Image-based Sexual Abuse

A Study on the Causes and Consequences of Non-consensual Nude or Sexual Imagery

Nicola Henry, Clare McGlynn, Asher Flynn, Kelly Johnson, Anastasia Powell, Adrian J. Scott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351135139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book investigates the causes and consequences of image-based sexual abuse in a digital era. Image-based sexual abuse refers to the taking or sharing of nude or sexual photographs or videos of another person without their consent. It includes a diversity of behaviours beyond that of "revenge porn", such as the secret trading of nude or sexual images online; "upskirting", "downblousing" and other "creepshots"; blackmail or "sextortion" scams; the use of artificial intelligence to construct "deepfake" pornographic videos; threats to distribute photographs and videos without consent; and the taking or sharing of sexual assault imagery. This book investigates the pervasiveness and experiences of these harms, as well as the raft of legal and non-legal measures that have been introduced to better respond to and prevent image-based sexual abuse.

The book draws on groundbreaking empirical research, including surveys in three countries with over 6, 000 respondents and over 100 victim-survivor and stakeholder interviews. Guided by theoretical frameworks from gender studies, sociology, criminology, law and psychology, the authors argue that image-based sexual abuse is more commonly perpetrated by men than women, and that perpetration is higher among some groups, including younger and sexuality minority men. Although the motivations of perpetrators vary, a dominant theme to emerge was that of power and control. The gendered nature of the abuse means that it is best understood as a "continuum of sexual violence" because victim-survivors often experience it as part of a broader pattern of gendered harassment, violence and abuse.

Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, law and psychology. Image-based Sexual Abuse is also an essential resource for activists, legal and policy practitioners, technology companies and victim-survivors seeking to understand the deeply complex nature of intimate-image sharing in a digital era.

Chapter 1
Image-based sexual abuse
Beyond “revenge pornography”

Introduction

In the 1980s, Hustler magazineran a long-running feature entitled “Beaver Hunt” which invited readers to submit photographs of women’s vaginas for publication. Several women sued Hustler for libel and an invasion of privacy for publishing the photographs without their consent. In one case, a man and a woman stole photographs of another woman at a party and then sent the photographs to Hustler which later appeared in the magazine. The woman sued Hustler, claiming that the magazine was negligent in falsely representing that she had consented to the publication of the images and in falsely attributing “lewd sexual fantasies to her” (Ashby v. Hustler Magazine, Inc.,1986).

Back in 1986 when this case was before the courts, terms such as “revenge porn”, “sextortion”, “image-based sexual abuse” and “deepfakes” had not yet been coined. Camera-enabled smart-phones, social media and the World Wide Web had not yet been invented, and few could have predicted the ways in which new digital technologies would be used to perpetrate a range of harmful acts against children and adults alike. What the Hustler case shows is that the non-consensual taking or sharing of nude or sexual images – also known as “revenge pornography”, “non-consensual pornography” or “image-based sexual abuse” – is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, since the invention of the camera over 200 years ago, people have long been engaged in the illicit taking or sharing of intimate images without the consent of the person depicted in the image. It is only recently that such practices have been given explicit labels and specific laws have been introduced to render these behaviours either criminal or unlawful. Up until the early 2000s, most attention to these hitherto unnamed phenomena was focused on leaked celebrity sex tapes or nude images of celebrities in exotic holiday destinations (Hayward & Rahn, 2015; Hillyer, 2004). Photographs were published or disseminated in women’s and men’s magazines, and videotapes sold or borrowed in R-rated sex shops or video stores, occasionally leading to a legal case for defamation or invasion of privacy by those who were wealthy enough to pursue their claims in the civil courts (Chard & Litherland, 2019).

Since the more recent advances in computer technology, including the World Wide Web, search engines, peer-to-peer file sharing, social networking, smart phone technologies, mobile phone apps and artificial intelligence, the dissemination of non-consensual nude or sexual imagery to potentially millions of people worldwide has become a significant global issue.

The term “revenge pornography” was coined in the mid-2000s in response to reports from victim-survivors whose images were being shared online without their consent, and the growing popularity of revenge-oriented websites hosting non-consensual nude or sexual imagery, often accompanied by the personal details of the victim. The non-consensual sharing of nude or sexual images has been further facilitated through a wide range of platforms and devices which enable users to create, upload, download and share nude or sexual images quickly and easily. As this book will explore, broader social and cultural trends also play a significant role, such as the proliferation of amateur pornography, the shifting nature of privacy, new patterns of voyeurism and exhibitionism, the over-saturation of visual imagery, as well as the pervasive inequalities relating to gender, sexuality, age, disability, race and ethnicity.

This book investigates the phenomenon of image-based sexual abuse – the non-consensual taking or sharing of nude or sexual images. The book has two key aims. The first is to investigate the pervasiveness, nature and impacts of image-based sexual abuse. The second is to consider the legal and non-legal responses to this problem in a global context. Building on collaborative, interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research, the book reports on the empirical findings of the most comprehensive study to date of image-based sexual abuse among adults and young people. This includes national surveys with 6,109 respondents, 75 victim-survivor interviews and 41 stakeholder interviews across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The book conceptualises and positions image-based sexual abuse within an understanding of gender, sexuality and inequality, drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks, including feminist legal theory, digital criminology, as well as gender and phenomenological theories. Our analysis is also informed by actor-network theory (Latour, 1991, 2005), which views artefacts, human actors and organisations as interacting in complex, interconnected ways. As such, we eschew the dichotomies often made between agency and structure, nature and society, actor and object, and online and offline (Henry, Flynn, & Powell, in press). We instead prefer to view technology not simply as a tool for motivated perpetrators to engage in egregious acts, but as part of an overarching system of inequality and discrimination, whereby societal norms, such as economic profit, excessive individualism, hypersexuality, heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity, drive and shape behaviours, including those that are harmful, as well as those that are resistive, subversive and non-conformist.

In this first chapter, we begin by introducing the key terms used in this book, such as “revenge porn” and “image-based sexual abuse”. The second section summarises the key findings of the survey and victim-survivor interviews. The third and final section provides a summary of each chapter of the book.

From “revenge pornography” to “image-based sexual abuse”

The problem with the term “revenge porn”

The term “revenge porn” was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in April 2016. It was defined as “sexually explicit images of a person posted online without that person’s consent especially as a form of revenge or harassment”. A combined ProQuest, Google Scholar and Factiva search of media and scholarly articles shows that the term “revenge porn” was first used over 20 years earlier in a film review about a group of friends on the run from a gang of drug dealers (Goodard, 1993). It was not until July 2002 that “revenge porn” was used for the first time to describe the actions of a man who posted non-consensual sexual photographs of his ex-girlfriend on a dumpster in retribution for her breaking up with him (Henry & Flynn, 2019). Then in 2005, the term was used again in a New Zealand Sunday Star article to describe the practice of former partners sharing non-consensual intimate images on purpose-built websites to “get back at their ex” (Hume, 2005). Around the same time, “sexting” first appeared in media reports after Australian cricketer Shane Warne sent a series of sexually explicit text messages to different women in different continents (Henry & Powell, 2015). Although “sexting” originally referred to the sending of explicit text messages, it has since evolved to describe the sending or receiving of nude, semi-nude or sexual images, and text and is often used interchangeably to refer to either consensual or non-consensual behaviours (see Crofts, Lee, McGovern, & Milivojevic, 2015).

In 2011, “revenge porn” came into popular usage after growing attention was given to the non-consensual sharing of nude or sexual images of musicians and sportspersons on the website IsAnyoneUp.com and the subsequent criminal trial of its founder Hunter Moore (Martens, 2011). Since then, the term has been popularised and widely used in media articles, public discourse and scholarly contexts, though not without extensive criticism.

While this salacious term has helped to draw attention to the problem of sharing non-consensual nude or sexual images over the past decade, many victim-survivors, victim support advocates, policymakers and scholars find it objectionable on a number of grounds. First, using the term “revenge porn” to describe all non-consensual sharing is a misnomer because not all perpetrators are motivated by revenge when they share nude or sexual images without consent, but rather may have other motives, such as sexual gratification, monetary gain, social status building or a desire for power and control (Citron & Franks, 2014). Second, by focusing only on the non-consensual sharing of images by ex-partners, the term “revenge porn” ignores other forms of image-based sexual abuse by known and unknown persons, such as the surreptitious or non-consensual filming in public or private places (e.g., “upskirting”, “downblousing” or “creepshots”), or threats being made to share intimate imagery (see McGlynn & Rackley, 2017; McGlynn, Rackley, & Houghton, 2017; Powell & Henry, 2017; Powell, Henry, & Flynn, 2018). Third, the term arguably has victim-blaming connotations because it implies that the victim has done something to provoke the ire of the offender. Fourth, the use of the term “pornography” likens non-consensual nude or sexual imagery to the production of commercial pornography, which misrecognises the harms of image-based sexual abuse and fails to capture the diversity of images, many of which are neither pornographic nor sexually explicit (Powell & Henry, 2017). Finally, the term focuses attention on the content of the image, rather than on the abusive actions of perpetrators who engage in these behaviours (Rackley & McGlynn, 2014).

Defining image-based sexual abuse

To address the problems associated with the term “revenge porn”, scholars have developed a range of other labels to describe these behaviours (see Maddocks, 2018), including “non-consensual pornography” (Citron & Franks, 2014; Franks, 2017), “involuntary porn” (Burns, 2015), “non-consensual sexting” (Henry & Powell, 2015) or “image-based sexual abuse” (McGlynn & Rackley, 2017; McGlynn et al., 2017; Powell & Henry, 2017; Powell et al., 2018). While no terminology is perfect, we prefer “image-based sexual abuse” because it better captures the nature and harms experienced by many victim-survivors, the diversity of behaviours, a much broader array of motivations, as well as a range of digital devices and platforms.

We use the term “image-based sexual abuse” to refer to three principal behaviours: First, the non-consensual taking of nude or sexual images; second, the non-consensual sharing of nude or sexual images; and third, threats to share nude or sexual images. We define “taking” to include the photographing or recording of a still or moving image, as well as altering images (digitally or through other means) to make it look as if the person depicted in the image is posing in a nude or sexual way or performing a sexual act. We define “sharing” to mean giving others access to images, which includes showing images to another person or persons, or circulating or distributing images via mobile phone or uploading onto a website for others to view and access. And, finally, we define images to include both photographs and videos, thus excluding text and written forms of speech.

Essentially, we treat “image-based sexual abuse” as an umbrella term for a diverse range of abusive behaviours involving non-consensually taken or shared nude or sexual images. These behaviours include (but are not limited to): the use of artificial intelligence or other digital manipulation techniques to construct fake pornographic videos that realistically depict the victim’s face onto a body performing a sexual act (also known as “deepfakes” or “fakeporn”); the sharing of nude or sexual images on “revenge porn” websites that have been purposefully designed to entice users to “get back at” a partner, ex-partner or any other known person; the non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images via mobile phone or internet sites for revenge, sexual gratification, voyeurism, social status building or other motives; threats made by strangers online, or by intimate partners, to coerce victim-survivors into sharing more nude or sexual images, to pay money, or to engage in any unwanted act (also known as “sextortion”); and images taken and/or shared of sexual assaults and rape. We do not include pornographic images that are created or disseminated among consenting adults, although we acknowledge that what counts as “consent” in this context is the subject of much feminist debate (Tyler, 2016)....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Image-based sexual abuse: beyond “revenge pornography”
• 2 Victim-survivor experiences of image-based sexual abuse
• 3 The harms of image-based sexual abuse (with Erika Rackley & Nicola Gavey)
• 4 Image-based sexual abuse perpetration: power and control
• 5 Visual criminality: a theory of image-based sexual abuse
• 6 The missing culture of consent: shifting social norms on image-sharing, sexual autonomy and harm
• 7 Seeking justice for victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse (with Erika Rackley)
• 8 Preventing image-based sexual abuse: ethics, consent and respectful relationships
• 9 Conclusion
• Index