Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Technology Entrepreneur: An Unconventional Battle Against Intimate Image Abuse

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. After multiple instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

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

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

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

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.