Thinking Of Engaging in “Revenge Porn”? Think Again

Thinking of Engaging in ‘Revenge Porn’? Think Again

by Coleen Singer, Sssh.com Porn For Women

If you’re among those who thought Hunter Moore was really on to a winning money-making concept with IsAnyBodyUp.com and decided to follow in his sleazy, heartless footsteps by launching a revenge porn site of your own, you might want to take note of a few recent headlines.

For starters, there’s what has become of Moore himself. Although his ultimate fate has yet to be determined, ever since he was arrested a little over a year ago, Moore has been living with his parents in Woodland, California, under a strict set of restrictions imposed by the court as a condition of his release, while he waits to face trial later this year.

Moore isn’t charged with violating any of the newfangled revenge porn laws which have cropped up across the country. Rather, he’s charged with seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer, seven counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of conspiracy.

Kevin Bollaert, another would-be revenge porn kingpin, added an old-school twist to the cutting edge cyber-cruelty of revenge porn: Good, old-fashioned extortion.

In addition to the revenge porn site UGotPosted.com, Bollaert maintained a “sister site” of sorts, ChangeMyReputation.com, which purported to offer take-down services for victims of revenge porn sites. When victims contacted Bollaert to ask that he remove the images from UGotPosted, he would “refer” them to ChangeMyReputation, which would offer to have the images removed – for a fee, of course, typically $350.

At his trial, Bollaert’s lawyer Emily Rose-Weber argued that while what her client had done might be immoral, hurtful and cruel, it was not against the law.

“It’s gross, it’s offensive, but it’s not illegal,” Rose-Weber said.

Bollaert said essentially the same back in December, before the trial started.

“I don’t feel like I’ve committed any crime,” Boallert said at the time, adding “I understand that a lot of people would be upset by what would happen and be hurt.”

Well, buddy, what you need to understand now is that the single most irrelevant aspect of this whole story might be whether you “feel” like you’ve committed a crime. Guess what, asshole: A jury of 12 people just decided you not only committed “a crime,” but 27 of them.

As these high-profile cases make their way through the courts, smaller cases are being adjudicated as well, involving not site operators but individual revenge porn culprits. Simultaneously, states all across the country are passing new laws to specifically criminalize revenge porn.

While I have mixed feelings about all the new revenge porn legislation, I don’t think it’s impossible to construct such laws in a way which is consistent with the Constitution. I’m inclined let people far more proficient than me in First Amendment jurisprudence (like law professor and First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, for example) tackle those questions, though.

The best reasons to not be a revenge porn dickhead have nothing to do with legal consequences, of course; they have lot to do with being what Gunnery Sergeant Hartman might call a human fucking being.

Angry at your ex for dumping you? You are hardly the first, pal. Plus, there are literally hundreds of ways to work our your frustrations without lashing at your ex on the Internet, never mind posting nude pictures of her to a website owned by some shit-for-brains cretin like Hunter Moore or Kevin Bollaert. Suck it up, buddy; life goes on.  

As Richard Thompson once said, set it all down in a tear-stained letter. Write yourself a self-pitying soliloquy and drop by a local open mic night poetry reading to bare your soul, rather than bare your ex-girlfriend’s tits on the web. Drink yourself to sleep and curse her name as you pass out in front of the TV – whatever it takes to get it out of your system without you ending up being part of The System, if you catch my drift.

That, and if ever you might have thought a career in revenge porn site-operation was for you…. Well, maybe just look into enrolling at ITT Tech, instead.

About Coleen Singer:

Coleen Singer is a writer, photographer, film editor and all-around geeky gal at Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen), where she often waxes eloquent about Female Friendly Porn, sex, pleasure products, censorship, the literary and pandering evils of Fifty Shades of Grey and other topics not likely to be found on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. She is also the editor and curator of EroticScribes.com. When she is not doing all of the above, Singer is an amateur stock-car racer and enjoys modifying vintage 1970s cars for the racetrack. Oh, she also likes porn.

Visit Coleen at Sssh.com for more kinky sex news, original movies and h