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By Liew Hanqing
THEY are explicit and sexual pictures of a Singapore blogger and her then-boyfriend.
They are supposed to be private, she claimed. Yet she allowed her boyfriend to put them online - and attracted 10,000 eyeballs a week at one stage.
Now, the pictures have ended up on forums and websites all over the world.
And the Singapore blogger, who looked to be in her 20s, is so ashamed that she refused to be identified by name for this report - even though her face is shown in several of the pictures on the Internet.
She limited her interviews with us to e-mail, and asked that we not identify her in any way.
So why put such explicit pictures online?
She replied through e-mail that she had thought then, that only she and her then-boyfriend had access to it.
But she alleged that her ex-boyfriend later charged netizens a fee to access the blog and view the pictures.
She claimed that she had taken down the blog immediately once she found out it had been made available to the public.
But it may have been too late. Last week, some of these explicit pictures were copied and re-posted on several websites and forums.
Now, all the blogger wants is her privacy back.
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| DARE TO BARE: In the other frames shot at the same area, she takes off her top to bare her chest in broad daylight. |
She has since taken down the blog and disabled her personal image-hosting account.
She also made a police report last week claiming that the explicit pictures had been "stolen" from her image-hosting account and used on other websites.
Image-hosting accounts are often used by photography buffs looking to store their large collection of digital photographs online.
They can be used to store images without sharing them publicly. In this case, the blogger claims the pictures were part of a private collection stored there.
A few of the pictures show her posing semi-nude in several public locations, including what appears to be a HDB stairwell, while others show her having sex with a partner.
The blogger told The New Paper that her ex-boyfriend had uploaded the pictures to her image-hosting account so he would be able to use them on the blog.
She claimed her boyfriend then used pictures from the image-hosting account to display on his blog last year.
This is how netizens could possibly have had access to her pictures.
She claimed he had assured her that their identity would remain secret.
"I did not know anybody else had access to it," she insisted.
Attempts by The New Paper to reach the ex-boyfriend at his last-known handphone number, however, were unsuccessful, as the number is no longer in use.
So there was no way we could check what she was claiming was indeed true.
The blogger added that the blog was not intended for profit.
But she later learnt that her ex-boyfriend had been charging netizens a fee for access to the blog.
| Blogger may not have a case |
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| THOUGH she has filed a police report, the law may not be on the blogger's side. And she may even be in trouble herself. Mr Adrian Wee, a lawyer with Characterist LLC, told The New Paper that if the blogger's photographs are considered obscene, the courts would probably not act to protect the interests of any party in relation to that party's illegal acts or illegal material. He added: "If an act is done in Singapore in order to distribute, sell or supply obscene material, that act would be considered illegal." For example, the distribution of the photographs would be considered illegal if they were uploaded from a computer in Singapore, or if the server the photographs were uploaded to was in Singapore. He added that while there is a statutory definition of "obscene", what constitutes an obscene photograph is determined by the individual circumstances of each case. However, as a general guide, photographs depicting explicit sex acts and, in some cases, nudity, would be considered obscene. It is an offence under Section 292 of the Penal Code to distribute obscene photos. The maximum penalty is a fine and three months' jail. |
The blogger claimed she did not know how much her ex-boyfriend was charging for access.
She recalled: "I had a lot of disagreements with him over the blog and the fact that it became open to the public for viewing.
This led to our breakup."
The New Paper understands the couple broke up more than a year ago.
She declined to reveal any information about her boyfriend.
In her police report, the blogger claimed it was not the first time the photographs had been circulated online.
It is illegal to publish materials in Singapore which are obscene in nature.
The same thing happened last year, she said, and her ex-boyfriend had also made a police report at the time.
But the law may not be on their side.
Singapore law prohibits the distribution of obscene material.
The blogger claimed she was shocked and upset that her pictures were being circulated online.
"I did not understand why this had to happen to me as these photos were never to be made known to people," she insisted.
She added that she had agreed to have the pictures posted online after her ex-boyfriend had persuaded her to let him do so.
She added that the pictures were taken several years ago, when her then-boyfriend asked if he could take some pictures of her.
"I agreed, thinking that in this age of digital cameras and camera phones, it was not uncommon that two people in love would share such private moments with each other.
"The photos were intended for us - for me to keep," she said.
The New Paper understands that the blogger had even made a sex video with her then-boyfriend.
The video was posted on an amateur porn website together with a handphone number and instant messaging address, urging viewers to call or send private messages.
The video was viewed more than 30,000 times by users from all around the world.
But now, it seems all the blogger feels is regret.
She said: "The issue has blown up pretty big now not because I wanted it - I was cajoled by my ex, who was into all of this. I was never in this to be famous.
"I never wanted the publicity, nor the money. I never profited from this, and I will only live to regret this for the rest of my life."
Owner of site which showed sex pictures said blogger invited people to look at them
THEY seek attention. And that's what they're getting.
So says the owner of a New York-based website which exhibited the sex pictures of the Singapore blogger.
The owner told The New Paper in an e-mail interview: "Some people are innocent victims who find themselves in the public eye.
"These people are not looking for attention; they are not celebrities.
"They are just normal people who make it on the evening news.
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"The blogger and her boyfriend are not those innocent people - they seek attention. They created a sex blog and invited people into their sex life through their blog. They were looking for attention and now they have it."
He received an e-mail from the Singapore blogger last Monday, demanding that he take the pictures down immediately.
She also sent him a copy of her police report.
But he said he has no intention of removing them.
Instead, he posted her police report on his website and lashed back at her - even urging netizens to send in additional nude pictures of the blogger if they had any.
He told The New Paper that he was surprised by her demands.
"And (for her) to say the photos were stolen might not be true either. From what I hear, the photos were posted on her own website before the site was removed," he said.
He added that the couple's sex blog was highly popular and that some even paid a fee for exclusive content on her site.
"I would think that some of her viewers on the blog saved the pictures, especially those viewers who paid.
"Those people were not paying for nothing," he said.
He said he decided to post the sex pictures after an anonymous tip-off from a visitor to his website.
He said: "It sounded very interesting. It's not every day you hear about a young Singaporean woman and her boyfriend running an exhibitionist blog.
"A blog with nude sex photos and videos taken in public areas in Singapore is a story, especially when the participants are from a country that is relatively conservative about sex."
This article was first published in The New Paper on Sep 25, 2008.
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