Last week, Rob Kardashian took his latest social media tirade against ex Blac Chyna one step too far. The posts, which first appeared on Instagram, included a screenshot of an alleged conversation between him and Blac Chyna that contained sexually explicit photos. Instagram shut him down but that didn’t stop Kardashian from taking to other social media outlets. While legal action is being taken against Kardashian for violating California’s revenge-p*rn law, it’s time we started a conversation about the taboo topic of sexting and revenge-p*rn.
Other than sexting horror stories intended to scare teens away from doing it, no one ever really talks about the revenge aspect of sexting. In fact, a quick Google search of the term highlights, aside from the Wikipedia page, two articles from Cosmopolitan and Bustle respectively that actually give people ideas on how to sext. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia currently have revenge-p*rn laws in place.
Of course, the only real way to stop revenge-p*rn is to never send sexually explicit images to anyone. But why should women have to refrain from what is considered to be a First Amendment right because they’re afraid someone may get mad and share those images? The truth is, revenge-p*rn is just another one of those societal things that men rarely have to worry about.
If you ask any girl on Tinder if she’s received an unsolicited, sexually explicit image from a guy while using the app, I guarantee you she’ll say that she has at least once. What’s worse is the constant prodding and poking by men for women to send nudes. This isn’t just a dating app phenomenon either. With the rise of more and more social medias, the pressure continues to grow for women to share sexually explicit images.
If you don’t think Rob Kardashian’s revenge-p*rn incident is reflective of how society views women versus men, then we have a problem. Why should men be able to share images of themselves (often times unsolicited) without fear of something like this happening to them? Why are we as women the victims of pressure and anxieties without even doing anything wrong in the first place?
For me, the minute I read the headline a wave of nausea and anxiety welled up inside me. Not for myself, per say, but for every girl that this has happened to since sexting even became a thing. We as a society need to take a good hard look at the rape culture that permeates us. Instead of only teaching girls not to send anything even a little bit salacious, how about we teach boys to respect the privacy of others? How about we treat girls how to respect themselves instead of men and teach boys to respect women and their bodies? How about we teach women what they are worth?
Regardless of what you think about Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna, they are people and this is a real life situation that happens to real women every single day. According to a study published in 2016 by Data and Society Research Institute, one in ten young women have been threatened with the possibility of public posting of explicit images. This is not a phenomenon just affecting women, either. Members of minorities and the LGBTQ community are more likely to be threatened than men. That’s not to say that men aren’t victims either, however. Revenge-p*rn is an issue that affects all of us and that is exactly why we need to be talking about it.
