When you’re pregnant, there are people who want to touch your bump. People who want to photograph it. And then there are those who want to get their rocks off while looking at it.
Yes. It’s scary but true. And we’re not talking about guys who dig their ladies’ wondrous pregnant bodies. We’re talking about pregophilia, a fetish so common that it has an actual name.
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Putting it nicely, it’s “admiring pregnant women.” But really, it’s sexual attraction to pregnant bellies. Which is fine if that’s what floats your boat and you don’t cause any offense or harm or break any laws while indulging your fetish.
The problem is that pregnant women are being featured on pregophilia websites without their consent or knowledge. People are stealing their pictures from their social media accounts and online forums and uploading them to the fetish sites.
One mom who discovered this had happened to her is blogger Meg Ireland from the U.K., who discovered that her baby bump pics had been stolen and posted on a pregnancy porn site. The pictures were taken when Ireland was pregnant with her youngest child over two years ago, and she shared them in an online moms’ group in 2014. Because her profile on the website was private, Ireland never imagined they could be stolen and used in this way.
To those who say she shouldn’t have posted personal pregnancy pictures online if she didn’t want them to be stolen, Ireland wrote, “I see it differently. I didn’t care that someone had screen shot my photo to show someone, it’s what they did with my photos that made me physically sick to my stomach.”
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After she threatened legal action, the website took down Ireland’s images, which had been stolen by a person posing as a member of a moms’ forum. While digging a little deeper into the pregophilia sites, Ireland was shocked to discover images that had been posted by husbands, brothers-in-law and work colleagues, apparently without the pregnant women’s consent.
No pregnant woman wants a bunch of strangers jerking off to her baby bump pics, right? So what can we do about it? Obviously the only guarantee it won’t happen is to not post any pregnancy pics online. But as Ireland points out, why should proud moms-to-be be at the mercy of thieving creeps? Keeping your social media accounts private gives you an extra layer of security, as does keeping a close eye on who adds/follows you. If you get the slightest inkling they’re up to something dodgy, get blocking, and don’t upload personal pictures to any other site if you’re not sure how secure it is.
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The bottom line: Don’t feel you have to keep your baby bump under wraps if you want to share it with the world. Just be aware that not everyone in the world is the kind of person you want to see it.
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