Revenge Porn Victims Share Their Stories

Revenge porn, known legally as image-based abuse, refers to the distribution of sexually explicit images and videos of someone without their consent. Sometimes “revenge” is the key word, with imagery being shared intentionally to hurt or humiliate someone. But sharing a nude with your mates or your besties for shock value, or to show off, isn’t that uncommon – and it's all image-based abuse under the law. 

Essentially, any intimate image or video is considered revenge porn in the eyes of the law as soon as it is shared without the sober and ongoing consent of the person in it. So if they consented once, that doesn’t mean you can do what you want with it forever. 

No matter the intentions of the person sharing it, being a victim of revenge porn can be incredibly distressing and humiliating, and sadly it’s an experience shared by many young New Zealanders.  

In 2021 alone, 1400 cases of image-based abuse were reported in Aotearoa, and people under the age of 19 make up a third of the offenders dealt with by NZ Police since 2017.

Unfortunately, many young people on the receiving end of this kind of abuse, particularly when it’s done by a partner or friend, aren’t aware of their legal rights – which means many cases go unreported. 

To understand what image-based abuse can look like – and how it feels – VICE NZ spoke with 2 people who experienced it in the past.

So we would have been like 16-years-old. We were together and he had photos of me that he'd taken and I'd sent him.

He shared the photos with mates. It was classic guys flexing, like some dick size competition… Look at my girlfriend's nudes. It became this big, big thing between a bunch of the boys at his school. They started a Facebook page called, like, Rowan’s Nudes, or whatever. 

And we were literally together when this happened. So this is like my partner doing it to me.

I went back and I found messages from the time, and there's a message between the two of us where I’m asking, can you please delete any photos you have of me? And he was like, you sent them to me, so they’re my property now and I can do whatever I want to do with them. I was like, please out of respect, please can you just delete that? But he was just like, no, they're my property.

The Facebook group was really intense. And it went around. I would get random Facebook requests from boys all the time, they would message, they used to pester my brother about it at school. I got targeted by a lot of boys online because they knew that these photos were out there. And I don't know, I guess they thought that I was easy and they could get more photos.

Even my dad knew about it and he always made jokes about it. That's a really massive, traumatic thing to have happened, and illegal. One time I was like, y’know, that was really fucked up and my dad was like, isn't it really flattering? All those boys wanted you. 

Hearing about [the Facebook page] was a surprise. I didn't really grasp that I was being messed with. I was just like, oh this is so embarrassing. In retrospect, I realised I was being bullied, but I didn't know at the time.

I confronted my partner about it. And he was like, it wasn't even me, it was my friend, he's the one who started it, and I’m like, but you’re the one who shared them! 

The friend who made it, I think he just thought it was hilarious. He used to do some really nasty shit to a lot of girls that I know. He had this 4chan mindset about it.

We didn't break-up, because he just twisted it into like, oh, like I just love you so much that I wanted to show how proud I am of you to like my friends. My friends are the ones who shared it. It's not my fault. And I would have been like, oh yeah, you love me. 

I didn’t tell the police. I think I was just like, I'm just as much to blame.  I don't think I thought that he was in the wrong. And my parents knew and they just thought it was funny. No one really took me seriously. 

I mostly just feel sad for myself that I went through that and didn't really have any support from anyone or didn't even know that I could ask for support. I was in that situation and I didn't have any of the tools to deal with it. I didn't even know that I could be mad at my partner about it.

I think what's important is to reinforce the rhetoric that the people who are doing that stuff are the ones who are creepy and wrong, not you. 

It was in high school, I was probably 17-years-old. There was a guy in my class who had been on an away trip and we were texting a lot and talking to each other on messenger. And it got to the point where we were flirting and I sent him a few nudes of myself.

I’d [sent nudes] before. I'd had a long distance relationship before then and I was also just quite comfortable with my body. I quite enjoyed the process of taking and sending nudes. I just didn't expect someone to share them, because I'd had such a good experience with it in the past with people being very respectful and exes deleting them when we broke up. 

Our messaging kind of dropped off after a while and then when he got back from his away trip I was dating someone else in our class. So he was a bit upset about that and he ended up showing my nudes to a friend of mine and a bunch of people who I have known for years, including my own little brother. 

I remember hearing about it at lunchtime and being like, that's really gross. I was really horrified and I felt dizzy. I don't really mind if people see my naked body, but that wasn’t meant for that, because it was, like, sexualised nudity. It's something that's private and also very vulnerable. 

I think I ran up to him and said, like, why'd you do that? And he just sort of laughed it off in front of his friends. The positive thing was that most of the guys kind of went, nah, what are you doing? Why are you showing us this? You shouldn't do that. The other guys in the class also ended up not inviting him into the group as much anymore. Which felt validating.

I don't think at that time I had any awareness of the law being involved with anything that happened on the internet. Also, at school, if you ever brought those things to teachers it would often result in an adult saying, well, what did you send it for? At the time you did see, [in pop culture], rape victims getting blamed because they wore lacy underwear. It was definitely in our minds. So I didn't feel like I could tell any adults. 

I definitely just remember feeling that it says so much more about the other person than it does about yourself. That was something that I was glad that I could feel. I think if it had happened a few years earlier I would have blamed myself a lot. If it happened now I would go to the police. And I’d definitely try and have a frank conversation with the person rather than just sort of letting it, y’know, fizzle off, hoping people forget.

In Aotearoa, image-based abuse is taken very seriously, especially since changes to the law surrounding digital communications in 2022.

Here’s what you need to know: 

• Perpetrators can be fined up to $50,000 and face two years in prison for sharing the explicit content without consent. 

• Intent to harm is no longer necessary to prosecute.

• People under 16 can’t give consent for explicit images/videos of them to be shared.

If you’ve been a victim of image based abuse, check this article to consider all your options and make sure you know your rights. 

If you decide to take legal action, you can take the issue to the police. To help out the process you can screenshot the content and relevant URLs, but police will be able to gather evidence needed to prosecute. 

If you’re not ready to go to the police, but are dealing with an intimate video having been uploaded on a porn site, you can contact Netsafe here to get help in having it removed. You can also contact Netsafe for advice regarding any image based abuse or online harm. 

Call toll-free 0508 638 723.

Text 'Netsafe' to 4282. 

Email help@netsafe.org.nz for online safety help.

NZ police can be contacted on the non-urgent number by dialling 105. 

You can also walk into any NZ Police station and report a crime at any time. 

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Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa. You can find her @rachellydiab on IG and Letterboxd and see her film criticism on Youtube.