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

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, '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 reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's strange 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 technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

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

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing 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 a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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