A basement wall. Names written across it. Printed photos pinned underneath like trophies from a game no one openly named.
She didn’t hear about it from him. She heard because someone else went downstairs, looked up, and recognized her body. Not her face just enough. A tattoo on her thigh made recognition simple.
There’s a particular kind of vertigo that comes from realizing something private has been relocated. Not stolen exactly. Relocated. Taken out of a one-to-one exchange and placed in a room with an audience you never agreed to meet.
For two years she believed she was dating the calmest, sweetest person she knew. The one who rolled his eyes at his hometown friends. The one who seemed slightly embarrassed by them. The wall rearranged that impression without warning.
The distance between “he’s not like them” and “he is one of them” turned out to be shorter than she thought.
And it was bridged in a basement.
This conflict isn’t driven by the existence of a nude photo. It’s driven by what that photo became once it entered a group dynamic structured around status. The boyfriend and his longtime friends maintained a system names on a wall, images beneath them, points assigned. Within that environment, private exchanges were converted into evidence.
She learned about this not through confession, but through a third party. When confronted, he moved quickly: denial of the wall, partial admission, claim the image wasn’t really hers, apology, irritation. The shifts were immediate and sequential.
The fallout did not stay contained inside the couple. It moved outward to conservative parents, to a father whose reaction altered their relationship, to police who took a statement but little else. The sister who initially spoke up eventually withdrew. The physical wall may no longer exist.
What remains uncertain is where the images are now, and who else may have seen them. That uncertainty lingers in the background of every other consequence.
Text Version
My boyfriend displayed my nudes on a wall of women he and his friends have slept with. I feel like my life has been ruined
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwRAahboyfriend
My boyfriend displayed my nudes on a wall of women he and his friends have slept with. I feel like my life has been ruined.
Originally posted to r/relationship_advice
TRIGGER WARNING: Misogyny, body shaming, slut shaming, revenge porn, ineffective police, betrayal
Original Post – rareddit May 21, 2020
This all just happened one hour ago so I’m really shaken. Sorry if it’s too long.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years and 4 months. We met at the college that we go to. My parents live in the same city where our school is, but my boyfriend lives about 6 hours away. When school is in session we both live on campus. I haven’t been able to see him since it closed due to covid and we had to go home.
Some background. My boyfriend has a group of friends in his hometown that I’ve never liked. They’ve been friends since high school, and believe me when I say that they still belong in high school. Two of them are brothers from a rich family who don’t work or go to school. They spend their days smoking weed and playing video games. One of the other friends is in the military and the 2 last friends and as well as my boyfriend are in college (but all go to different schools). It’s pretty rare that they’re all home at the same time, especially with the one being in the military he’s away a lot. My boyfriend is really protective of the time they have together. I’ve spent a lot of time with these guys because every time I visit my boyfriend’s hometown I see at least the two brothers.
You may be wondering why I don’t like these friends. For one, they don’t believe in girlfriends. My boyfriend is the only one in the group who has been in a relationship for longer than a few months. They think women are good enough for sex and not much else. I’m not putting words in their mouths. One of them literally told me to my face. I’m very outspoken so they hate me because I call them out on their bullshit. It goes without saying that it’s basically their mission to convince my boyfriend to dump me. Whenever there is an issue between his friends and I, he just tries to stay out of it. He doesn’t stand up for me. I hate who he becomes when he’s trying to impress those assholes. The majority of our arguments have been a result of him allowing his friends to treat me like shit. They’ve been rude or blatantly ignored me. My boyfriend is the calmest, sweetest, most wonderful person (or so I thought). I never understood why he kept them around when it was so clear to me that he had outgrown them. It appeared that they had pretty much nothing in common. I see now how alike they are after all.
For the record I knew I should have held him more responsible for his friends. However, it was just too easy to put them out of my mind. They were only ever an issue if they were outwardly rude to me during one of the few weeks per year I hung out with them. The rest of the time he was a really great boyfriend. I never imagined him hurting me this way.
Back to the story. The two brothers live in a house that’s detached from the main one their parents live in. It’s where they all usually hangout. I’ve been there many times. It has its own kitchen and everything, it’s literally a smaller house. They also have a basement that I’ve only seen a couple times because it’s their “man cave” I never cared to enter anyway. I had no idea, but apparently down there all of the friends have this wall that has their names on it and pictures of the women they’ve each fucked lodged below. Apparently not all the pictures are sexual but there are mostly nude pictures because they have this sick point system like it’s a game and they get more points if the picture is a nude. I guess all of the pictures look like they were taken with the knowledge of the woman in the photo but I doubt any of them knew it was going to be fucking tacked up on display. They’d been doing this for years. I’m disgusted and horrified and devastated because I had no idea this is the type of man I was with.
I found out because I’m friends with the sister of the two brothers and she saw the wall herself. She reached out to only me because I’m the only one she knows personally. She said that my boyfriend had the least amount of pictures by his name.
She showed me the picture of me he had tacked on the wall. It was a full body nude I had sent over a year ago. Thankfully it does not have my face in it, but I have a tattoo on my thigh that makes it very obvious the woman in the picture is me. I would never consent to let those guys see my body that way. I let my boyfriend because I trusted him. I feel shocked, embarrassed, betrayed, violated, objectified, and a little frightened.
I called my boyfriend, I admit, in hysterics. It took many attempts before he was able to understand what I was saying. He at first denied the existence of this wall, then he admitted it exists but he didn’t use a real picture of me, he used a picture of someone else and pretended it was me. I told him I’d seen the pic and KNEW damn well it was me. Then he started sobbing hysterically begging for forgiveness. Then he was annoyed at me for being so upset and asked what’s the big deal, since I’m “hot” anyway. I just hung up because I can’t talk to him. I can’t look at him. I feel physically nauseous thinking about what he did. How he could not only share my nudes with his friends who look down on me, who treat me badly for being a woman. He allowed those men to have access to my body. I have never been so wrong about a person.
I could never forgive him. I think I may want to press charges if I can get the sister to send me more pictures of the wall, but I’m sure my boyfriend has alerted his friends so they could be taking it down as I type this. I’m heartbroken. I don’t know how I’m gonna tell my family because they’re very conservative. They don’t even know about my tattoo. I’m so ashamed. I don’t know what to do.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
DearFlamingo4
“He at first denied the existence of this wall, then he admitted it exists but he didn’t use a real picture of me, he used a picture of someone else and pretended it was me. I told him I’d seen the pic and KNEW damn well it was me. Then he started sobbing hysterically begging for forgiveness. Then he was annoyed at me for being so upset and asked what’s the big deal, since I’m “hot” anyway.”
This part disturbed me more than the rest. The fact that he didn’t just fess up straight away but went through the entire list of excuses shows he has no actual remorse. He may seem like a sweet guy but he’s obviously not. He and his friends are just a group of losers.
OOP
I can’t believe that this is the man I loved. I don’t know him. They’re all terrible people.
~
strawberryslurp
You SHOULD press charges. Even if you only have the picture of yourself. And if you haven’t already BREAK UP AND BLOCK this guys ass. Along with all these other guys. I’m so so so sorry this happened to you. You should take legal action if that’s possible. What a horrible thing for these boys to do. Absolutely disgusting.
[deleted]
What the fuck is this
And they have a sister too. Do they not care about her? Do they think she is only good for sex too?
This is fucked up on so many levels. Hope these photos were not shared online.
OOP
I sent them to my boyfriend over text. It bothers me even more that they went through the effort to print them out. I have no idea if there are any awful things he’s done that I haven’t found out about. I want to throw up.
OOP when told to tell her parents
I don’t know how my parents would react. Telling them is what I’m most afraid of. They’ll be so upset I even took the picture.
&
I think my mom will never forgive me. She’s very religious. My dad is less strict than her but he’s anti premarital sex. He and I have gotten really close recently but I think this will ruin that forever
Update – rareddit July 26, 2020 (2 months later)
I wasn’t prepared for it to blow up as much as it did. Thankfully, aside from a few slut shaming messages or creeps pming for nudes, the majority of the messages I received were so wonderfully supportive that it motivated me to make some big decisions I will get to momentarily. I’ve even become friends with a few redditors who reached out through my post. I thought I’d give an update on this situation for those who have been asking as my small attempt at a thank you. I’m sorry if it gets removed again.
So the first thing I did was tell my family what happened to me. I separately told my mom. She was not angry at me like I had feared, not even after learning about my tattoo. She hugged me for a long time and we both cried. Then I had to tell everyone else. My dad was upset with my ex, but later he apparently told my mom that I’ve broken his heart and I’m a whore. He doesn’t know I know he said that as my mom swore me to secrecy, but it was soul crushing to hear. My relationship with him is virtually nonexistent now. It’s like we have a silent agreement to interact as little as possible. The rest of my family has been supportive of me with a few outliers.
So, I did it. I put on my big girl pants and went to the police. They let me give a tearful interviewed me and that’s about all they’ve done as of now lol. I knew the odds of getting charges to stick in a case like this would be difficult but I thought the police would try. I don’t even believe my ex boyfriend has been contacted.
Yes- my ex boyfriend. I know the way I titled my last post confused some people but rest assured he’s an ex. I’ve only spoken to him once since my post. We talked on the phone for hours about everything. I admit it was really emotional because even though he’d betrayed me, I still loved him and it was hard to let go of the good times. His mood changed a lot throughout and it was really jarring. One moment he’d be crying, the next he’d be angry telling me I was giving up on him. In one particularly nasty moment of his, he confessed to me that my nude had been ‘deducted points’ amongst him and his friends because of faint stretch marks I have on my breasts. Normally I feel good about my body, but I have to admit that confession was the last blow in this whole fucked up situation that took me down. I still toy with the idea of telling his mother everything when I’m feeling especially angry.
I have no idea of any of the women in those photos were underage. The only one I know of who was on that wall is myself. The sister who told me everything immediately shut down and refused to help me any further after a while. I don’t know if the wall is up anymore. I can’t blame her that much, but it did suck because she was really my only chance at getting justice. I don’t know how many of my nudes those men saw. I don’t know if they are online. I reverse image search them constantly out of paranoia.
Not everything to come out of this has been bad. Something I hope warms your heart as much as it does mine is something my mom came up with. She claims to like my tattoo so much that she wants one herself. She and I are going to get a matching tattoo together once the world goes back to normal, one she chose herself. And even more importantly, I saw my ex for who he really is so now I get to move on and potentially find a man/woman with a soul. Thanks again to all of you. Much love ❤️.
Source
The first rupture is physical before it is conceptual. She feels nauseous. She calls him in hysterics. He denies the wall. Then he admits it exists. Then he says the photo isn’t really her. Then he sobs. Then he gets irritated and asks what the big deal is because she’s “hot.”
He does not stay in one position for long.
The basement itself matters. Names written in marker. Photos printed, trimmed, pinned. Points awarded. Deducted. A kind of scoreboard. He didn’t have the most pictures. He had the least. That detail sits there without softening anything.
She had believed he’d outgrown them. That belief wasn’t irrational; she’d seen him be calm, attentive, separate from their loud contempt for girlfriends. But separation in private is different from separation in front of an audience. Around them, he wanted to belong. He protected that time. He didn’t interrupt their comments. He let things slide.
Approval had rules, even if no one said them out loud.
The moment he tells her her photo “lost points” because of faint stretch marks shifts something again. It’s not dramatic language. It’s casual. A grading system applied after the fact. That sentence doesn’t raise its voice, but it redraws the scene of the basement in sharper detail.
After that, the escalation narrows instead of expands. A police interview that leads nowhere. A sister who stops responding. Reverse image searches at night. Silence at the dinner table with her father.
The wall may be gone now. The friends likely still gather. The photos may or may not exist somewhere else.
What changed most clearly is that she no longer wonders who he is when he’s trying to impress them. She has seen the version of him that fits on that wall.
