodeon star lost her show.
Every couple of years, it seems, we’re hearing a new round of stories about the downfall of a woman’s career, accompanied by the inevitable tsk-tsking from the morality police. And this isn’t just an issue for the famous and powerful. In this day and age, it’s safe to assume that many people under the age of 40 have sent a racy selfie or two. According to a study released by the Center for Innovative Health Research, 13% of 17-year-old girls had…
