On the last edition of She Takes a Peep, I discussed the popular culture of enabling abusers and how they rarely ever socially alienated. As a result of the levity many use to take issues of this nature, perpetrators are easily able to seek out and unfortunately torment even more victims. To further discuss the severity of sexual content leaks, I have spoken to Chika*, a sexual content creator who found out that her videos were being leaked and shared on public platforms. For BOUNCE, we spoke about how she handled the situation, finding out who the culprit was and the eventual solution she came up with to stop it from repeating itself.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

BOUNCE: Hi Chika. Can you tell us briefly about what you do?

Chika: I am a sexual content creator. I take adult pictures and videos for the purpose of being sold. These materials are explicit in nature and there are a few sites which support the sale of such content. Many of these websites, like OnlyFans or ManyVids are too hard for Nigerians to access. As a result of lack of payment methods. So, I was selling my videos mainly on Whatsapp. I would use my Twitter account to post teasers and then send the videos to the clients’ Whatsapp once payment was made.

It is quite unfortunate that the banking system makes it so hard to access payments in other currencies. The attitude of the sites towards international creators does not help either. How long did this go on for?

About six months. I was able to do this successfully and I felt safe making money in that space. However, I quickly realized that the comfortable feeling makes you relaxed and unable to see the signs. I had that rug pulled out from under me.

Did you have regular clients? Please expand on the situation at hand. How was the rug pulled out from under you?

Chika: Yes, I had clients who paid for multiple videos, often at a go. Some would come back to shower my praises after watching. Others were just quiet, they would buy and then return at a later date. I love my clients, but I have the feeling that one of them snaked me. This is what I mean by having the rug pulled out from under me. I think one of my clients leaked my content to a ‘reseller’. Or are one themselves.

 I can see that clients differ in behavior. Do tell us what a reseller is, I feel some readers may not understand.

A reseller is a person that takes a sexual creators content and then sells it to other people or to public platforms that run under the guise of promotion. These platforms rarely ever give credit to the OG creators while making loads of money from our work. As a result of re-shares, the platforms get popular fast and are able to grow their pages in a matter of weeks. They often have many followers.

How did you come to the knowledge that your client was a reseller? Can you talk about finding the leak in depth?

Chika: Yes, I can talk about it now. I was incredibly hurt when it first happened and went ghost for a while. However, I had to eat, so I came back and re-strategized from square one. I found out that my content was being leaked on Twitter, the same place where I posted my teasers. Till this day, I am not very sure which client it really was. A fellow content creator had sent me a message with a resellers tweet. At first, I thought it was multiple videos of my teasers compressed into one lengthy video. However, I quickly realized it was an actual, two-minute-long sold video. Verified accounts can share videos with any length, and this re-seller had paid for Twitter Blue. A popular creator had shared how she often used DMCA copyrights to take down videos, so I posed as a copyright executive and sent an email to Twitter. Then, I went ahead to report the tweet and account with my ‘civilian’ Twitter. Civilian Twitter is my alt Twitter, a G rated one where I do not sell content nor talk about my work. Twitter responded to the ‘executive’s’ mail and promptly removed the videos. The account was also suspended. I know that they might come back under another handle and I expect to see my videos out there again without my consent. I just hope that I will be able to get it removed promptly.

That is an incredible violation and I am so sorry that happened to you. How do you conduct business now?

Chika: Thank you for saying that. I had to delete the entire Whatsapp and I even changed my number to a new one. I kept the old Twitter account for memories, but made sure to ghost all my old clients. This unfortunately lost me so much bank. Currently, I opened a fresh Snapchat account with a new name not related to any of the pseudonyms I operated under before. I also joined SW repost groups, where we pay money to people with popular accounts so they can share our usernames and we get added by people looking to pay for private snap. Even though I know my content can be recorded with another phone, I feel better knowing that screenshots and recordings cannot happen without my knowledge. I know there are some tactics to screenshot without the account being alerted, so I only accept very few people in private snap at a go. I also do different payment plans and group these people accordingly. I video chat with my few clients regularly. I am hoping that if they feel closer to me, they may not be so eager to share my content anyhow. As with everything though, there are risks. I have learnt that now.

Thank you for sharing this with us. I really hope you have smooth sailing from here on out.

Chika: You are welcome.

NB: * Real name not used, pseudonym chosen in place.