Gendered Public Support for Criminalizing “Revenge Porn”

Abstract

Many states have criminalized “revenge porn,” an increasingly common form of online sexual abuse. Yet, we know little regarding attitudes toward these laws. Through an original survey of nearly 500 U.S. residents, we find widespread public support for criminalization, but support varies by respondent’s self-identified gender and revenge porn type. Women favor criminalization more than men, but support falls among women and men when the subject created the media, colloquially known as “selfies” or “noodz.” Results suggest that women expressing their sexuality are deemed less deserving of protection, reinforcing feminist legal critiques of criminal law as insufficient to prevent sexual abuse.

The Psychology of Nonconsensual Porn: Understanding and Addressing a Growing Form of Sexual Violence

“…As noted by Maddocks (2018), research on NCP uses varying terms and typologies. In the current database of psychology articles, nonconsensual porn was described as a type of technology-facilitated sexual violence (Pina et al, 2017), IBSA (Powell et al, 2019), sexual cyberbullying (Ehman & Gross, 2019), cyber abuse behavior (O’Connor et al, 2018), cyber-sexual violence (Cripps & Stermac, 2018), online sexual abuse (Lageson et al, 2019), and more. The specific act of nonconsensually distributing sexually intimate images was referred to as nonconsensual pornography (e.g., Uhl et al, 2018) as well as revenge porn (e.g., Gavin & Scott, 2019; Lageson et al, 2019).…”

“…Males (Bothamley & Tully, 2018) and individuals without sexting experience (Scott & Gavin, 2018) tend to blame female victims of NCP more. Males also favor criminalization of NCP less than women do (Lageson et al, 2019). Finally, qualitative research finds that third-party viewers of nonconsensual porn are unlikely to advocate for victims even when they are aware the images are nonconsensual (Harder, 2020); instead, they manage their conflicting emotions by “surface acting,” or altering their expression of their uncomfortable feelings to implicitly support the person sharing the NCP (Harder, 2020).…”

Police Officer Perceptions of Non-consensual Dissemination of Intimate Images

“…Despite worldwide legislation, criticism has been raised by scholars and legal professionals that NCII laws are restricted in scope and sometimes offer only limited redress ( McGlynn et al, 2017 ; Lageson et al, 2018 ). One major difficulty is related to an ambiguity with respect to victim consent, which in cases of selfies or material generated with victim consent may be open to varied interpretation ( Citron and Franks, 2014 ).…”

The Legal Implications and Remedies Concerning Revenge Porn and Fake Porn: A Common Law Perspective

“…The legal protection of victims of the illegal activity in question (non-consensual pornography) is derived from the area of pornography regulations and sexual abuse imagery. Still, when trying to enforce the rights of those injured by technologically innovative variations that is fabricated digital content, the victims face some hurdles (Lageson et al 2019). 12 Potential breaches of law in the area in question include both civil matters (such as tort law, copyright law) and criminal ones (such as harassing behavior), from intellectual property rights, through right of privacy, defamation, bullying or mobbing, a real threat to anyone caring about their image online and elsewhere (Dickson 2016).…”