Woodstock Woman Shares Her Story

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Friday, 6 April 2018 14:21

A woman from Woodstock shares her story of what it was like to see her intimate photo's wind up on the internet.

WOODSTOCK - Over the past week, Shainee Chalk has been reaching out to the media to tell her story.

It's a story of what is being called "revenge porn" and it’s a story that no young women would ever want to tell. The term itself refers to pornographic photos originally shared between intimate partners, being treated as souvenirs when the relationship goes south. The Woodstock native first discovered intimate photos of herself shared on the Internet without her consent back in 2011.

Chalk says she first found the photos online 7 years ago, after being informed by friends and family who had seen her images. The discovery came at a difficult time for the young woman, as her mother had passed away one month prior. Reflecting on that time is not easy she says.

"Not only was I in a horribly emotional state because of my mom, I had the photos on top of it all."

Fast forward to 2016, Chalk told her father that there were intimate photos of her on the Internet. It was this conversation that led Chalk to inform the Woodstock Police about the images.

Chalk says she was embarrassed and felt ashamed of the mistake she made as a vulnerable young woman, and despite the time that has passed she is ready to speak out now.

"I'm hoping that someone out there is going to hear my story or hear me, and get these sites down, maybe someone out there can actually help."

As for the sites, Chalk wants to ensure the correct information is out there about which sites her images were on because she doesn't want the public to think she is fabricating her story. Chalk told Heart FM her photos were first posted on a site called 'is any one up?'. She says the photos were leaked anonymously by someone she had a previous relationship with.

Since its inception, the site has brought a great deal of controversy. The creator has reportedly been sued by many individuals who have had their images shared to the world without their consent. The site has been dismantled, but Chalk says her images were then found on Tumblr as well as a gaming app. called ‘Discord’.

Chalk takes responsibility for sharing the photos with people thinking they could be trusted. Admittedly she says her early 20's were promiscuous, but it was a time filled with a lack of self love.

"I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror, I thought I was horrible looking, I was finally getting attention, so when I got the attention, it ended up being the wrong attention. Everyone thinks that this can't happen to them, so did I."

The unwanted attention she is referring to came as she began receiving requests for explicit photos from random people she had never met who found her through Facebook because her photos were shares from the web sites on twitter, the tweets included her name, and the city she lived in.

Chalk says since her disclosures to the media, other women from Oxford County have reached out to her to share their own similar experiences. Despite having gone to Woodstock police in 2016, Chalk says it wasn't until she shared her story with the media that she feels her story was being taken seriously.

"Until the news stories were released, I was told repeatedly that a police officer or chief would contact me, no one contacted me until all this information went public."