Don't cringe - banish that red-faced beast

We have all done something embarrassing.

I don't mean those tripping-on-the-pavement incidents.

I mean something really embarrassing. If, like me, you weren't raised in a convent, you've probably behaved a little badly, and more than once, I guess.

Those moments don't ever seem to become more acceptable. They remain mortifying.

They might find a home in the back of your mind, but when your memory is triggered, and that kiss, that drunken tirade, that dress, that drag on a joint, that now unmentionable dance comes to mind, your face reddens and your chest tightens.

The horror of it all returns.

I thank heaven and whomever resides up there that I am neither a celebrity nor running for public office. Imagine being Krystal Ball, once a US Democratic Party nominee in Virginia.

Risque photographs of her emerged on the internet during her campaign in 2010. Ball and her ex-husband were pictured holding a sex toy and the conservatives, now fans of either US presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, went mad.

The pictures went viral and she developed a Google problem - whenever Krystall Ball was Googled, links to these pictures came up first.

Same with Khanyi Mbau. Now if you Google her name, you'll find links to steamy naked pictures of her which were anonymously released into the twittersphere earlier this month.

If I were her, I would still be closed up in a hole, weeping and cursing the digital age.

Mbau may have crumbled when she saw what had happened.

She may have collapsed into a heap and wept. But not necessarily.

Mbau strikes me as somebody who knows what she wants, who can pull a middle finger at the person who did this and who wouldn't easily be humiliated.

She was clearly aware of the camera, but I doubt the photographs were intended for public distribution.

I imagine Mbau agrees with Ball, who said: "Society has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere."

Ball refused to hide and weep, and is now referred to as "a Facebook generation feminist".

Women everywhere were delighted with Ball's inspiring statements.

One said it broke one of the barriers her generation had faced.

"In our early 30s, we always said 'I'm not going to run [for public office], I've had a life'. We believed that if we'd inhaled a bit, that made us ineligible to run for office. And so the US missed out on some extraordinary talent, and we got a bunch of jerks instead."

So, perhaps I could take their lead, and if there is room for me in public office one day, I should take the opportunity and banish the shame of some of my life gone by.