While 'revenge porn' is a scumbag move, women should be thinking twice when taking pictures of themselves naked (men too).
It's easy enough to send a picture to the wrong person, to lose your phone, to have your SO open the picture in a compromising social situation (in a meeting, public places, etc...), in addition to the 'revenge' scenario.
It's easier to simply not take the picture than to assume your ex won't be a douchebag after you break up.
Quite a lot of the IsAnyoneUp pics were perfectly innocent headshots photoshopped onto porn bodies. IIRC, there was also a batch of post-surgery photos from a hacked medical database. To be completely safe from extortion-porn sites you'd need to never allow anyone to take a photo of you, in any context, ever.
If people are getting attacked in the streets, warning everyone to stay indoors only redirects the problem. To really stop it, you need to find and arrest the perpetrators. Saying "it's your own fault for being out after dark" does not cut it.
"If people are getting attacked in the streets, warning everyone to stay indoors only redirects the problem. To really stop it, you need to find and arrest the perpetrators."
Both seem like good ideas, with the second of course being a higher priority, receiving more funding.
Universities in cities frequently send texts and emails to their students warning them of recent muggings/shootings at such-and-such street. That doesn't mean those universities think that those messages are "the solution"; thinking that would be rather foolish. They also invest in more security, assist police investigations however they can, etc.
In this case (http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/charlotte-laws-hunte...) the "Jack" person apparently gave the family some advice for securing their computers... that wasn't Jack saying that securing computers was the solution, or saying that the victims were at fault because they had insecure computers.
> Quite a lot of the IsAnyoneUp pics were perfectly innocent headshots photoshopped onto porn bodies. IIRC, there was also a batch of post-surgery photos from a hacked medical database. To be completely safe from extortion-porn sites you'd need to never allow anyone to take a photo of you, in any context, ever.
Did I ever say anything condoning revenge porn? No, just a bit of social commentary and a suggestion that sexting has gotten out of hand. And at least in a photoshop scenario, you have deniability to protect your reputation.
Extortion of course is a crime, and those who engage in it should be prosecuted.
> If people are getting attacked in the streets, warning everyone to stay indoors only redirects the problem. To really stop it, you need to find and arrest the perpetrators. Saying "it's your own fault for being out after dark" does not cut it.
I've spent time in countries where I've had to hide in the back of vehicles at police checkpoints, and where I couldn't let anyone know where I was staying, or go out after dark.
Where people were shot dead in the streets by police 2 blocks away from the house at which I was staying during a blackout.
While it's nice to say that you should be able to go anywhere you want at any time you want, when it's actually your life on the line you take the safe route...
Actually--telling people you don't want to be in a photograph is a start, but I have a feeling in our current narcisstic culture, people won't take that option. A note
to dudes--stop taking pictures of your junk. A note to
chicks--stop taking pictures of your food, and please stop
tilting that jug head in every photograph; actually wiki
American Indians and unselfaware!
C'mon. You're essentially accusing him of victim blaming, and you'd never do that if say someone suggested not giving out your social security number over email or using strong passwords for your bank web login.
Yes, we should find and prosecute people who do things like this. On top of that, it's reasonable to tell people to exercise prudence and caution. As long as the U.S. has a puritanical bent, and a sexist bent, as a woman it's giving a lot of power to a man to send him naked pictures of yourself. This is true, to a lesser degree, if you're a man as well (see Anthony Weiner).
Prosecuting the perpetrators and berating coworkers for their puritanical views won't undo the impact of their seeing photos of you with your breasts or penis exposed. This is just acknowledging reality.
Long before she met me, my fiancee had an extremely abusive bf. He'd drug her then take pictures and videos of her. When she wanted to leave he threatened to release those pictures to her family. When she finally did (after he assaulted her and her parents), he kept his word.
I won't go into the profanities that accurately express my visceral emotions, but I think a law like this is long overdue. It's wrong that people who take pictures of themselves are being blackmailed to stay with those same pictures, but with the focus the media has on teenagers sexting inappropriately, I feel people forget there are others out there who had these materials taken against their will.
And I suppose women should also think twice before putting on that slinky dress, or walking down that street at night, or going out with that guy?
Victim-blaming is victim-blaming, regardless of context. The person who behaved wrongly in these circumstances is the person who uploaded the pic to a revenge porn site, not the person who took it, full fucking stop.
Ok, but what about personal responsibility in the real world? There is what we all should have the right to be able to do or , ha, ha, keep private (NSA, etc), and what is prudent or wise.
So, to exaggerate to illustrate.... It is a woman's right to walk down a dark ally in a dangerous neighborhood, dressed provocatively, how ever you define that, but, lets fact it, it isn't wise.
So, in some contexts, yes a woman should think twice about what she is wearing, where she is going or that guy she might be meeting. And frankly, so should men. No so much the clothes, but there are places I would avoid at certain time, and yes, there a some women I'd want to avoid.
As for "victim blaming", well, sorry, some victims are partly to blame, and should shoulder some of the responsibility. That does not excuse the offender, but it does have relevance. Both exist. And if you think that is wrong, then tell insurance companies and courts about limiting damage. "Was you car locked where you left it before it got stolen, sir?"
> And if you think that is wrong, then tell insurance companies and courts about limiting damage. "Was you car locked where you left it before it got stolen, sir?"
"Rape Shield" laws are fairly common in the United States and elsewhere which prevents cross-examining rape victims about their past sexual history or submitting such things as evidence at trial.
This is done precisely to combat victim blaming and is much more relevant than your hypothetical "unlocked car" metaphor.
I think his point is that there are risk factors associated with choices and it's valuable to be aware of them and attempt to mitigate the risks.
Obviously the fault doesn't lie with the victim, but since the world can be dangerous it's important to be aware of that reality when making choices. If certain actions increase your risk (walking alone at night, taking naked pictures etc.) then it's better to consider that when making a choice in order to avoid potentially becoming a victim.
You're only in control of yourself - while we can and should strive to make changes to our culture and the system, that doesn't mean individuals should be blind to how their own choices may contribute to increasing their risk of being victimized.
Absolutely. We lock our doors at night, we lock our car doors, we do our best to prevent becoming victims. Not because we think it's our fault if it happens, but because we don't want it to happen because at the end of the day, it's our lives that are hurt...
If you want to talk about personal responsibility, then maybe let's start with, "Don't upload intimate pictures given to you in a trusted context to the internet for revenge purposes". Doing that is neither prudent nor wise, and is also an asshole thing to do. If we can agree on that, I bet everything else will be gravy.
Your example about insurance companies is specious. They aren't trying to apportion blame; they're trying to find any grounds they can on which they can avoid paying out. I'm also pretty sure that leaving your car unlocked neither excuses its being stolen, nor mitigates the insurance carrier's obligation to make you whole, in the slightest.
The dress example is misleading because I've never seen a correlation between rape victimization and clothing choice. Indeed,the example fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape.
Re: walking down the street at night... The moral righteousness of being right doesn't undo the trauma of being raped. We should be able to trust people with the private information we share with them, but people are assholes and we can't. All the moral righteousness in the world won't change that.
Re the dress example: true, but it's a broadly understood sigil for victim-blaming, which is the issue under discussion, not which specific excuse a notional rapist might use.
And yeah, moral righteousness doesn't undo trauma, but that's, again, completely orthogonal to victim-blaming.
Net, your comment seems like a bunch of "technically correct is the best correct" and not much else.
> Re the dress example: true, but it's a broadly understood sigil for victim-blaming
You're missing the essential significance of the dress example. It's broadly understood to be a sigil for victim-blaming precisely because it's totally disconnected from the actual nature of rape and won't actually reduce your risk of rape. Therefore, it's presumed to be pretext. But that doesn't mean that every advice to exercise caution is pretext for victim-blaming.
> And yeah, moral righteousness doesn't undo trauma, but that's, again, completely orthogonal to victim-blaming.
You're the one who brought up victim-blaming, in response to post that simply gave cautionary advice. Telling someone to exercise caution, because being right doesn't undo the trauma of victimization, is also orthogonal to victim-blaming.
Let's recap:
"You deserve to be victimized because you took that photo/used a weak password/gave out your SSN over e-mail" is victim-blaming.
"Be careful who you give nude photos to/use a strong password/don't give out your SSN over e-mail" is cautionary advice that is orthogonal to victim-blaming.
More to the point, saying that the world should be a certain way does not make it that way. You should be able to drive on New Years Eve without being victimized by a drunk driver. But the world is not that way and it's prudent to exercise extra caution on holidays because there are more drunk drivers on the road. You should be able to walk down the streets of Wilmington, DE without being mugged. But the world is not that way and I still drive my wife home from work each night. You should be able to trust people with private information. But the world is not that way and it's prudent to keep anything that could be used against you close to your vest.
Being morally in the right does not erase the trauma of victimization, and giving advice that might reduce the chance of victimization is not automatically pretext for victim-blaming.
> And I suppose women should also think twice before putting on that slinky dress, or walking down that street at night, or going out with that guy? Victim-blaming is victim-blaming, regardless of context. The person who behaved wrongly in these circumstances is the person who uploaded the pic to a revenge porn site, not the person who took it, full fucking stop.
Yes, if only things were so cut and dry. I won't disagree that the person who behaved wrongly was the person who put the photo on the site, just as I would never say it's a rape victim's fault they got raped, or someone's fault they were murdered.
That being said, we don't live in a perfect world or society, and we should take reasonable precautions.
It's all good to tell the police to do their fucking job and protect citizens, but I've been in places where you simply don't go out at night, where the police will rob you and leave your body in a field, and where you won't even tell anyone what neighbourhood you're staying in... Where women are raped and have no chance of justice ever, where men are murdered simply for walking down the wrong road, or sometimes simply for living in the wrong house. I personally know/knew some victims. I don't think its unreasonable to suggest exercising caution...
Honest question: What's the difference between that and telling someone they shouldn't use 123456 as their password because it increases the chances that their account might get hacked?
It all exists on a spectrum: saying "Politicians shouldn't support $SOMETHING because it increases the chances they might be assassinated" or "Maybe gay people should just stop having so much gay sex if they want to stop being victimized by society" is on the other end, but the same logic seems to apply. It displaces the focus from the perpetrator to the victim.
Asking people to choose a complicated password [1] is a pain, but it's nowhere near as much an encroachment on meaningful freedom than asking them to not have political opinions, or to modify their sexual practices.
[1] I'd argue that our password situation is terribly broken right now, actually, and the fact that so much crime revolves around stolen passwords is as much an indictment of the technical systems we have as the criminals who exploit it.
> "Powerful and/or controversial politicians always have lots of security for this reason."
Yes, and I'd argue that goes with my point. As a society, we never say "well, they sort of had it coming when they were a hack for the socialists/capitalists/whites/blacks/misogynists/feminists/whatever"; we condemn the assassin, and on top of that provide extra security to the politician. In the same way, if a woman goes out in public and gets raped (which is surely more risky than staying indoors all day), we don't condemn her for doing something that statistically increases her chances of becoming a victim of sexual violence, but condemn the rapist and, on top of that, try to build government policies and social practices that decrease the chance of her becoming that victim.
Why is this getting downvoted? It's a well-articulated opinion. If people can't handle reading terms like "victim-blaming" without lunging for the down arrow, they should probably stay on Reddit
I've taken the opposite, albeit extreme, approach to solving this problem. If I want to send a nude to my significant other, I'll post it publicly then send them a link. If I'm not comfortable with it being posted publicly, then I wont take the photo. If you go in with the expectation that the picture will eventually find its way onto the internet, then you wont be burned when a phone gets stolen, a cloud account gets leaked, or a significant other seeks revenge.
Naked pictures of me have leaked three times - once from hacking and twice from people spreading them. Why should I stop having my fun just because there are bullies out there? They can bite me, my ass, and the picture of my ass that's all over the internet.
It's simply stating that in complicated relationships where feelings are likely to get hurt and people do enact various forms of vengeance (women included), it's best to have a little vigilance.
Expecting that no former lover will ever act out against you is unrealistic.
The 'sexting' thing has gotten out of hand, to the point where kids are being put into jail for having photos of underage kids of the same age, celeb photos are leaked all the time, etc... It's better to avoid taking the photos than to try avoid the consequences later.
It's entirely possible to take a photo, delete it, and for it to still exist in a retrievable form. And if I want to take pictures of myself naked for my own information and entertainment on my own devices, that should be my prerogative.
Someone having their email account compromised is not acting foolishly - they are not acting. The hacker is. They're a victim, and by that point have very little they can do about it. Acting foolishly is not the same as inviting crime or violent acts; the victims should not take any blame for that - although they may seek advice to prevent or mitigate similar attacks in the future.
It's also good to start amending laws so that obvious bad actions are punished and simple ones like 'two 14 year olds with pictures of each other' are not.
Why is suggestion caution the same thing as 'blaming the victim'?
This is ridiculous. A very good solution to the "revenge porn" problem is for people to not cavalierly take naked pictures of themselves.
So, I take a naked picture, share it, sharee shares again, <step>, <step>, revenge porn upload.
I am appropriate in my action, and then the propriety drops as the chain goes on. But why is it unfair to say, don't take the pic in the first place and you can avoid what (may) come next.
The problem is that it has nothing to do with this story. Congratulations, we've identified one step (out of many possible) that people can take to avoid revenge porn exposure. Now what? The answer isn't for the victims to be more vigilant; the answer is the public policy step that eliminates revenge porn sites.
It's easy enough to send a picture to the wrong person, to lose your phone, to have your SO open the picture in a compromising social situation (in a meeting, public places, etc...), in addition to the 'revenge' scenario.
It's easier to simply not take the picture than to assume your ex won't be a douchebag after you break up.