Life

This Is How You Respond To Slut-Shaming

by Eliza Castile

July 16, 2015

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of "Patriarchal Double Standards!" Today, we're featuring the story of Alexis Frulling, the woman who was slut-shamed online for daring to have a semi-public threesome with two other men. When said threesome was caught on tape by a creep in the second floor of the building next door and subsequently posted online, did Reddit have anything to say to the male participants in the act? Of course not! As always, though, users had plenty to say to Frulling, whose major flaw, the possession of a vagina, quickly drew the ire of everyone's least favorite corner of the Internet: sexist trolls.

Public sex is admittedly illegal in Calgary, where the encounter took place, but you know what is just as illegal in Canada? Posting "intimate images" online without the subject's (or subjects', in this case) consent, thanks to the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act. Plus, it's just a shitty thing to do.

Rather than ignoring the trolls or, god forbid, taking their slut-shaming to heart, Frulling decided to take them on. "I don't see why I should get bashed for it when the guys don't get bashed for it," she told Vice in an interview. If you need rest a little after the epic fistpump you involuntarily performed after reading that sentence, you may do so now.

Frulling recorded a video ingeniously entitled "Trampede (The Original)" discussing the experience. "Some people have asked me if I regret it, and what I can tell you is that I don't," she shrugs. Later, she instructs the haters to "keep hatin'" and happily munches on a cucumber.

Can I get a praise hands emoji? I think I'm in love. (Alexis Frulling: call me.)

Sadly, Frulling's experience is far from an isolated incident. Female celebrities' phones are hacked with disturbing frequency, their nude photos plastered across the Internet for anyone to stumble upon. Revenge porn is so common that lawmakers are scrambling to keep up. Women are repeatedly warned not to take intimate photos at all, for fear that they will come back to haunt them years later. Again and again, the responsibility is placed on the victims in these cases — if you hadn't taken them in the first place, we're told, this wouldn't be a problem. It's your own fault.

Some women, however, are doing their best to change that. Like Frulling, Danish activist Emma Holten chose to fight back after images of her body were posted online without her consent. Unlike Frulling, Holten was just 17 when they were taken. Six years later, the photos were still available online despite repeated attempts to have them removed. In response, Holten chose to reclaim her body through a series of powerful nude photographs. "It's still my name and it's still my body," she told One Woman Army in 2014. Despite international attention, Holten's original nude photographs are still available on revenge porn websites.

And there's more: Earlier this year, a woman going by the pseudonym "Hilary" went so far as to copyright her breasts in an effort to fight her ex's revenge porn, in the hopes that she would be able to file for copyright infringement and have her nude photos taken down. Unfortunately, the process of actually obtaining the copyright proved too awkward after the Copyright Office asked for a copy of the materials, aka the nude photos and explicit videos featuring Hilary, and she chose to forgo copyrighting the videos.

But perhaps one of the most famous women fighting back against revenge porn is Charlotte Laws. Heralded as the "Erin Brockovich of revenge porn," she dedicated years to taking down "professional life ruiner" Hunter Moore, the man who posted topless photos of her daughter online. In the process, she estimates that she has come to the aid of more than 100 of his other victims, and she testified in support of an anti-revenge porn bill last year. Her story is ongoing, but you can read her account of the experience at XOJane.

Although Frulling wasn't the victim of revenge porn, her invasion of privacy, and the subsequent misogyny directed at her because of it, is the latest in a long history of women being shamed for their private lives. Was having a threesome on a public street the best idea? Probably not. But people make mistakes, and nobody deserves the kind of vitriolic slut-shaming she has since endured.

On the other hand, she's clearly got the hang of how to deal with it. "I can't say I'm really proud about it, but I'm not really ashamed," she chuckles in the video. Somehow, I get the feeling that she'll land on her feet.

Images: Alexis Frulling (the Original)/YouTube; Giphy