Transitioning from Dominatrix to Tech Founder: A Unique Fight To Combat Revenge Porn

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your average startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.