Olimpia: ‘La gordibuena de Puebla’ from the sex video that got the law to protect women from sexual crimes on the Internet

She was barely 18 years old when Olimpia Coral Melo Cruz had to deal with all the stigmas and taboos of a sexist society that punished her and cruelly singled her out for appearing in a sex video with her partner in Huauchinango, Puebla.

In this video the young woman was naked and fully enjoying her sexuality. The video that she made with her boyfriend was leaked on social networks and spread massively. The Olimpia couple denied being responsible.

This caused the young woman to go into depression, because in a society that punishes women they called her easy, ‘chubby’, whore and in many other ways. Devastated by her, Olimpia locked herself in her house for eight months, several times it crossed her mind to end her life and on three occasions she attempted suicide.

Olimpia was ashamed and did not know how to defend herself, no one had forced her; She herself had recorded the video with her boyfriend and although her intention was never to spread it, she was convinced that it was all her fault and she deserved all those insults.

What Olimpia was most afraid of was that her mother, who didn’t have Internet, would find out what had happened. She came forward and tried to persuade her: ‘There is a video circulating in which it is supposedly me, naked, having sex.’

One Sunday, while the whole family was gathered, his younger brother came running from the street. Enraged, he threw his phone in the middle of everyone: ‘That video of my sister does exist and it is Olimpia,’ he said.

Olimpia remembers that day as one of the saddest of her life. He felt very ashamed, he felt so guilty that he wanted to die. Distraught, she threw herself at her mother’s feet and begged for forgiveness on her knees, but her mother’s reaction surprised her.

‘He lifted my head and said, looking into my eyes: We all fuck. Your cousin fucks, your sister fucks and so do I. The only difference is that everyone saw you, but that doesn’t make you a bad person or a criminal. You just enjoyed your sex life – as anyone does – and there is proof of that. It would be a shame if you had stolen or killed. Even mistreated a dog.’

At that moment Olimpia learned about sorority for the first time and realized how important it was in an extremely macho and sexist society.

Her mother protected her, turning off her home’s Internet and telephone services. When neighbors asked about the video or rang the doorbell at her house to find out more details, Olimpia’s mother kindly asked them to leave.

But on Olimpia Street he had to live with public ridicule. She wanted to limit her life, not get out of it, but when a friend made her see that she was not the only one, that many women were made fun of, she understood that she had to do something.

After a long process, she understood that she was the victim of a type of violence that was not yet classified in our country. She approached feminism, understood what sisterhood was and then contacted other women who had gone through similar situations.

She organized with other women and together they reformed the laws in Puebla. They advised her not to do anything, to stop, that being the case, in any case, there would be no justice for her because everyone already knew about her naked body and the law is not retroactive.

But by then Olimpia had already learned a lot. She knew that she was not a criminal, she knew that having sex is not a crime and that on the contrary the criminals were the ones who defiled her body with every like and every reproduction.

He faced more difficult tests. One deputy even said that his law would not be approved because that would be ‘endorsing whoring’. But after 6 years of struggle he managed to get 11 states in the country to approve the law that today bears his name and punishes sexual crimes that harm women.

The Olympia law consists of the legal recognition of crimes against sexual intimacy. That is, the dissemination of intimate content without consent; cyber-bullying, sexual violence on the internet, and finally the access law.

Olimpia currently works on a feminist front that promotes sisterhood with victims of virtual crimes. Her goal is for the ‘Olimpia Law’ to be approved throughout the country because she wants subsequent generations of women to feel safe in cyberspace, because for her the virtual has real consequences.

‘I’m no longer “the good one.” Now my name is associated with a law that punishes sexual abuse on the internet.’

Photos: Facebook/ Olimpia Coral Melo Cruz