Weaponize...

Katie Hill’s case lands smack in the middle of the three-way intersection between tech, sex, and power.

Technology has changed sex; sex has changed power; and power is newly vulnerable to strains of disgrace that didn’t exist a decade ago.  

This provides new and humiliating ways to document sexual encounters, and all sexual encounters especially when they involve a public figure are now subjected to brutal public dissection.   

Rep. Katie Hill, who is openly bisexual, admits to the relationship with the female campaign staffer. She denies the relationship with the male legislative aide, and has accused her “abusive” husband of orchestrating the smear campaign amidst their divorce.)

Since millennials live most of their lives online, it’s only natural that their sex lives have gone digital as well, and Hill was no exception.      

 One 2015 study found that 82% of adults had sexted in the last year, mostly with their partners in a committed relationship. But all those sexual messages can be easily weaponized by disgruntled exes or abusers: a 2016 study from the journal Data & Society found that roughly 10.4 million people—have either had their photos posted without their consent or else had someone threaten to do so. 

The weaponization of nudes is a 21st century sex crime, one that state and federal officials have done little to address. Hill’s nudes, including one of her combing her campaign staffer’s hair while naked, were leaked to a conservative blog and to the Daily Mail, which forced Hill to admit to the affair and apologize. But for millennials who are young and single in the age of dating apps, leaked nudes may soon become ubiquitous—and could eventually be considered as scandalous as a past divorce or a failed business: just another part of life.