In October 2014, Victoria became the first state to legislate specifically on distributing intimate images (sexts), especially protecting non-consensual distribution of those images to third parties. Recently, the Commonwealth Government has introduced a ‘revenge porn’ Bill which would achieve similar goals on a national scale.
It goes without saying that a legal response to unsolicited sexting and ‘revenge porn’ is important, given the humiliation and distress that can be caused. Half of all teenagers have ‘sexted’ to someone they know. New research from the Australian Institute of Criminology shows that young girls send images to be fun, flirty, as a sexy present, and also to feel sexy and confident. Young boys also send sexts to be fun and flirty, and are more likely to send a sext if they receive one. All of this is harmless teenage fun, allowing young girls and boys to explore their own sexuality. To say otherwise denies them of a personal agency they are owed moving into adulthood.
However the fun ends when someone sends sexts on to a third party, which 6% of teenagers have done, or even when the sext is shown to someone else (without actually sending it) which 1 in 5 teenagers have done. This is outside the scope of what the person who sent it would have wanted, and is morally wrong.
Young people are becoming savvier in response, often showing
more revealing photos that do not show their face. However, this also feeds
into the victim blaming mentality that people should have to protect themselves,
even when they trust someone enough to send them a sext. It probably is not
surprising that victim blaming manages to rear its ugly head when ‘revenge porn’
appears.
The first statements are often:
“Why would you send the picture?” or
“Why would you let your partner record you doing anything?”
Obviously, this misses the point – that it is wrong to share someone’s photo without their consent, regardless of why they gave it to you. Creating revenge porn laws nationally will follow the lead of not only Victoria, but also corporations like Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and even pornography sites which have all taken measures to ban and respond to revenge porn.
However, dealing with sexting and revenge porn should not only be done through the legal system. Education for students is also fundamental, especially with about half of kids being dissatisfied with the sex education they receive at schools. With Empowered Together in the business of educating teenagers, we see it as our responsibility to help these young adults understand proper use of technology, without feeding into the victim blaming statements we see time and time again.
In our pilot workshops already, teenagers have demonstrated the importance of this topic to them, independently choosing to split up ‘consent’ into three mediums – physical, verbal, and digital. One group also emphasised the importance of apps like Snapchat, and the prevalence of sexual euphemisms such as ‘Netflix and Chill’.
Ultimately we will continue to incorporate technology education into our workshops and ensure they are relevant and useful for students. If we keep it simple, and continue the dialogue on the importance of respect and consent, I don’t think we can go wrong.
Definitions
Revenge porn is the non-consensual publication of an intimate photo or video of someone else.
Sexting refers to the sharing and sending of sexually explicit messages or images electronically by people, especially young people. When someone sends a sext, they trust the receiver to use the message, image, or video responsibly. revenge porn most commonly occurs after a break-up .
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/soa1966189/s41da.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/soa1966189/s41db.html
Sexting and Young People (Stats) – http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/sexting-and-young-people-thomas-crofts/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137392817
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/revenge-porn-and-search.html
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/07/22/revenge-porn-putting-victims-back-in-control/