Layered Exploitation: Exploring the Relationship Between Revenge Porn And Poly-Victimization

CrimRxiv, 2022

Though revenge porn is a relatively new phenomenon in popular culture, the first instance can be dated back as early as the 1950s. Despite its nearly 70-year existence, very little is known about this crime or how it is expressed in criminal justice legislation. To further examine the former, the present study analyzes the legislation surrounding revenge porn and reflects upon the scant social science research through a content analysis of the nation's state statutes. Though innovative revenge porn laws were observed, much of this legislation appeared inconsistent with how this crime is perpetrated and is best described as vague and medley. In light of these observations, policy implications and areas of future research are discussed.

2016

The non-consensual distribution of intimate images, also known as ‘revenge pornography’ has been increasingly identified as a significant and serious problem, warranting substantial legislative reform and non-legal remedies. Yet little information is available to date on these types of behaviours, or the extent of harms caused to victims. What is clear is that this form of image-based sexual exploitation is occurring globally, and research is needed to assist in the development of: concise laws, training for criminal justice authorities, social workers and victim advocates, and education and prevention campaigns, in order to respond effectively to the victims and perpetrators of these harms.

UniSA Student Law Review, 2016

This comment is a response to Alyse Dickson’s article in this volume entitled ‘Revenge Porn: A Victim Focused Response’. Part I considers the challenges that ‘revenge pornography’ raises and considers the difficulties of controlling aberrant sexualised conduct in circumstances where modern technology provides an almost limitless capacity to capture and distribute private images. Part II looks at the wider socio-cultural context, the gendered and sexualised assumptions of hetero-normativity and warns of the risks of overlooking ‘hidden’ individuals or groups that do not align with normative discourses of the ideal victim.

SSRN Electronic Journal

Revenge porn has become an epidemic in the United States in recent years. A debate among legislators has emerged, focused primarily on the question of whether to criminalize the phenomenon, with most states having already done so, based on the grave harm that revenge porn inflicts on victims and the ease of distributing it. However, the conceptual questions of how to categorize the offense, and why, have not received much attention. Contrary to the prevailing approaches in the United States, which sporadically define revenge porn as an infringement of privacy, as obscenity, or as some other offense, this Essay proposes, for the first time, theoretical grounds for categorizing it as a sex offense. This novel, though possibly controversial, reconceptualization more accurately reflects the social values that are violated by the phenomenon, more correctly labels the behavior of the offender, and more succinctly recognizes the nature of the harm inflicted on the victim. Categorizing revenge porn as a sex offense has not only theoretical but also practical implications, both for victims and released sex offenders.

2017

Over the past decade, awareness for sexual assault prevention and education has been raised through national media coverage and programming for college students by a growing number of universities nationwide. While this is an important step in combating sexual violence, the phenomenon of revenge porn is quickly becoming recognized as an emerging form of digital sexual violence as more people are having their private and intimate images shared publicly as their own online and digital activities increase. This thesis study sought to understand how the populations' current familiarity and awareness about the revenge porn phenomenon influenced the populations' perceptions about revenge porn and its victims. A total of 206 participants, including college students at a public Midwestern university and participants on social media platforms, responded to an online survey with a series of quantitative items examining knowledge levels, exposure to information, myth acceptance, and blameworthiness for revenge porn. Participant responses were analyzed through independent and pairedsamples t-tests and analysis of variance tests. Consistent with examined literature, participants with lower knowledge levels and exposure to information about both revenge porn and sexual assault reported higher victim blaming attitudes and myth acceptance for both topics and vice versa. Blameworthiness and myth acceptance were also examined through a third-person effect perspective to determine if perceived influences for self and others regarding media effects for revenge porn and sexual assault affected victim blaming attitudes, and the results indicated that third-person effect had stronger effects regarding revenge porn over sexual assault, and those stronger effects correlated with higher levels of victim blaming and myth acceptance for revenge porn than with sexual assault. These findings suggest that increased awareness for sexual assault has been effective in reducing victim blaming attitudes for sexual assault, and with more awareness, victim blaming attitudes for revenge porn can see similar reductions. v

In the last few years, many countries have introduced laws combating the phenomenon colloquially known as 'revenge porn'. While new laws criminalising this practice represent a positive step forwards, the legislative response has been piecemeal and typically focuses only on the practices of vengeful ex-partners. Drawing on Liz Kelly's (1988) pioneering work, we suggest that 'revenge porn' should be understood as just one form of a range of gendered, sexualised forms of abuse which have common characteristics, forming what we are conceptualising as the 'continuum of image-based sexual abuse'. Further, we argue that image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence. We suggest that this twin approach may enable a more comprehensive legislative and policy response that, in turn, will better reflect the harms to victim-survivors and leads to more appropriate and effective educative and preventative strategies.

Temida

Among many forms of abuse of privacy in the cyberspace and social media networks, particular attention is given to the so-called cyber misogyny. It refers to the existence of deeply rooted prejudices against women and encompasses various forms of gender- based hatred, harassment and violence against women that occur in a virtual (cyber) space. The subject of this paper is an analysis of emerging forms of cyber misogyny, particularly focusing on one of its most widespread forms: revenge porn. Through revenge porn in the cyberspace, misogyny can be manifested through publishing someone?s intimate photos, that is, photos of their intimate private life or sexually explicit photos and videos. In all these cases, publications in cyberspace or social media occur without the knowledge, willingness or consent of the photographed person. The purpose behind such activity is to shame and/or humiliate the victim by causing her pain and moral suffering for reasons of revenge. The anonymity of the...

This paper makes an attempt to explain the construction of a newly developed genre called revenge porn flourishing in new media. The study analyzes the patterns of production and display of revenge porn content as well as the mechanisms of the site that archives such materials. The analyses reveal that young women are more frequently exposed in the revenge porn website. Biased and sexualized representation of their body coupled with misogynistic labeling present them as objects of pleasure and desire in front of a majority of hetero sexual male audience who further objectify the victim by making lustful and/or derogative comments . The results of this study suggest that the development of such a genre cannot be attributed only to liberatory and/or victimizing effects of the electronic space. Rather, social power structures based on discourses like gender, heterosexuality and capitalist patriarchy that exploit the surveillance mechanism of the internet are significantly influencing both individual uses of the internet as well as its apparatus and technologies. These are the major forces contributing to the institutionalization and commercialization of revenge porn in new media. This is a case study based investigation that uses both content analysis and discourse analysis as methods to interpret the revenge porn genre in new media.

Academic rigour, journalistic flair "Revenge porn" -the sharing of nude or sexual images without consent -has been widely understood as the spiteful actions of a jilted ex-lover. As the term has gained popularity, however, so too have understandings grown about the use of nude or sexual images as a tool of abuse and control by perpetrators of domestic violence. But according to our new research, image-based abuse affects many Australians from across diverse communities and in different types of relationships. The picture is more complex than has previously been identified.