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What is revenge porn?

Revenge porn is revealing or sexually explicit photographs and films of a person posted on the internet, without the consent of the subject and with the intent to cause them distress or embarrassment. The perpetrator is typically a former sexual partner.

Videoing or capturing sexually explicit content of a person without their consent was made illegal in 2015, in the domestic abuse bill,  but revenge porn threats were not illegal until now. Revenge porn was made a criminal offence in Section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.

Who does it affect? 

Revenge porn is becoming a bigger problem in England and Wales every year. Although it is suggested that between 60-95% of victims of revenge porn are women, victims of revenge porn are people of all ages and sometimes the victims are as young as 11 years old. 

Since social media has become more and more popular and easy to use, it is easier to share intimate images. However, it makes it easier for abusers to threaten to share these intimate images to the whole world via social media and the internet. 

Revenge Porn statistics?

It is estimated that around 43% of women and 27% of men have sent intimate images to people they trusted. Revenge porn cases rose by 117% between 2015 to 2019. Unfortunately, the lockdown which began in 2020 caused a rise in sexual offences, including revenge porn.

 A government helpline reported that 2,050 reports were made in 2020. This is a further 22% increase from 2019. The helpline successfully removed 22,515 images as of September 2020 and 94% of the removals were a result of reports that were made to the helpline. 

Refuge

Refuge is a charity that helps to provide support for women and children who experience domestic violence. They launched a campaign called “the naked threat” which had the intention of changing the Domestic Abuse Bill to make threatening to share sexual images a specific offence.

The charity found that around 1/7 of young women have experienced threats to share intimate pictures. The campaign had over 45,000. supporters one of which was Love Island star Zara Mcdermott.

Zara Mcdermott

Zara Mcdermott is a celebrity who appeared on Love Island in 2018. She was also a victim of revenge porn when she was a teenager. When Zara became a victim of revenge porn, she said that she became suicidal and it led to her being bullied. 

It was recently revealed that the school actually suspended her because “they were embarrassed.” Unfortunately, the boy who shared Zara’s images without her consent never had any punishment for his actions.

She once again became a victim when she came out of the Love Island villa to discover that nude images of her were circulating the internet worldwide. Zara partnered with the refuge charity to help them draw attention to their “naked threat” campaign. 

Zara made a documentary on her experience which was aired on BBC 3. The documentary was made with the intention of drawing awareness to this video and image-based sexual abuse. There are now even calls for the documentary to be shown in schools so young adults can also learn about the dangers of revenge porn.