Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of individuals without their consent, [ 1 ] with the punitive intention to create public humiliation or character assassination out of revenge against the victim.
The material may have been made by an ex-partner from an intimate relationship with the knowledge and consent of the subject at the time, or it may have been made without their knowledge. The subject may have experienced sexual violence during the recording of the material, in some cases facilitated by psychoactive chemicals such as date rape drugs which also cause a reduced sense of pain and involvement in the sexual act, dissociative effects and amnesia.
In the wake of civil lawsuits and the increasing numbers of reported incidents, legislation has been passed in a number of countries and jurisdictions to outlaw the practice, though approaches have varied and been changed over the years. The practice has also been described as a form of psychological abuse and domestic violence , as well as a form of sexual abuse.
Revenge porn most commonly refers to the uploading of sexually explicit material to the Internet to humiliate and intimidate a subject who has broken off a relationship. Some companies search the Internet for potential sources of bad publicity, resulting in many victims of revenge porn losing their jobs and finding themselves effectively unhirable.
Furthermore, Australia also has a civil penalties scheme. In recent years the rise of computer-generated imagery and synthetic media technology has raised concerns about the rise of revenge porn made using deepfake pornography techniques. As of in the U. In the s, Hustler magazine began a monthly feature of reader-submitted images of naked women called "Beaver Hunt".
