This bill may not solve the problem, but it will hold those responsible accountable.
<br>Revenge porn often leaves victims feeling depressed, distraught, and hopeless, but one legislator is finally working to give them a small sense of relief by knowing the person responsible could be held legally accountable — across the country.
People like Lauren Evans who have been victims of revenge porn say one of the worst things is feeling an overwhelming lack of control over the situation.
Revenge porn is defined by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative as "nonconsensual pornography" (NCP), which basically means that a person has intentionally distributed sexually graphic images of another person without their consent.
Victims of revenge porn can't just magically wipe the internet clean of their photos, which have often been uploaded onto so many websites they can't even keep track anymore.
The motivation is almost always revenge, hence the name.
Lauren discovered she had been a victim of revenge porn almost a year ago, though some of her photos had been circulating online for three years prior without her knowledge.
Not only did #revengeporn make me completely hate myself to a scary point, almost a year later I'm still not nearly as confident/outgoing
— Lauren (@LauGraEva) July 7, 2016
She tells Upworthy that making revenge porn a federal crime will highlight the terrible act that it is. She compares it to somebody publishing a diary entry onto social media and says that making revenge porn a criminal offense would reassure those who have been victims of it that it's not their fault.
"It’s such a new crime that a lot of people do not understand the impact that it has on people who have been affected by it," Lauren says.
On July 14, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier of California introduced the Intimate Privacy Protection Act bill to Congress to combat revenge porn.
She streamed the entire event live on her Facebook page:
The bill would make it a federal crime for someone to distribute sexually graphic images of individuals without their consent. Anyone who violates the law would face a fine and up to five years in prison.
A similar law passed in England and has been in place since February 2015. In the U.S., 37 states already have some sort of revenge-porn law.
Many victims of revenge porn report feeling so sad, angry, and betrayed by the experience that they have considered taking their own lives, which just goes to show how important addressing this crime is.
Holly Jacobs considered suicide after images were posted w/out her consent & before she founded the @CCRInitiative http://pic.twitter.com/AvrJUkuQ0i
— Jackie Speier (@RepSpeier) July 14, 2016
If Rep. Speier's bill passes, it will send a message that revenge porn is unacceptable and that those responsible will be held accountable at a federal level.
This bill is a very important — and long overdue — step toward helping revenge-porn victims like Lauren take back their dignity and their lives.
I've decided to own my #revengeporn experience. Laters self hate and self blame. Everything is going to be fabulous. http://pic.twitter.com/butUnheT3O
— Lauren (@LauGraEva) July 14, 2016
This bill is being met with some pushback from civil liberties activists who say it's too broadly written and may infringe on people's First Amendment rights. They fear the wording on the proposed legislation would also apply to photos of, say, breastfeeding moms or babies at bath time.
Although Rep. Speier's bill wouldn't entirely solve the revenge-porn problem, the hope is that victims would feel some sense of relief knowing the person who exposed them to the world could face legal consequences.
The most important thing is that victims of revenge porn know they did nothing wrong. They may never truly get their privacy back, but — as Lauren says — making it a federal offense would reassure victims like her that at least the person who betrayed them will be punished accordingly.
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