I had an ex-boyfriend, James, who I was with for 4-6 months. We would video chat all the time, despite seeing each other almost daily. During these video calls, things got a little sexual. I would dance in my underwear and even went topless a few times. I had no clue James had been recording me. I didn’t find this out until after we had broken up. The reason we broke up was because he verbally harassed me one night while drunk. Skipping forward, it’s now December, and we are on a group trip for our school. My best friend, Annalise, and a guy friend of ours who was close to James, Alan, were talking. Alan told Annalise that James said he didn’t want me to tell any of the adults about how we broke up, so he was planning on blackmailing me with the videos. Annalise thought the videos were fake at first, but then she decided there was no harm in seeing if it was true. She went to speak with James, and he admitted he had videos of me. Annalise is a complete "computer nerd", she makes videos and she studies computer software in her spare time. She convinced James to hand over his computer and hard drive(s) along with unlocking whatever she requested. Email, youtube, cell phone, and trash were some of the places she checked for anything of me. His hard drives were cleaned 2-3 times just to make sure nothing was left. Our school is very strict, and this sort of thing could have tainted my reputation with teachers and my parents. Now you must be wondering why in the world am I typing this out and sharing it with the world. I am doing this because I know I am not the first girl or the last, to have gone through this issue. Blackmail is a crime. Especially the videos he had of me. I am a minor. Those videos were child pornography. For a while now I pondered the thought that maybe if Annalise didn't delete the videos I could have sued him but I realized that it was pointless for my case. It was either a win-win or a lose-lose. The way it went was a win-win because no one knows what I did and James doesn't get in legal trouble. The other option would have been that people knew, and I would be publically shamed for my actions, and James would have a bigger issue than his parents and our teachers finding out that he got drunk one night. What I'm trying to say is, I got lucky. Some girls out there are in the same situation as me, and they have no Annalise to pull them out of the gutter. To those girls out there, you are not alone. You can reach out to someone for help. It is hard telling an adult in your life that you have done something like that, but you WILL be forgiven, you WILL still be loved. Your parents can help more than you think. They can help you put the bastard who is blackmailing you away. You are NOT a whore. You are still the girl you were before. Never doubt that. This blog was made to vent out the stress of my problems and help me fix my mistakes. I want to help others out there too. I let go of my anger towards James the day after I found out. Because, I knew just as much as he made a mistake, so did I.