Leaking nudes is the new form of sexual violence

Few of us will forget the case of Brenda Cherotich and Brian Orinda when it comes to the fight against Covid-19 disease.

On April 1 this year, they were among the first patients to recover after being identified as patient zero and number three, respectively.

But it's the online episodes that followed their highly publicised recovery that took centre stage. Within hours, a dish of anger, distrust, and public ridicule was concocted in Kenya's social media kitchen and served cold to Brenda.

To inflict maximum damage, alleged nude photos of Brenda were leaked online. The photos went viral, sparking a torrent of abuse, body shaming and cyberbullying.

When TV anchor Yvonne Okwara blasted what had turned into sexual cyberbullying, she instantly became the object of mockery, ridicule, and body shaming.

She was accused of toxic feminism and double standards for failing to defend a County Governor whose alleged nude photos and intimate text messages had leaked a week earlier.

The sexual attacks on Brenda and Yvonne cast light on a new form of online sexual assault that is being meted out to women.

Sharing of nudes and sex tapes as a revenge tool or form of shaming and bullying women has become the fad in Kenya's social media circles.

SELF-DOUBT
Way before the internet became ubiquitous, there was the case of singer Kaz Lucas, whose erotic photos were leaked online.

Singer Avril and Wajir Women Representative Fatuma Gedi, and ordinary women like Suzzy Oweso, who is an interior designer, have suffered a similar fate.

Suzzy's nude photos were leaked by her ex-lover on a Saturday night, November 2018. "I usually leave my phone on silent mode. When I woke up on Sunday morning, I found tons of missed calls and messages from strange numbers," she says.

Unknown to Suzzy, her ex had leaked her nudes to a sex group hosted by the Telegram messaging app without her knowledge or consent.

In the leakage, her ex had also revealed her phone number and Facebook account details and claimed that Suzzy was a private escort looking for clients.

"I received hundreds of obscene messages, photos, and videos on WhatsApp. I was abused and called unprintable names. It was the darkest day of my life. It felt like rape," she says.

Since then, Suzzy has doubted her self-worth and physical appearance as a woman. "I feel so ashamed. Sometimes I feel embarrassed when undressing or taking a shower. I don't even dare to get intimate anymore because I feel like hundreds of men are peeping in and judging me. I am not proud of my womanhood anymore," says Suzzy.

TELEGRAM CHANNEL

In Kenya, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram Groups, as well as Instagram channels, have been created specifically to share nudes and sex tapes to shame women.

One of the most popular sex channels where these forms of sexual aggression are taking place is the Alphas, Betas & Omegas, a channel found on Telegram.

At the onset, an unsuspecting user might think it is a place where members share the latest football betting tips. But this is not the case.

The channel provides a platform where members post thousands of nude photos of Kenyan women – and sometimes men – and their accompanying sex videos.

The goal of those who send nude photos and video clips is to shame or bully women they previously were romantically engaged with.

The channel also allows men to post their partners and inquire if any members have ever been sexually engaged with them. The channel has over 75,000 members.

Women also suffer another form of abuse, which involves receiving unsolicited photos of private parts from strangers.

Take Priscilla Mogeni, who has been a victim. "I accepted a friend request on Christmas Day last year on Facebook. A few minutes later, the man whose request I had accepted sent me a photo of his manhood with the tag, 'Merry Christmas!' It was nauseating. I blocked him right away," says the 33-year-old.

DOMINANCE

According to Ken Munyua, a psychologist based in Nairobi, some men send their private parts to women as bait.

They assume that women who accept their friend requests on Facebook like them sexually and as a result send their nudes or even pornography.

"By their nature, men are wired to drool over women and have a soft spot for nudity. But this instinct is limited by control and emotional maturity. An immature man is the most likely to fill your inbox with unsolicited sexual content," he says.

Another reason why this happens is the wall between the sender and the receiver that is created by the internet.

"Such men somehow feel invisible when they are on the internet. It makes them feel 'private' and so they say and do things they would hardly do face to face," says Chris Hart, a psychologist based in Nairobi and the author of Single & Searching.

Leaking sex tapes has also become the latest blackmail tool or so-known as Sextortion. A few days after Brenda's alleged nudes were leaked, a sex tape involving a married woman and four men was leaked on the Tik Tok video-sharing social networking platform.

The married woman was identified as Harriet. As the sex tape went viral, Harriet came out to say that the tape had been leaked by one of the men in the video after a failed blackmail attempt.

BLACKMAIL

She claimed that an unidentified male in the video had demanded Sh210,000 from her. She failed to pay up and the sex tape was leaked.

"It was a harmless meet up that turned rogue…. I ended up a pawn and collateral damage in the whole thing," she is reported saying.

But this form of blackmail is not only used to extort money from women. Jennifer Muthomi - who runs an upmarket fashion and cosmetics business in Nakuru's central business district - was intimate with her ex for the first three years of her marriage to stop him from leaking her nudes.

"He kept threatening that he would send the nudes to him, and my friends and family if I didn't meet up for sex. I was a good wife and couldn't risk losing my husband. I was also a worship leader at church and had a reputation to keep."

At the same time, many women on social media are left hopeless when hackers strike their accounts and start posting and sharing pornographic materials.