Gendered Public Support for Criminalizing “Revenge Porn”

• DOI: 10.1177/1557085118773398
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Author: Sarah Esther Lageson,Suzy McElrath,Krissinda Ellen Palmer
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118773398

Feminist Criminology

2019, Vol. 14(5) 560 –583

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085118773398

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Article

Gendered Public Support

for Criminalizing

“Revenge Porn”

Sarah Esther Lageson1, Suzy McElrath2,

and Krissinda Ellen Palmer1

Abstract

Many states have criminalized “revenge porn,” an increasingly common form of online

sexual abuse. Yet, we know little regarding attitudes toward these laws. Through an

original survey of nearly 500 U.S. residents, we find widespread public support for

criminalization, but support varies by respondent’s self-identified gender and revenge

porn type. Women favor criminalization more than men, but support falls among

women and men when the subject created the media, colloquially known as “selfies”

or “noodz.” Results suggest that women expressing their sexuality are deemed

less deserving of protection, reinforcing feminist legal critiques of criminal law as

insufficient to prevent sexual abuse.

Keywords

pornography, revenge porn, criminal law, public opinion, victimization

Introduction

Nonconsensual image sharing has many names: revenge porn, nonconsensual pornog-

raphy, and image-based sexual abuse (McGlynn, Rackly, & Houghton, 2017), and has

recently captured the public’s eye as a new form of online sexual violence. Media

accounts, victim advocacy, and recent scholarship all frame revenge porn as a pressing

social problem, but disagree on whether and how to employ the criminal justice sys-

tem as a remedy (Najdowski, 2017). Legal scholars have suggested both civil and

1Rutgers University–Newark, NJ, USA

2University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sarah Esther Lageson, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University–Newark, 123 Washington Street,

Center for Law and Justice #547, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.

Email: sarah.lageson@rutgers.edu

773398FCXXXX10.1177/1557085118773398Feminist CriminologyLageson et al.

research-article2018

Lageson et al. 561

criminal approaches, while victims’ advocacy groups have successfully lobbied states

to enact legislation to criminalize the distribution of sexually explicit media shared

without the image subject’s consent (Goldstein, 2015; Najdowski & Hildebrand,

2014). First Amendment advocates, however, have challenged the constitutionality of

several new state laws (e.g., Antigone Books v. Brnovich, 2015). Amid these debates,

we lack a broader understanding of public opinion regarding the criminalization of

revenge porn.

We employ an online survey to measure public support for the criminalization of

revenge porn. We specifically consider how self-identified gender and perceptions of

victim culpability shape these views. Given the evidence that public opinion exerts a

large effect on criminal justice policy (Enns, 2016), this research adds a missing compo-

nent to the ongoing debate of how to best respond to this pernicious social phenomenon.

Based on our non-probability online survey of nearly 500 American adults, we find high

levels of support for criminalizing revenge porn, although support is higher among

respondents who self-identified as a woman in our survey than those who self-identified

as a man.1 In addition, we find that respondents were less likely to support criminaliza-

tion when victims took the images themselves (“selfies”) than when respondents were

asked about revenge porn generally or images that were distributed by intimate partners

or spouses. These findings persist when we control for other potential explanations, such

as the respondent’s age, race, education level, political ideology, and concern for online

privacy. Based on these results, we argue that cultural beliefs about gender and victim

culpability play a key role in support for and against revenge porn laws.

Background

Nonconsensual Image Sharing and Related Harms

“Revenge porn” is a form of technologically facilitated sexual violence (Henry &

Powell, 2018), wherein a perpetrator distributes (typically electronically) nude and/or

sexually explicit photos and/or videos of an individual without their consent (Citron &

Franks, 2014). Scholars and journalists have used the term disparately to describe a

wide variety of acts, including voyeurism, hacked images, digitally produced images,

and images uploaded to the Internet (Levendowski, 2014). Indeed, revenge porn takes

various forms based on the nature and intent behind the image production and dissemi-

nation. For example, images may have been taken without the victim’s knowledge, or

the victim may have initially consented to the photograph being taken, and even taken

the photograph themselves (Stokes, 2014). Images may be sent or shared privately

with a specific few individuals or published on social media or a website dedicated to

revenge pornography (Martinez, 2014). In addition, perpetrators may distribute the

images inadvertently, as a joke, or may be seeking to intimidate, harass, or humiliate

the subject, be it an ex-paramour, classmate, coworker, or roommate (Bloom, 2014;

Salter, Crofts, & Murray, 2013).

The terminology surrounding this new form of victimization is still evolving. For

instance, Henry and Powell (2016) noted that labeling the phenomenon “pornography”

minimizes the harm done to victims because it “liken[s] the images to an acceptable