Someone Just Tried to Blackmail Me
By: Elle Beau
Tags: Shame, Sex, Bitcoin, Society, Human Behavior

But Shaming Won’t Work If You Aren’t Ashamed

Image by CSO

I’ve been on Medium for a relatively short time, but long enough to have begun to make a name for myself as someone who talks really openly about her private life, including her sexual life. I talk about sex clubs and three-ways and I write erotica, much of it based in real experiences. And although my writing is open and honest, my profile is one that assures my anonymity. It’s part of what allows me to have both vulnerability and privacy at the same time, and so far it’s worked out pretty well.

But today I got this threatening message in my email, addressed to my real name and naming an actual password that I use. It is no way associated with my Medium profile or activity but it got my attention:

Lets get right to point. You do not know me and you’re most likely wondering why you are getting this email? No-one has paid me to investigate you. Well, I actually setup a malware on the X streaming (pornography) website and you know what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were viewing videos, your browser initiated working as a RDP with a keylogger which provided me with accessibility to your display and web camera. Right after that, my software program gathered all your contacts from your Messenger, social networks, and emailaccount. After that I created a video. First part shows the video you were watching (you’ve got a fine taste haha . . .), and next part displays the recording of your web camera, yeah it is you. You have only 2 options. We will read each one of these solutions in particulars: 1st choice is to dismiss this e-mail. As a result, I most certainly will send your actual videotape to all of your contacts and then think concerning the shame you will definitely get. Not to mention should you be in a romantic relationship, exactly how it will affect? Other choice will be to compensate me $7000. I will describe it as a donation. Then, I most certainly will straightaway remove your videotape. You will continue on daily life like this never took place and you surely will never hear back again from me. You will make the payment through Bitcoin (if you do not know this, search for “how to buy bitcoin” in Google).

There was more but that was the main gist of it. And even though I knew this was a scam, in part because I don’t masterbate to porn I watch on my lap-top, so there is no video, and in part because I vaguely remembered hearing about this kind of blackmail attempt, it was still disconcerting to see someone waving my password at me. I immediately called my partner, James, and proceeding to change the password on the two accounts I had that used that one. Fortunately, neither of them were bank accounts.

As James and I talked it over, we realized that even if this were real, that these attempted blackmailers had no power over us. As much as we both like our privacy, and as uncomortable as it would no doubt be to have some of the details of our sexual life sent to everyone in my contact list, it ultimately would be a tempest in a tea cup because we aren’t ashamed of who we are or how we live.

You cannot drive someone using shame when that just isn’t a factor in the equation.

A desire for privacy is an entirely different animal. We maintain privacy, in part because we live in such an uptight world that even some of the people who do know all about us have expressed discomfort when we were honest with them.

Friend of James: What are you going to do this weekend? James: My wife set up a three-way for us with another woman to celebrate my birthday. Friend of James: Yeah, right! Oh…… you aren’t kidding. Oh, well….. so what do you think about XYZ that’s going on at work?

We are not uncomfortable with them knowing. It is they who are uncomfortable realizing that people who seem outwardly a lot like them don’t all live a straight vanilla life. In other words, they too could be sexually self expressed and pursuing their fantasies, or doing something else that isn’t perfectly mainstream, if only they had the same courage. At least that’s my take on what is at the root of their discomfort.

Not everyone wants to go out and be sexually adventurous, but what else are they potentially not doing that they might want to, due to fear or shame. The potential for shaming may very well be a part of what keeps them from living out loud in some other way. In our case, as James and I talked through each theoretical worst-case scenario, we realized none of it would actually be that bad because we embrace who we are. We love US, we love the life that we lead, we enjoy writing about it and talking about it with those who are comfortable doing so.

What if there were a video of me masturbating? Well, again, not something I’d want to see widely distributed, but mostly because that would make the other people in my life uncomfortable. I’ve had sex in a club in full or partial view of strangers before. And from doing that, I learned that I actually am not much of an exhibitionist and much prefer more privacy, but I’m not ashamed to be a sexual being either.

“And then think concerning the shame you will definitely get. Not to mention should you be in a romantic relationship, exactly how it will affect?” That one kind of made me laugh, because my romantic relationship is with my full-fledged “partner in crime” and it would not impact that negatively in any way, shape or form. We embarked upon this lifestyle together, in mutual agreement and constant communciation about all aspects of it. There are no lies or indiscretions that we fear being uncovered and so therefore there is no leverage. But I do feel sorry for those who feel they cannot be their real sexual self with their intimate partner.

Interestingly, I’ve understood since I was a young teen that if you aren’t hiding anything, then it can’t be weaponized against you. Only politicians worried about affairs or their in-the-closet homosexuality can be blackmailed. The more above-board you are, the less potential for pressure.

So you have two choices; either don’t do things that you wouldn’t want others to possibly learn about or else do them fairly openly.

No one can blackmail you about anything if you aren’t afraid to take the consequences of being who you actually are. I’d love to live in a world that is more accepting of non-monogamy. I’d love to have a society that relishes female sexuality instead of both simultaneously objectifying it and stigmatizing it. I hope for a day when everyone can be their true consensual sexual selves. But meanwhile, somewhere in the world there is some poor bastard scraping together $7,000 in response to threats like these. However, that person is not me, and it never will be!