So what is Revenge Porn? First off, it’s such a salacious term, that often leaves the victim of this violating crime, being shamed and unfairly judged…for the behaviors of another.
This new term, mostly dubbed by the media, with other names to represent it, like non consensual pornography, cyber sexual assault, cyber rape, digital domestic violence and many others, is happening more often than most people are aware of or care to admit.
I have interviewed Professor Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami and vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, for my upcoming documentary
50 Shades of Silence and her sentiments are the same
in this article.“The term ‘revenge porn,’ though popular, is misleading in two respects,” Franks says. “First, perpetrators are not always motivated by revenge. Some act out of a desire for profit, notoriety, or entertainment, or for no particular reason at all. Perpetrators include not only bitter ex-partners, but also people who are complete strangers to their victims. Second, the term ‘revenge porn’ is sometimes interpreted to mean that taking a picture of oneself naked or engaged in a sexual act — or allowing someone else to take such a picture — is pornographic. Creating explicit images … within the context of a private, intimate relationship, an increasingly common practice, is not equivalent to creating pornography.”
To add injury to insult, “most victims of revenge porn are left “playing an endless game of whack-a-mole because once an image is out there online, the horse is out of the barn door and it’s very difficult to remedy that.” says Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project.
As quoted in the article. Calvert notes that for many victims, the only immediate legal recourse might be “through multiple civil suits” focused on the damages of intentionally inflicting emotional distress on the victim through an act of revenge porn. But those kinds of suits are far from a perfect answer for victims, as “there is a fine line between freedom of speech and freedom of expression and the causing of severe emotional harm and trauma to the victim.”
Click here to read more from Yahoo Lifestyle.
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