Meg Ireland was overjoyed when she found out she was expecting, so she decided to share her pregnancy experiences with other mothers in a social media group. She posted some pictures while pregnant and now wants to warn other expectant mothers not to do the same because her photos wound up on a pregnancy fetish website.
Nobody expects someone to steal her pregnancy images and put them on porn sites for ‘preggophiles,’ yet this is exactly what is happening. Preggophilia is when people get high on pregnant women’s bellies.
Meg Ireland was surprised to hear that 15 images of her pregnancy had been wrongly placed on a porn site for pregnant women to admire.
Meg believes that, while we should not be afraid of such things, they do occur, and she has learnt on her own that we must be highly cautious when uploading something.
Meg first learned about this from a friend who recognised her bump, but she didn’t think much of it. She later joined the site and discovered that 15 photos of her had been stolen from a group of mums on social media. She was astounded by what she found on the website.
Meg stated that most photos were stolen since they were of moms casually spending the day at the mall or shopping, and people were discreetly photographing them. Meg also observed women submitting photos of other pregnant ladies without their knowledge and relatives of the pregnant woman publishing those photos.
Later, one of the posted mothers informed authorities of the situation on that site. Meg decided to delete her Instagram account, which contained images of her while pregnant and creates a new one.
Meg explained that she realised that this is how the internet works and that these things happen all the time, but she was horrified to learn what happened next with the stolen photos, so she chose to share much less on social media than she had previously.
People have said that it is Meg’s fault for posting images of herself online, but Meg believes that is not the case and that the real issue is people copying pictures and exploiting them for porn, for example. She believes a person should be able to upload whatever he wants without worrying about which sites her photos would appear on.
Meg doesn’t mind if someone downloads her photos to display to others because that’s what the internet is all about, but she is upset about why her photos were taken.
Meg also cautioned other pregnant women to be cautious about what they share.
Pregnant women in Australia and New Zealand have been cautioned by pregnancy support groups that people steal their images and publish them on pregnancy porn sites.
According to the Australian Multiple Birth Association, these pregnancy fetishists accessed groups of mothers using bogus profiles to take their images.
We should all be more cautious when posting something and consider where the images we publish may end up. Unfortunately, we might occasionally be in danger without even realising it.
