LONDON -- A woman has posted a defiant response to a troll who found and sexuality definition eroticism sensuality nursepublished nude photos of her online.
SEE ALSO: What to do if you're a victim of 'sextortion'Journalist Siobhan "Vonny" Moyes posted a plea on Twitter on Tuesday night naming the Twitter user she says was targeting her and calling on her followers to report him.
In addition to naming and shaming, Moyes posted a message that she would not be "sex-shamed" or made to feel ashamed of her body.
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"Sex shaming is never okay. You can't threaten me with my own body -- I fucking own it," reads one of the tweets posted in the thread.
Moyes says the person who found and published the photos of her was part of a group of trolls who "take umbrage" with her work as a journalist due to her "political leanings".
Moyes writes about society, culture and gender for the Scottish newspaper The National, a pro-Scottish independence publication.
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Not an isolated incident
"I've been subject to quite a sustained trolling over the last year, from lots of different people, loosely connected through their shared hatred of the paper," Moyes told Mashable.
"They don't particularly engage with the subject matter of my article, and instead jump for the ad hominem, which is often gendered and vitriolic," Moyes continued.
Moyes tweeted that the sustained trolling and harassment she has experienced is by no means a rarity for female journalists.
Indeed, online harassment is something that's becoming a reality for most internet users. Research conducted by Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of adult internet users have seen someone harassed in some way, and 40 percent have experienced it first hand.
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Moyes discovered the troll had posted the nude images when he mentioned her in a tweet with an image attached.
"He said he'd taken them from (the free porn video site) XHamster, where they have clearly been posted – not by me," Moyes told Mashable.
Moyes says she isn't sure how the Twitter user got hold of the photos but she suspects "there was Reddit involvement".
Moyes reported the troll to Twitter, and the user's page was later suspended. Their tweets can no longer be accessed and, as a result, cannot be independently verified.
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A 'hugely affirming' response
"I'd been an active Redditor for many years, and so I believe the existence of these pictures was widely known amongst that community," Moyes continued.
Subsequent to Moyes' tweets, the troll's account no longer exists, something she's not sure is a direct outcome of people reporting him on Twitter.
"I've had no communication from Twitter. He very quickly protected his tweets and then within an hour his profile had vanished," says Moyes.
The response to the tweets has been "hugely affirming" for Moyes, who's received countless supportive messages from women who've gone through similar experiences and who live in fear of being "outed".
"I very consciously wanted to use this incident to deconstruct the victim blaming narrative and show other women that they can retain control if they refuse to give the perpetrator power over their emotions," Moyes told Mashable.
Moyes says she feels that the more women reject the idea that their bodies are "shameful" their nudity "only appropriate when satisfying male gratification", the less trolls will use female sexuality as a weapon.
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"He wanted to use these pictures to shut me down, and he can only do that if I feel ashamed and let him control me with that emotion. Quite simply: I'm not ashamed. I have every right to enjoy my body, take pictures and make art," says Moyes.
"By refusing to be a victim, his intended effect crumbles," Moyes stated.
UPDATE: Dec. 8, 2016, 1:03 p.m. GMT
After reading this story, porn site xHamster said it would immediately remove Moyes' images from the site.
"We will immediately remove Ms. Moyes' pictures from xHamster, if she indexes us the link," Alex Hawkins -- spokesperson for xHamster -- said in a statement emailed to Mashable.
"xHamster believes in the privacy and rights of all individuals, and believes in responsible porn for all," read the statement.
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