We’ve got to admit we were pretty conflicted when Shauna Lane, a 22-year-old from Essex decided to go public about her experience of revenge porn as part of a campaign to ensure that the act of revenge porn is turned into a criminal offence.
She let MailOnline publish the photos – ‘My images are out there for everyone to see, you can search and find them. What difference does it make if the images appear in a newspaper or on a news site if they’re already everywhere else?’
And she went on to explain that: ‘My privacy, my intimacy, my body has been completely violated. The pictures were taken and shared with trust.’
The photos were taken during a photoshoot when she was a teenager and see her posing in various states of undress, one with nothing but some boots, a blazer and a guitar. She was pleased with the results and shared them with a boyfriend, who presumably then uploaded them onto various revenge porn sites across the internet.
READ MORE: This Example Of Revenge Porn Posted In A Christmas Card Is Next Level Cruel
It wasn’t only that the photos were leaked – the people who could see them could then contact her via Facebook, since some revenge porn sites give their gross contributors the option of including contact details for the subject of the photo.
‘I was called a whore and slut and told how ugly I was. I have been discussed like a piece of meat. I would get messages from perverts who would say I’m going to come and find you, or I can’t wait to rape you. It left me completely shocked, I was afraid to leave my home,’ she said.
She wants justice to be served, saying: ‘Why was it OK for someone to upload my private and intimate pictures to a website without my permission?
‘There should be privacy laws or anything that stops this from happening. It shouldn’t have happened to me and it shouldn’t happen to anyone else.’
So, although we initially balked at Shauna’s decision to let MailOnline re-publish the photos, we kind of get that she’s using the photos that have for so long been used to victimise her as a way of empowering herself within this anti-revenge porn campaign.
And though the photos were taken with Shauna’s permission, it’s the sharing of them that’s not right. To bring it to a basic level, you might not mind your mate seeing you wee when you’re in a cubicle together, but you’d probably mind if the whole club could see.
As for the photos not involving her doing something directly sexual – that doesn’t really matter; they might contain the same nudity you see from the average celebrity fashion shoot, but if it’s the type of nudity that could get you arrested for indecent exposure, it should be the type of nudity that’s illegal to share out among strangers via the internet.
READ MORE: 14-Year-Old Girl Sues Classmate For Sharing Naked Snapchat Of Her
Our only problem with Shauna’s mission is that she lays the blame with girls who feature on the sites, not the perpetrators. She said: ‘I don’t mind if it makes another girl stop and think before sharing intimate photographs.’
She makes it seem as if the problem lies with silly girls sharing photos of their most private moments, when it’s obvious that the problem is people who think it’s legit to use revenge porn sites. People who are not only so warped to decide that they’ll seek revenge by exposing to the world their exes at their most vulnerable points, but do so in such plain sight, uploading to actual *dedicated *revenge porn sites.
Last month, the House of Lords rejected calls from MPs to create an anti-revenge porn law, as they said that it can be a criminal offence under anti-harassment and obscenity laws. Hopefully, revenge porn creators will be found to fall foul of these laws.
Surely showing them that what they’re doing is illegal and punishable – not blaming other girls – is the best way to stop it from happening?
You might also be interested in:
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Lauren Goodger Might HAve Made A Sextape. But Her Views On Revenge Porn Still Make Sense
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.