Singer Ludovic Lamarque (Mr. Love) did everything right when he was caught up in a nude picture scandal. He reported it to the police and spoke to reporters unapologetically and without shame. Hopefully, his action will encourage all Mauritians who are blackmailed by former romantic partners to go to the police. If enough courageous victims are willing to publicly say that they are not ashamed – that they are not guilty of anything and refuse to be seen that way – we could prevent thousands of others from destroying and sometimes even ending their own lives.

Why on earth should we be ashamed if nude pictures of us are posted online, against our will? The strategy used by revenge porn perpetrators (often an emotionally immature ex-partner) is to say that if you don’t come back to me/give me money/break up with your new beau, I will post the nude pictures online and your family, employer, colleagues, friends and everyone you’ve ever met will see them. Your reputation will be ruined. The counter question to hit them with should always be: why. Why would my reputation be ruined?

Do our families, employer, colleagues and friends not already know that we have a body underneath our clothes? Don’t they know already that we, like them, are human beings with romantic and sexual emotions? We are not talking about pictures of us killing kittens or committing crimes, here. We are talking about pictures showing us enjoying a natural part of life. Why should we be ashamed?

Rationally speaking, we should not. Sex-related shame, which targets women more often than men, is an unfortunate heritage from the past. In the days when women had no economic, political, social or even family-related power, their bodies were their weapons. Promising sex, withholding sex, or cultivating the impression that their bodies are something mysterious, special that many men desired but only one could have was a way to gain influence. In a time where sex determined a woman’s status, concepts like shame and reputation were born. In today’s society, where women are allowed to provide for themselves, the mindset has survived although it no longer makes sense. It’s a ghost from the past that allows revenge porn to destroy lives needlessly.

We rarely talk about it, but the police force’s Cybercrime Unit is in contact with hundreds of revenge porn victims. Too many of them give in to their tormentors’ every command. We need those victims to question the very reasoning that revenge porn is built on – the shame. We need more people like Emma Holten, the young Danish woman who, when a man threatened to post nude pictures of her online, responded by posting them herself, along with an explanatory note. Emma has a body, like we all do. She uses it to walk, run, sleep, eat, have sex, swim, live. If you want to look at her nude pictures instead of at the reflection of your own body in the mirror, go ahead. But she refuses to be blackmailed or feel ashamed for being human, as should we all.

For more views and in-depth analysis of current issues, subscribe to Weekly for as little as Rs110 a month. Free delivery to your door. Contact us: touria.prayag@lexpress.mu(link sends e-mail)(link sends e-mail)(link sends e-mail)