Joanna Schroeder thinks we can all learn from the case of a man sentenced to six months in jail for posting nude photos of his ex.
I assume you all already know this, but posting naked photos of someone else on Facebook is a terrible, possibly even criminal, idea.
Posting embarrassing naked photos of yourself on Facebook is also a terrible idea, though somewhat less terrible, as I’m of the mindset that if you want to make an asshat of yourself, you should go right ahead. Just leave others out of it.
Although there has yet to be a case of someone in the United States being sent to jail for sharing nude photos via social media, a seminal case in Australia should serve as a warning for scorned lovers everywhere. According to the Sydney Morning Herald:
A jilted boyfriend who put nude pictures of his former lover on Facebook has been sentenced to six months’ jail – the first social networking-related conviction in Australian history and one of just a handful in the world.
Ravshan ”Ronnie” Usmanov told police: ”I put the photos up because she hurt me and it was the only thing [I had] to hurt her.”
Apparently she ran over to his home, demanded he take the photos down, and when he didn’t, she called the cops.
SMH.com goes on to explain how another malicious over-sharer has been been successfully prosecuted against:
The court could cite just one other relevant case in which a 20-year-old New Zealand man was sentenced to four months’ jail in Wellington in 2010 for posting nude pictures of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook.
Here in the United States we have a multitude of sites dedicated to posting “Revenge Pics”, including one highlighting a photo of young lady making a straining face while on the toilet, skirt down. Lovely. And so far neither the creators of these sites, nor the people who share revenge pics, have been sent to jail.
So what can we learn from this? While Americans who post revenge pics in the public sphere do not currently face jail time, I sense this outcome isn’t far off. And while in your haze of tears and shots of Bacardi Limon, it may seem perfectly justified to post a photo of your ex-girlfriend on the toilet, or of your ex-boyfriend measuring his willy, it could potentially land you in jail someday.
That’s not to say that taking sexy photos and video with a partner isn’t a really fun idea. I even recommend it sometimes on the sex and dating advice blog I co-write called She Said He Said. Except I strongly recommend people delete the images themselves after the nekky-time is over. It’s just good common sense.
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What else can we learn? Well, this lesson is simple: Stop being so stupid. And especially stop being stupid in public or around stupid people. This is a particularly tough concept for young people to grasp, as they cannot conceive of entering a highly competitive job market where the boss has as much access to Facebook and cached images as anyone else.
We need to remember that future employers will be Googling your name. If they find a photo of you with the words “Michigan Girls Party Hardest” scrawled across your bosom in eyeliner, or say, a photo of yourself with your towel open in the men’s locker room mirror, they might reconsider giving you that Head of Human Relations gig (or that Mayor of New York City gig, for that matter).
I fear for the futures of these young people. I fear for all the men (young and old) who didn’t learn from Weiner-gate and are still sending self-portraits with the subject line, “Check this out! But not at work!”
I fear for the ladies taking and texting their own up-the-skirt shots. And I particularly fear for that girl on the revenge site sitting on the can with her skirt down.
Ladies and gentlemen, the camera is on. All the time. Everywhere you go. Even if you don’t see it.
If you get so drunk that you don’t remember dry-humping a garden gnome, then I have some advice for you—and I know this is going to blow your mind—but stop getting so damn drunk. This shit is completely within your control, friends. Your ex can’t post a photo of you doing a strip-tease at Taco Bell if you never actually did a strip tease at Taco Bell. Get what I’m saying?
Your future self, the one in the suit with a briefcase, the one with bills to pay, the one with kids and a mortgage, will thank you for exercising some self-control.
Photo of Attractive woman taking a picture of herself lying on bed courtesy of Shutterstock.
There is a great deal going in public life. Way back the early part of the 20th Century by today’s standards people were overdressed. Women wearing long dresses and men wore suits. Women had bonnets on their head and men wore hats. The Victorian lifestyle was a norm at one time, now it is ridiculed. There are public displays of affection,some very intense and everyone can see them and say nothing because they tolerate it, In an earlier time it would not have been. Being barely dressed is not such a big deal, unless photographs appear in a public forum… Read more »
See, this is why it’s important to learn how to draw. If you post an artist’s rendition of a hated ex in the nude based on your memory, is that the same crime?
This is also why I am never nude without a mask on and won’t get any tattoos. Whatever photos you take, you’ll never prove it’s me….
I don’t care about the nude photos. That isn’t the ‘wrong’ part of this article. The part where you declare the fact that we’ve morphed into a police state a good reason to stop doing stupid things is the ‘wrong’ part of this article. Yes, cameras are everywhere. That’s no reason to stop living our lives the way people have always lived our lives. I don’t care if someone does dry-hump a garden gnome. In no free society should dry-humping a garden gnome earn you anything more than a ‘move along’ from the local cops. It shouldn’t ‘cost’ you a… Read more »
I can’t tell. Am I one of the “you folks” mentioned here? The language was very nonspecific.
I’m all in favour of this being prosecutable, but jailtime? Wouldn’t community service do?
Public shaming only works if you accept the judgment of society. If you’re not ashamed of what you’ve done, “revenge pics” have no power over you.
Yes and no. Sometimes the power of public shaming isn’t in what they use to shame you with, but rather the fact that they are trying to shame you at all. Right so, let’s pretend someone posted naked pics of me on the internet. Would I be ashamed? Nope…it’s just nudity. Now if I knew the person, and that person did it with the intention of shaming me, well then that’s a different story. Then it becomes about my relationship to that person…and then if society does start shaming me, it is again about the fact that these people who… Read more »
If you’re not ashamed of what you’ve done, “revenge pics” have no power over you. I don’t know with the way potential employers are now barging their way into their candidates’ online lives now I’m not so sure that holds true anymore. Luckily in this case something was done and (hopefully) the pics are not in a place where a future potential employer or client will ever see them. Above I mentioned the site isanyoneup.com. That was until recently a “revenge porn” site where people could post suggestive and nude pics of people they wanted to hurt (and probably not… Read more »
Not everyone is okay with just anyone seeing them naked, or even their partners. It’s a big deal when it’s your sister/brother, mother/father, daughter/son and you happend to come across it. Just saiyan…
It is bad when a woman does it and her teenage daughter gets o there and tell men to leave her mom alone she is a married women and their comments are bothering her the daughter.
Too bad our societies can’t just say “Oh look, he/she’s naked, big deal”. I’ve heard of people here having pics spread and I think to myself “Why does everyone care?”. How is their nudity going to bother you? We have fucked up morals in this society when nudity is such a huge issue..
I guess its a good thing Hunter Moore sold isanyoneup.com
An article on the site being sold to Bullyville: http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/revenge-porn-site-shut-down-anti-bullying-site-726532
Hunter’s announcement of the shutdown:
http://www.bullyville.com/?page=articles&id=358