Rewriting Revenge Porn

#RewritingRevengePorn is a national campaign dedicated to rewriting how we perceive and respond to revenge porn. Our goal is to create a safer healing environment for survivors by rewriting how we define the crime on both a social and legal level.

What You Need to Know

  • Schedule

    December 6th - 11th, 2021

  • In this toolkit you will find:

    • Educational material on revenge porn

    • Information on teenage revenge porn

    • State-by-state breakdowns of the law in every U.S. State*

    • How current laws harm survivors

    • Laws that support survivors

    • Call to action plans

    *=laws for every state that has laws/are available to view

Download Toolkit Here!

  • Redefining Revenge Porn

    The title “revenge porn” can be misleading as it narrows the intent to just revenge when there are many reasons (or none at all) that a perpetrator may distribute explicit material non-consensually.

  • Prevalence

    Although taboo, 88% of adults and 15-27% of teens admit to engaging in sexting.

    Revenge porn is a widespread issue.

    Revenge porn is a gender-based issue. While anyone can be targeted, 98% of images on revenge porn sites are of women

    Research has also shown that revenge porn rates have nearly doubled since 2019.

  • Teens and Self-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

    The material distributed in teen sexting is called Self-generated Child Sexual Abuse Material.

    Despite the prevalence of teen sexting, few states have laws expressing what to do when teens spread revenge porn of one another.

    This leaves regular child pornography laws to apply, which has caused survivors to be charged with a crime in rare cases.

    Some states explicitly state perpetrators and/or victims can only be 18+.

    We need to address these issues to stop the spread of both revenge porn and child pornography.

  • Ideal Revenge Porn Laws

    While no state has comprehensive revenge porn law, there are still clauses that are positive.

    25% of U.S. states do not require any form of malicious intent.

    In New York, the statute of limitations does not begin until the survivor discovers the crime has been committed.

    In Minnesota, posting the image online results in a higher punishment.

  • Harmful Revenge Porn Laws

    Even in states with relatively strong revenge porn laws, there is legislation that harms survivors.

    61% of U.S. states require the depicted to be identifiable, either by their face or accompanying information.

    74% of U.S. states require there to be some form of malicious intent.

    Not all of these apply to every state, so please check out our Rewriting Revenge Porn Toolkit for more in-depth information on your state’s laws.

Call to Action: These are the changes that need to be made to current revenge porn laws.

 

Get Involved:

To make change happen, we all need to do our part and make our state legislators aware of these problems.

Visit https://www.ncsl.org/aboutus/ncslservice/state-legislative-websites-directory.aspx to find your state assembly and congress members.

Below is an email template for you to copy, paste, and edit. Not all states have the exact same issues, so please double check with your state to confirm.

Dear Representative (REPRESENTATIVE’S NAME),

My name is (YOUR NAME) and I am a resident of (YOUR CITY/STATE). I would like to take a moment to discuss with you (BILL NAME AND NUMBER). This legislation is of concern to me, because research has shown that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images has doubled in the past two years.

Our state’s current laws fail to address the full scope of the issue and end up leaving many survivors without justice. There are multiple issues with the current legislation that I would like to discuss with you, however, the main issues are:

-Requiring malicious intent overlooks the harm done regardless of intent and intent is hard to prove. (NOT APPLICABLE TO ALL)

-By requiring the person depicted to be identifiable, we exclude victims who are not identifiable to others but identifiable to themselves, which is still incredibly harmful. (NOT APPLICABLE TO ALL)

-Instead of requiring these factors, they should make the charges more severe.

-Charges should also be more severe if posted on the internet. (APPLICABLE TO ALL EXCEPT MINNESOTA)

-The statute of limitations should begin upon discovery of the distributed images to give survivors a fair opportunity to report the crime. The crime often occurs without the victim's knowledge. (APPLICABLE TO ALL EXCEPT NEW YORK)

-39% of teenagers report seeing revenge porn of another teen. We need to criminalize this activity while making sure that teen sexting itself is not criminalized. Prosecuting these crimes under child pornography laws can result in the victim getting charged with a crime as well. (APPLICABLE TO ALL)

I hope that you consider taking action to get these laws revised. Studies have shown that one in twelve Americans has fallen victim to revenge porn, and one in twenty has perpetrated it. Survivors can experience harassment, stalking, job loss, depression, PTSD, paranoia, and even suicide. This is a serious issue and our laws should reflect its severity. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you for your time,

(YOUR NAME)

Additional clauses:

Oregon, Maryland, and Wisconsin:

-Criminalize distribution regardless of whether or not the image ended up on the internet.

Arkansas and Pennsylvania:

-Criminalize distribution regardless of the person's relationship to the victim.

South Dakota:

-Criminalize distribution of self-generated explicit content that was expected to be kept private

Kansas:

-Decriminalize teen-to-teen sexting if no other crimes occur.


If you hear back from a legislator, feel free to contact us here at PAVE for further support.