Revenge Websites Should Make Us All Think Twice About Sending Naughty Pics

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Jenny Erikson 14 hours ago

Lawmakers in California want to make revenge porn illegal. What’s revenge porn, you ask? If it sounds salacious, that’s because it is. Revenge porn is when a lover scorned publicizes all those sexy selfies you sent back when you were too busy seeing stars to see reality.

In other (more boring) words, revenge porn is the “sharing [of] nude photos or videos of a former significant other or love interest with the intent to embarrass them after breaking up.” And in today’s social media world, it’s becoming increasingly common.

If passed into law, jerks that post naked images of their exes (or anyone else) could be charged with a misdemeanor, and punished by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The key wording of the bill states that the material must have been shared “with the intent to cause serious emotional distress.”

Side note: I’ve done a boudoir photo shoot before. Those pics are currently in the possession of my ex. I probably wouldn’t press charges if he leaked them, because dayum! I looked super hawt thanks to MAC, an expert photographer, and Photoshop.

Anyway. While I agree that guys that try to slut shame their ex-girlfriends are icky and slimy and don’t make you question at all why that relationship didn’t work out, are they really criminals?

Ladies, here’s a piece of advice -- never hit send on anything that you wouldn’t mind the world seeing. Anything. You may think it’s totally private, but you’re forgetting one very important variable -- the recipient. You can’t control the person on the other end of your communication, and once you put something out there, it’s out there. Maybe only that one person will see it, or maybe a million will. Always assume a million.

So if you’re going to voluntarily send your squeeze some sexy pics, make sure they’re actually sexy and not just slutty. That way if they ever become public, you can roll your eyes and say, “Well that’s unfortunate; those were meant for his eyes only. But I do look pretty awesome, right?”

Because there are a lot of jerks out there, and law or no law, they will continue to be jerks that do jerky things. The best thing you can do is protect yourself. There’s only one way to definitively keep provocative nude photos of you from showing up on the Internet someday. Don’t take any.

Do you think the proposed law will help crack down on revenge porn?

Image via Victor1558/Flickr

Filed Under: censorship, crime, cyberbullying, feminism, in the news, law, politics, social media, women's issues, breakups, exes, sexuality Click "Like" for more on issues that are important to moms. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jenny Erikson

is a conservative chick living in Southern California with her two daughters. She loves politics and hates laundry.

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