Until last week, more than 32,000 men in Italy were openly sharing intimate images of their wives and girlfriends in a Facebook group called Mia Moglie (“My Wife”). Active since 2019, the group encouraged men to post photos of their spouses sleeping, getting changed, and sunbathing. Often their underwear is exposed, sometimes they’re completely naked. All were posted without consent, in the public domain, for fellow Worst ‘Wife Guys’ Ever to peruse. The comment threads, unsurprisingly, were full of leering jokes and dehumanizing comments.
“Great body, like a young filly—can we see more?” one man wondered beneath a hidden-camera shot. “If she’s shy, take photos secretly,” advised one member. “Following with interest.” These were by far the less obscene examples.
What makes Mia Moglie different from typical revenge porn forums was not only its size, but who its members were. They weren’t faceless bots. They were lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and even local politicians. One was a mayoral candidate. Another, a journalist. Many used their real names.
The group was hiding in plain sight on Facebook, visible to anyone who happened to stumble across it. For many of those who found out their images had been shared without permission, the discovery was devastating. One woman, who found her photos circulating in the group and on Telegram, told Corriere della Sera in an interview: “Today I found out I was in the group Mia Moglie. I feel shattered in two. I learned through my sister… some photos had already been passed around on Telegram. I’m afraid this could affect my children.”
“By the time it was closed… members were already scurrying off to encrypted Telegram channels.”
After growing outcry from feminist activists, Italy’s postal police finally shut down the group on August 20. But one of the biggest issues with non-consensual image sharing is that, once something is online, it’s almost impossible to fully erase or contain. By the time it was closed, the damage was done. Screenshots, images, and videos had been widely circulated, and members were already scurrying off to encrypted Telegram channels. Within hours, links to “secret” groups were spreading, ensuring the practice continues beyond mainstream scrutiny.
The names of participants, including those who uploaded and commented on women’s images without consent, are now part of an official police report that will be sent to prosecutors. Whether that will lead to charges is uncertain.
The Mia Moglie case is less about a single Facebook group and more about the wider cultural conditions that allow it. These men weren’t 4chan /gif/ board lurkers or anonymous trolls. They were sitting at their desks in Veneto and beyond, posting between shifts at work, between dinners with their families.
Perhaps they didn’t consider what they were doing as criminal. Voyeuristic content has become normalized online, and platforms like Facebook allow communities like this to flourish until someone blows the whistle. By the time law enforcement reacts, the abuse has mutated and moved elsewhere. Giacomo Zani, president of the Italian collective Mica Macho, told Il Fatto Quotidiano: “Faced with the Mia Moglie group, I felt sadness… We need a revolution from the inside, men speaking to other men.”
Although the group is banned from Facebook, the Telegram channels are thriving. Many women whose photos and videos were shared may never even know they were exposed. Meanwhile, the men, many of them in high-powered jobs, will likely continue their lives as normal, their names buried in a sea of over 32,000 others and protected by a digital ecosystem that adapts much faster than regulation.
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