Sex video an attack on women

The social media excitement about a sex video featuring a prominent woman is a classic case of blaming and shaming the victim. It is also yet another example of the normalisation of violence against women’s bodies.

The circulation of the video tests people’s commitment to gender justice and eradication of all forms of violence against women. How we react to receiving or passing it on will say more about which side we choose to be.

To be clear, the woman whose name we choose not to repeat because to do so would be to add to her extortionist’s attempts to shame her, has nothing to be ashamed of.

She acted in the privacy of her space and with someone she considered a fellow consenting adult. If there is anyone to be ashamed it should be her extortionist and not her. We applaud her for calling his bluff.

Her person and dignity has been violated. We trust that with the support of those closest to her and, if she prefers, professional help, she will recover from whatever trauma the incident has likely caused her.

As the public we should also be careful not to make ourselves accessories to a crime against women’s bodies by facilitating a further distribution of the video. It will only serve to reward the intentions of the coward who had banked on embarrassing and humiliating her.

Extortionists thrive because of the idea that women ought to be ashamed of their bodies and their sexuality. There is also an unspoken expectation that women of a certain age or if they have grandchildren, should give up on their sexuality.

If they do not, they must be made to pay, literally in this case, for having the most basic of human desires and needs.

To share the video as some have is therefore to both reward extortion and partake in the continuous violence against women’s bodies. May we add, it is a crime to do so.

To say, as some have, that she should have known better, shifts the culpability of the crime from the criminal to the victim. It is not the responsibility of women to try and second guess the intentions of a suitor.

Women in this country live with too much violence and murder to entertain this voyeuristic enterprise. Enough is enough.