Apologies — to my future partner, to my future crush, to my future whomever who will treat me with care and respect and will love me, truly. I apologize because I will no longer be able to fully trust to the degree that my heart desires. I apologize that I am no longer the innocent, naïve girl I used to be, but someone who knows what it is to be taken advantage of — to be betrayed at her most vulnerable moment.

I apologize to all the girls, for having chosen to let this go in the beginning, even when that meant allowing this predator get away without any sanctions or penalties. This person who still believes that whatever he did can easily be discarded with my silence.

I apologize for not respecting my body, for letting something so horrible happen, for not being the modest lady as my mother taught me to be, for ignoring my friends’ warnings, for not seeing that my relationship was an unhealthy one. I apologize, deeply, to my father, who believes that I am doing great in a foreign country, thousands of kilometers from home, that I am growing into a responsible, mature woman that he is so proud of.

Throughout the relationship, I emphasized my hesitation about physical intimacy. Everything felt like a big step, and I clearly expressed that I wished for him to respect my pace. Time after time, I would bring up the topic of boundaries and consent, but he would squirm uncomfortably, telling me that he felt as if I was accusing him of being a sexual predator.

When I first saw the photos, my heart stopped. It was two pictures of a naked female body. And it took me a second to realize the naked body was mine.

My heart instantly flew back to life as I tried to process what I had seen. With trembling hands, I hastily picked up his phone and forced my fingers to enter the photo album. The pictures were still there. I stared at them over and over, unable to believe what I was seeing. And then I accidentally swiped to the previous photo, and found myself staring at someone’s legs. Gawking, I zoomed out to see a collection of photos in the album. I witnessed an array of legs, one after another, and another. There were around ten photos of a woman’s legs, in her underwear. And they were all me. I covered my mouth with my hands, trying very hard to breathe.

Regardless of where you are in the world, there was no way those pictures could have been taken without a specifically perverted intention. What other explanation could there be for a series of photos of your naked body taken unbeknownst to you on your partner’s phone? They were all aimed to capture a part of my body, without me noticing, without my permission, in the sneakiest way possible. And to spend the whole day with me, without displaying any sign of shame or guilt? Nicely done.

I once had a heated debate with my friends about whether or not we could, or should, forgive someone for a horrible deed that they committed. Some argued that the act of forgiving can pave the way to repentance. If we can’t find a way to forgive and the world is filled with contempt for one another, where will be room for improvement? And that was what I chose to do. I decided to attempt forgiveness and not report the violation to the Title IX office. He did, in fact, respond with a sincere apology and asked me not to tell anyone about what he did. It was my way of forgiving, or more accurately, forgetting. I had been betrayed by the person whom I trusted the most and it petrified me. At the time, I justified my decision to move on by persuading myself that it was the best thing I could do for myself and my body.

Months after it happened, after having returned to Abu Dhabi, I still couldn’t erase the photos from my mind. I close my eyes and they are still there, haunting me. Pictures may be temporary; they are designed to be taken and deleted with a push of a button — but a memory? That functions in a more complicated way than a camera. Terrifyingly, you can never be detached from it, and it affects you and your values. It lives on, sinks into every inch of your life, intrudes your academics, your thoughtless wanderings and your encounters with other people.

Realizing that the violation had been affecting me more deeply than I first imagined it would, I reported the incident to the NYU Title IX Coordinator. I realized, through the reporting process, that he was only worried about his future.

As one form of sexual assault, sexual exploitation, which “involves non-consensual use of another individual’s nudity or sexuality,” falls under the prohibited conduct described in NYU’s Sexual Misconduct Policy. Despite the degree to which NYU emphasizes the importance of consent, our daily life pattern is geared in a way where consent is jeopardized and overlooked. This problem is exacerbated when we fail to understand that privacy is a huge part of consent.

We have come to live in a world where it is so easy to take a snapshot of any moment and, as such, our privacy has lost its place. With the swipe of a finger, we can easily access our cameras. We enter our classrooms and take pictures of the board. We take videos of memorable moments or events. We take pictures of ourselves and other people every day. And through all of this, we do it under the assumption that we are not invading anyone’s privacy.

I am afraid we have created a space where we are desensitized to the boundaries of others, and of our own privacy. This loss of privacy affects how we deal with consent. Some people abuse technology’s accessibility by taking pictures without permission. They allow themselves not to feel any guilt, comfortable with the boundaries that equate the ability to see someone’s body with the consent to take photos of it. To some degree, the same may go for us. We do not feel as if we have committed a crime after taking a picture of a pretty street along with a few dozen strangers on it. Of course, these two cases cannot be treated in the same manner, but lack of social awareness on this issue contributes to a limited understanding of consent.

I will not apologize to those who believe they know what consent is, and yet pressure others to be physically intimate. Consent is not something you earn by persuasion, coercion or pressure. It’s not about a so-called game of playing hard to get. There was no game to play to begin with. Being in a relationship does not mean you are entitled to physical intimacy. A relationship does not indicate you have automatically earned the rights to take pictures of the other party’s body without her permission, the right to take someone’s clothes off or the right to coerce her into being physically intimate. After all, physical intimacy is not something you should earn by persuading the other person; it must come naturally as a result of trust, transparent conversations, consent and fundamental respect between both parties.

I will also not apologize to those who support this sexual predator in any form, either friends or bystanders. I will not apologize to those who elect to stay silent even with the knowledge that this person is of someone who engages in such violations.

It is easy, for students to be detached from one another. Thus, we must, both locally and globally, not forget to constantly engage in discussions of consent, how to not undermine each of our privacies and how to respect and take care of our own bodies.