Whenever people bring up shit about "don't put that on Facebook, your future employers can hack it" I always brush it off because I don't drink that much, and the only times I do, I'm the one with pictures, and those are usually of everyone else. And they don't go on Facebook, they stay safely in my iPhoto. But I never think about all the nakey pics.
I used to have absolutely no problem diddling myself or prancing around topless on cam. I also used to send a lot of naughty pictures because it made me feel sexy to do what guys asked for. When I realized that was stupid, I deleted all the pictures off my computer (except the blackmail ones of my ex's junk and penguin jammies) and assumed the past was past. Except obviously, it wasn't.
It partly worries me because technically those screen grabs and emailed pictures of my cute butt in seasonal thongs are kiddie porn. I was 17 when I did a lot of that shit, and I either lied about my age or the guys asking knew full well and didn't care. I'm not sure the legal end of it, if it's just the guys who'd get in trouble or me, too. It still doesn't sit well.
Then there's the fact that those are pictures of me. I took them on purpose, sober as a judge. I wonder where my judgement goes on some days. It also makes me feel shitty that such a short time ago, my self-worth depended on guys thinking I was sexy, no matter what it took. And of course I feel awful for any guy who dates me afterward, thinking he can count on one hand the number of people who've seen me naked before he has.
People I don't even remember ever doing that shit for (read: because I mentally blocked it) remind me every now and then and each time, I'm completely floored. It's happened too often for me to be comfortable with. Sometimes they tell me the pictures are saved on their computer, or screenshots of camwhoring, and that just makes me feel skeevy. Then, after I've been reminded of my past life as a baby camwhore, I'm suddenly scarily too aware that my ex has/had mobile phone pictures of me naked.
I don't want to be defined by those pictures, or labelled a slut because I took them, or allowed them to be taken. I don't want my poor boyfriend, who was seriously hurt that I almost auditioned for a strip club, to know or have any idea that I used to show anyone who asked all the things he considers just his. I know I shouldn't have regrets about my past, but that's my biggest.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned in my feminism, but that sort of shit just isn't empowering. In any way. And perhaps it's half men's faults, for things like that being able to trap me. Yes, it isn't okay that I'd be judged by my boyfriend and the rest of society if anyone but me and the guys I camwhored for knew about it. Yes, it isn't okay for one scandal or bad decision to derail someone's respectability and life. But ultimately, I was the one to decide to take them, or to say yes to being on cam when I knew what was expected of me. And so I guess I'll have to sleep in the bed I made.