Op-ed: An ex posted explicit images of me online. Now he’s in jail

On a Thursday evening, a Facebook message from a friend popped up on my laptop. A friend of theirs was browsing a porn site when she recognized a familiar face: mine. Sitting in my room, I frantically searched for my name on my laptop. An album titled “Slutty Sasha” popped up. It contained explicit, nude images of me.

My heart sank. I had never heard of the website before, let alone posted the photos myself. In fact, I had only shared the photos with one person: my ex-boyfriend, or rather, toxic situationship, Hyrum Smith.

I was absolutely shocked. And I gave myself an hour to freak out. But after collecting myself that night, I filed a police report and began to dive into the disgusting underground network of online revenge porn to get the photos taken down, seek retribution and reclaim my power. 

I met Hyrum in 2018, more than four years earlier, at a stand-up comedy night at Tempe’s now-shuttered iconic college bar Devil’s Advocate. I’d been performing stand-up there regularly for six months when one of the other comics introduced me to Hyrum. He was attractive, smart, and about 10 years older than me. He immediately made me feel wanted. 

We soon began dating, which he insisted was casual, despite bringing me to meet his family and cooking with his mother. During our relationship, he continued to sleep with other women. While this upset me, I fought for his attention. He asked for nude photos, which I sent to show how sexy I was willing to be for him.

Still, he continued to insist that we were nothing serious and slept with other women. So, I decided to sleep with other men, as it seemed to be the nature of our relationship. That decision resulted in Hyrum blowing up at me. He insisted I was a cheater, a liar, a whore. He gaslit me and abused me emotionally.

Eight months into our tumultuous relationship — and after one of these blowups — we broke up. I texted Hyrum and asked him to delete the nude photos I had sent him during our relationship, as I wasn’t comfortable with him having them anymore. He refused but insisted that I could trust him.

During the next four years, I moved on with my life. I stopped performing standup. I entered a new relationship and started working as a web developer. But my friend’s call in December 2022 sent me spiraling back to my relationship with Hyrum.

It also sent me spiraling down the absolute fucking cesspool that is the internet’s revenge porn ecosystem. I found my photos posted on porn sites that host user-generated — often illegal and non-consensual — explicit videos and photos. Users often swap images of their wives, ex-girlfriends and former sexual partners with each other. I’d never heard of these sites before, but now I’m painfully familiar with them.

After Hyrum initially posted the photos, they spread like wildfire. Revenge porn site users shared my private images far and wide. It was degrading and awful to see. My nude photos had been tagged with my first and last name, social media handles and my hometown. The more I searched, the more I found.

A long road to justice

I began to meticulously document what I found and requested that they be removed from German dating sites and even Telegram chats. These chats were filled with users making disgusting, nasty comments about my body, while exchanging nude photos of women like currency.

To get the photos removed from one of the Telegram chats, I invented a persona and pretended to be one of the other perverts in the chat. I pretended to know myself and said I was like a sister and that it was weird seeing the photos. I figured if I just threw it down with them and acted like another pervert, they would respect me. And it worked.

But if I came in as myself, I’d get shit on. 

Seeing my intimate photos publicly shared online became routine, but I wasn’t the only woman featured in Hyrum’s albums. Nude, explicit photos of Hyrum’s ex-wife and his former best friend had also been shared by the user. I reached out to them about what I saw, and they filed their own police reports.

As I was meticulously documenting the sharing of my photos through the internet’s revenge porn network, the police were also conducting an investigation of their own. Police were able to trace the IP address of the user who originally posted my photos back to the apartment Hyrum shared with his brother. It was a lengthy process, but two and a half years after I had found my photos on the porn sites, Hyrum was indicted on seven felony counts in Maricopa County Superior Court for unlawfully distributing the explicit photos of me, his ex-wife and former friend. 

Eight months later, in early December 2025, I spoke in front of the courtroom and Hyrum at his sentencing hearing after he’d accepted a plea deal. I told the judge how Hyrum’s actions, which weren’t just a one-time lapse in judgment, had left me feeling betrayed and humiliated. 

His crime changed my life permanently. I’ve received frightening messages from strangers. I’ve had to lock down my social media accounts and limit my interactions with the world. I live in constant fear that someone in my professional life will see these images. I’ve spent countless hours trying to get these photos removed from the internet, even as they continue to resurface.

Hyrum was sentenced to 90 days in jail, which began the day after Christmas, plus two years of supervised probation. He’ll need to complete sex offender counseling during his probation after serving his jail sentence, and will have a felony on his record. I got a little bit of the justice I was hoping for.

During this grueling, stressful process, I’ve been candid with the people closest to me about what’s been going on. On the day Hyrum was sentenced, I made a Facebook post to get the whole ordeal off my chest. It’s easy to feel ashamed after your private images are shared en masse by someone you once trusted. It’s scary to think about how others will react or what they’ll think.

But it’s an issue that’s all too common. Revenge porn is a serious crime. It hurts people and has real-world repercussions. It’s easy to think that once these intimate photos are out on the internet, there’s nothing you can do about them. But seven and a half years after I shared these photos with someone I once trusted, my abuser has been brought to justice for the crime he perpetrated against me.

Sasha Grant is the pseudonym of a 34-year-old woman living in Phoenix. This op-ed is as told to Morgan Fischer.