Share this news on:
Next
04 Dec 2021
2 min read
It’s Not “Revenge Porn,” It’s “Electronic Sexual Assault”
The 2015 annual conference of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) is being held in Washington, DC this week, and as usual, it is has been an energizing and thought-provoking experience. FOSI Founder and CEO Steven Balkam and his staff do a terrific job of putting together a compelling slate of presentations on some of the most current and pressing Internet safety issues.
I’ll be writing some brief summaries and posting some audio of various sessions in the next few days, but one demands a more immediate update. Yesterday, I attended a break-out session entitled “Revenge Porn”: The Response to Cyber Exploitation. The panelists included:
The panelists engaged in a compelling and informative discussion of the problem of “revenge porn” and the global resources that are being devoted to combat the problem. There was complete agreement, however, that the term itself — “revenge porn” — is a glib media creation that does not actually describe the real scope or true nature of the problem. In many cases, the non-consensual distribution of someone’s intimate images is not revenge (i.e., retribution for some actual or perceived wrong done by that person) but instead, is a malicious attempt to inflict harm.
A couple of the panelists (Cindy Southworth and Laura Higgins) also argued emphatically that sexually explicit images distributed without consent are not “pornography” and should not be described as “revenge porn.” Holly Jacobs, whom I met at the Tyler Clementi Safety Conference has a better version: she refers to these images as “nonconsensual pornography.” That at least strips away the misuse of “revenge,” but still links the nonconsensual images to the adult industry.
There wasn’t time for Southworth and Higgins to elaborate on their antipathy to the term “revenge porn,” but I can think of at least three reasons why we should actively try to move this conversation away from any association with pornography:
During the Q&A session, I proposed an alternative term for this phenomenon that I think is much more accurate: “Electronic Sexual Assault.” I would define it as follows:
The use of any digital imaging device, online service, or other form of electronic communication to create, possess, disseminate, distribute, or otherwise promulgate an intimate, nude, or sexually explicit image (either still or moving) of an individual or individuals without the express consent of each person depicted therein.
This is merely a first draft of a concept that I hope could eventually replace the inapt and frankly, unnecessarily ugly term “revenge porn.” I think it offers a number of advantages:
There are a lot of different issues that need to be examined in detail, and I recognize that it is an uphill battle to change embedded language. But it can be done, and it is important.
© 2023 The Cybertraps Newsletter - All Rights Reserved
Leave a comment