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Abstract

Revenge porn is a growing problem in current U.S. media culture. According to the Data & Society Institute, one in 10 women under the age of 30 have been victims of or threatened with having their private sexually explicit images shared with the public without their consent. Most of the current research on revenge porn is from a legal perspective, dealing with issues of privacy and copyright. This article uses feminist phenomenology to explore the cultural influences of revenge porn, specifically the prevalence of the male gaze and male voyeurism in mainstream media. Understanding how revenge porn is situated in culture will allow for a better understanding of potential sites of resistance. This article argues for critical pedagogy and media literacy as possible solutions.

Keywords

revenge porn sexual abuse social media feminist phenomenology

On July 5, 2017, reality television star Rob Kardashian embarked on a social media tirade against his ex-fiancée Angela White, better known as Blac Chyna. Blac Chyna is a model, spokesperson, and reality television star. At first, Kardashian used his Instagram account to publicly accuse Chyna of cheating on him with other men, using hard drugs, and having their daughter out of spite toward the rest of Kardashian’s family. He also outed Chyna for having cosmetic surgery to regain her pre-baby body and claimed he paid over $100,000 for her surgery. Because Chyna’s reputation as a model and spokesperson depended on the public perception of her naturally fit and toned physique, she lost endorsement deals after Kardashian made these claims.

Kardashian then posted sexually explicit private text message conversations with Chyna to his public Instagram account. These were messages between the two when they were still in an intimate relationship. He posted rapidly over the course of several hours until the tirade culminated with Kardashian posting nude photos of Chyna to his Instagram account without her consent. Kardashian’s account had over nine million followers at the time the photos were posted. Instagram quickly suspended Kardashian’s account and removed the photos from the site, but the damage was already done. Blac Chyna became a very public victim of revenge porn.

A media firestorm ignited during the online battle between Kardashian and Chyna. Screenshots of Chyna’s nude photos were captured and reposted on several different websites. The case between Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna serves as a high-profile example of revenge porn; however, the majority of revenge porn victims are not celebrities. Though the statistics slightly vary, current research has shown the overall prominence of revenge porn among adults. A 2017 survey conducted by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative found that one in eight social media users have been targets of revenge porn. In a nationwide survey of adults, Ruvalcaba and Eaton (2020) found that one in 12 people have been victims of revenge porn at some point during their lives, with women being victimized at a significantly higher rate than men. Sharratt (2019) found that three out of four victims of revenge porn are female. According to a 2016 study, one in 10 women under the age of 30 have been threatened with the possibility of revenge porn (Data & Society Research Institute, 2016). Given this research, revenge porn is an issue that deserves more attention from communication and media scholars, media practitioners, and government officials.

Most of the current research on revenge porn approaches the topic from a legal perspective, exploring issues of privacy, copyright, and free speech (Haynes, 2018; Kirchengast & Crofts, 2019; Suzor et al., 2017). There is almost no research addressing the cultural influences of revenge porn as to help explain its pervasiveness. Better understanding how revenge porn is situated as a cultural phenomenon could allow for a more effective response in combating its prevalence.

This essay investigates revenge porn, its potential causes, and its potential sites of resistance. First, I will explain how research on revenge porn can benefit from using feminist phenomenology as a methodology. Then, I introduce the concepts of the male gaze and male voyeurism in the media and connect these concepts to research in feminist phenomenology. Next, I discuss social media and explain how this new form of media serves to perpetuate male-dominated narratives traditionally found in legacy media like television and film. Finally, I posit critical pedagogy as a potential site of resistance.

Feminist Phenomenology and Media

Ihde (1990) defines phenomenology as “a philosophical style that emphasizes a certain interpretation of human experience” (p. 23). As an umbrella term, phenomenology is a methodological framework encompassing different traditions, each of which understands the world through different lenses. This essay is concerned with issues of gender and thus engages specifically with feminist phenomenology.

Feminist phenomenology focuses on women’s experiences (Levesque-Lopman, 1988). It identifies how gender impacts one’s understanding of the world and engages with “questions related to gendered experience and sexual difference” (Simms & Stawarska, 2013, p. 6). Feminist phenomenology, then, is a methodological approach in which phenomenology and feminist theory intersect. As with all methodologies, feminist phenomenology has its limitations. One criticism of feminist phenomenology is its focus on gender binaries: man and woman (Goldberg et al., 2009). Foundational feminist phenomenologists recognized the body as a central point of focus, yet again these bodies were constructed into distinct binaries: male and female. A few feminist scholars, such as Sara Ahmed (2006), engage with queering phenomenology, but most of the literature relies on man/woman binaries. Working with the language evident in much existing literature, my argument relies upon this binary distinction as well.

Simone de Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex, originally published in 1949, was one of the foundational texts incorporating feminist theory into phenomenology. de Beauvoir (2010) advocated for the value of a woman’s lived experiences, much of which deviate from women’s physical bodies. She argued that women’s bodies and lived experiences are less valued by society than the bodies and experiences of men. Much of this inequality, according to de Beauvoir, is derived from the biological differences between men and women, especially as related to sexual organs.

de Beauvoir (2010) uses a phenomenological approach to connect the biology of sex to the devaluation of women’s lived experiences in culture. Women are penetrated during heterosexual intercourse, while men penetrate. In this sense, “the sexual act effectively makes woman dependent on the male and the species. It is he . . . who has the aggressive role and she who submits to his embrace” (de Beauvoir, 2010, p. 443). According to de Beauvoir, this inequality in sexual intercourse is reflected by the inequalities between men and women in society.

Since the publication of The Second Sex in 1949, there has been a lot of discussion and critique regarding the work of Simone de Beauvior (Pilardi, 1993). One of the main critiques is de Beauvior’s reliance on universalism in the sense that she assumes her experiences match the experiences of all women (Schor, 1995). Critics argue that de Beauvior’s writing ignored her White privilege (Kruks, 2005). Some scholars accuse her of saying that sexism is more oppressive than racism or postcolonialism (Gines, 2014). Other critics also call into question de Beauvior’s writings on lesbianism and heteronormativity (Dietz, 1992). While de Beauvior’s works have faced criticisms, many scholars still highlight the importance of The Second Sex as foundational scholarship on feminist phenomenology, especially when considering the historical and cultural context of when the book was first published (Felstiner, 1980; Heinämaa, 1999; Stavro, 1999). de Beauvior’s scholarship is valuable in understanding revenge porn because she highlights the biological and sexual inequalities between men and women that lay the groundwork for gendered crimes like revenge porn. Understanding how women’s lived experiences are devalued allows for a better understanding of how women’s bodies are devalued in revenge porn.

Judith Butler used the works of de Beauvoir as a jumping off point for her own foundational scholarship in gender performativity and so many scholars connect the two (Heinämaa, 1997; Hughes & Witz, 1997). Butler expanded on de Beauvoir’s arguments by exploring the position of women’s bodies in culture. Butler (1993) argued that the repetition of gendered norms in society shape bodily matter. Cultural norms encourage women to walk, dress, and perform in ways that are different than men. Women’s bodies, then, are placed in subordinate and objectified roles and can be shaped and transformed in ways that are agreeable to men (Butler, 1993). By engaging with feminist phenomenology, Butler (1988) connected women’s lived experiences with broader societal institutions to show how “pervasive political and cultural structures are enacted and reproduced through individual acts and practices” (p. 242). The media is one cultural structure that encourages the repetition of gendered performances. The male gaze in media serves to reify women’s objectification through its repetition of production techniques that favor male characters. Mulvey (1975) defines the male gaze as the way in which movies are shot and edited that invite the viewer to identify with men’s characters and marginalize and objectify women’s characters. Revenge porn is a result of the normalization of women’s objectification in media as it has become an acceptable form of “punishment” for its victims. As such, Butler’s work is beneficial in exploring the cultural components of revenge porn.

Feminist phenomenologists analyze structural issues to investigate how ideology, power, and language affect women’s lived experience (Gardiner, 2018). Many times, these structures are “invisible yet systematic” and help to reify gendered prejudices and oppressions that lead to a skewed understanding of the world (Fielding, 2011). One of these structures is the media system, which makes phenomenology a popular approach among some feminist media scholars. Visual media, like film and television are especially apt to a phenomenological approach because “[the media] is so dependent on the explicitly visual experiences of time, space, perception, signification, and human subjectivity” (Tomasulo, 1990, p. 2). Revenge porn is a strong example of a visual medium that reproduces gendered prejudices.

It is impossible to deny the profound impact of the media in culture. As a theoretical approach, media effects is an impactful and growing area of research for communication scholars (Bryant & Oliver, 2009). And while there are too many theories to define here, most theories on media effects recognize the direct or indirect impact of media messages on individuals, groups, societies, and cultures. The media are meaning makers (Barnhurst, 2010). The media influences everyday life, and people’s lived experiences are “modified unquestionably by our accommodation of the media and their contents. As a common part of everyday experience, the mass media are an essential component . . . in the conscious management of meaning” (Traudt et al., 1987, p. 304). Feminist phenomenologists study how the media assigns cultural meaning to sex, sexuality, and gender (Chamarette, 2015; Tiffe & Hoffmann, 2017). Revenge porn, specifically, assigns negative values to women’s sexuality, and positions women’s bodies as shameful objects.

In her book, Feminist Media Studies, Van Zoonen (2004) argued that the relationship between gender and communication is a cultural one. Media messages help to create and shape individuals’ ideas about sexuality and gender, thus informing and influencing broader cultural meaning-making. According to van Zoonen (2004), this meaning-making is not egalitarian for both genders. Media messages tend to reify masculine ideals while muting feminist ones, and “as such, media are part of feminism’s cultural and material struggle” (van Zoonen, 2004, p. 148).

Many types of media send messages about sex, but the media most consumed with sex is pornography. Pornography is a cultural phenomenon in itself, helping to shape sexual meaning-making in significant ways (Frith, 2015). Frith (2015) connected the visualization of the female orgasm in pornography to theories of gender politics. She argued that pornography situates a woman’s orgasm as problematic in ways that do not apply to a man’s orgasm, thus influencing cultural “norms” associated with orgasm. Frith (2015) argued that because women’s orgasms are not explicitly visual like men’s ejaculation, it causes a problem for pornography, which is an intensely visual experience. Thus, female porn stars must perform a “thrashing, writhing, moaning, screaming” visualization of female climax that is not a truthful depiction of female sexual pleasure (Frith, 2015, p. 389). Pornography gives the media consumer an unobstructed view of the body from which they interpret and negotiate sexuality. Revenge porn, however, removes the agency of the victim, thus impacting cultural meanings of sex and consent in negative ways.

In her book Carnal Thoughts, Sobchack (2004) argued that our bodies play a key role in making sense of media culture. She argued “phenomenology is philosophically grounded on the carnal, fleshy, objective foundations of subjective consciousness as it engages and is transformed by and in the world” (Sobchack, 2004, p. 5). Sobchack’s (2004) connection between phenomenology and the body is beneficial to understanding pornography, specifically revenge porn, because of pornography’s complete focus on carnal actions. Keilty (2016) also understood the benefit of this connection and used phenomenology to study people’s experiences with online pornography.¹ He argued that these experiences are always shaped by the context of history and culture.

Durham (2011) argued that sexual experiences online cannot be separated from real-life consequences. The events happening in cyberspace facilitate consequences in which “real women’s flesh and-blood bodies are experiencing pain, illness, trauma, and attack in appalling numbers” (Durham, 2011, p. 53). Women victims of online revenge porn can experience physical, emotional, and mental trauma, despite their attack taking place in cyberspace. Through qualitative interviews with women revenge porn victims, Bates (2017) found that many victims suffered posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.² It is important, then, that media scholars try to understand how the current media culture is influencing sexual meaning-making. Male voyeurism and the male gaze are still significant factors in today’s media climate (Oliver, 2017). It makes sense, then, that men’s bodies are celebrated and admired while women’s bodies are sexualized and shamed. The prevalence of revenge porn that targets women serves as a strong example of this gendered dichotomy.

Feminist phenomenology is a useful tool in studying the male gaze and male voyeurism in media. Del Río (2000) used this approach to analyze Vallie Export’s film, The Practice of Love. Del Río (2000) argued that Export successfully used her skills as a feminist filmmaker to push back against the male gaze. According to Del Río (2000), Export used her filmmaking techniques to “separate the (female) body from the social and cultural meanings it is normatively compelled to enact . . . thereby accomplishing the phenomenological emphasis on the body’s continual activity of displacement” (p. 48). She did this through making thoughtful narrative and production choices that opposed the Hollywood standards of objectifying women.

Similarly, Ince (2013) used feminist phenomenology to analyze the work of filmmaker Agnès Varda. Ince (2013) concluded that Varda’s approach embraced the “woman as subject” way of thinking rather than the cinematic standard of “woman as object.” According to Ince (2013), Varda’s decisions about her female characters’ actions, movements, and relationships to space allowed the characters themselves to perform a certain type of feminist phenomenology, asserting the importance of the characters’ lived experiences as women.

Feminist phenomenologists like Ince and Del Rio studied films and filmmakers that pushed back against the male gaze and male voyeurism. These scholars understood the profound impact of the media on the way in which people see the world. The popularity of the male gaze allows for the continual objectification of women’s bodies in culture, and so it is important to better understand the male gaze, male voyeurism, and its impacts, as explained in the section below. In her seminal work, The Second Sex, de Beauvoir echoes this point, by simply saying, “the gaze is danger” (p. 452).

Revenge porn, specifically, serves to objectify, sexualize, and shame its victim’s bodies. Statistics show that most revenge porn victims are women (Data & Society Research Institute, 2016). As the media continues to reaffirm male dominance through techniques like the male gaze, cultural messages normalizing this dominance are accepted. It makes sense, then, that men who are revenge porn perpetrators accept this normalization as truth and so turn to objectifying women’s bodies as a way of revenge and punishment. Revenge porn targeting women is a direct result of the normalization of gendered inequalities in society that are continually reified through media techniques like the male gaze and male voyeurism.

Male Voyeurism and the Male Gaze

The male gaze was first studied in U.S. mainstream cinema in the 1970s. Mulvey (1975) defines the male gaze as the way in which movies are shot and edited that invite the viewer to identify with men’s characters and marginalize and objectify women’s characters. The male gaze has since been studied in the context of all forms of media from television shows to social media (Chang & Mcguire, 2017; Murray, 2015). The prevalence and popularity of the male gaze across all forms of media places women in secondary and sexualized roles (Mulvey, 1975). This preference for male-dominated thinking influences public perception of gender roles and gender norms. As the male gaze has been reified over decades of media creation and distribution, this misogynistic point of view has become engrained in U.S. culture.

There is a significant relationship between the way in which media depictions display women’s bodies and the acceptance and normalization of objectification. That is, the more the media puts women’s bodies on display, the stronger the message becomes that women’s bodies are meant to be observed and objectified by men (Wright et al., 2015). This relationship also has an impact on the viewpoints of women concerning their own bodies. Calogero (2004) found that when women anticipated a male gaze, they experienced significantly more social anxiety and greater body shame than when anticipating a woman’s gaze.

Body shame and social physique anxiety are perpetuated by media stereotypes of how women’s bodies should look (Monro & Huon, 2005). Sports Illustrated, a magazine specifically geared toward men, has been criticized for perpetuating unrealistic body expectations for women through their annual Swimsuit Issue (Daddario, 1992). Most issues feature articles about sports, interviews with athletes, and photos from games and competitive matches. However, once a year, the Swimsuit Issue breaks the norm of sports-oriented material and instead contains only photos of conventionally gorgeous women photographed in swimsuits or partially nude in sexualized and submissive poses (Kim et al., 2011). This entire issue is created, produced, and distributed for the sheer pleasure of heterosexual male readers. It promotes hegemonic heteromasculinity and serves as a concrete example of the strength of the male gaze in popular media (Kim et al., 2011).

Sports Illustrated’s recent Beauty in Sport issue also emphasizes the male gaze in mainstream media (Brandt & Carstens, 2005). This issue featured women athletes instead of swimsuit models. However, the photographs portrayed women athletes as sexualized, weak, and incompetent in their chosen sport. Brandt and Carstens (2005) argued that these stereotypes subject women to the male gaze and perpetuate hegemonic ideals about women and how they should perform. Even the most athletic, strong, and capable women’s bodies are still displayed as sexualized and submissive objects to be gazed upon for the pleasure of men.

The prevalence of the male gaze in mainstream media serves to influence the public’s sexual meaning-making. This cultural phenomenon is exemplified by a case study by Gibson and Wolske (2011) in which the researchers compared the movie Blue Valentine with the movie Black Swan. Gibson and Wolske (2011) argued that Blue Valentine rejected the traditional male gaze by showing a woman receiving oral sex rather than giving it. This scene alone prompted an NC-17 rating (Watkins, 2015). NC-17 is socially taboo and drove away potential viewers (Sandler, 2001). Blue Valentine’s creators and even its male lead, Ryan Gosling, accused the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) of misogyny and sexism for the rating decision. Facing this pressure, the MPAA eventually changed Blue Valentine’s rating to R.

The movie Black Swan featured similar lesbian experiences, but Gibson and Wolske (2011) argued that these sex scenes adhered to the tradition framing of lesbianism as spectacle for the enjoyment of male viewing. According to Gibson and Wolske (2011), the lesbian scenes were filmed through the male gaze with male sexual pleasure as the focal point. Black Swan was not given an NC-17 rating, but instead a socially acceptable R rating. Findings of this case study suggest that media portrayals of lesbianism are only socially acceptable when they are produced through the male gaze (Gibson & Wolske, 2011).

Mulvey (1975) understood the work of the cinematic camera as male voyeurism. That is, the audience’s gaze reflects the voyeuristic male gaze of the camera. Metzl (2004) argued that modern-day reality television promotes the normalization of male voyeurism in the media, as these programs allow male viewers to watch women in the private sphere. Baruh (2009) found that sexually charged voyeuristic scenes were especially popular among audiences. These scenes are very common in popular reality television shows. Reality show cameras grant viewers access to private affairs without the participant’s immediate knowledge. The computer or phone screen serves as a similar window in online male voyeurism. Social media platforms allow men to observe and follow women without their knowledge. This reduces women’s experiences and bodies to sites of commodified consumption (Ibrahim, 2017). Revenge porn further pushes this boundary as victim’s bodies are being “consumed” by online users without their knowledge or their consent.

The popularity of the male gaze and male voyeurism across mediums has fostered a culture of the image-based sexual abuse of women (Durham, 2011). The media is fascinated by and obsessed with the observation of women’s bodies. It is culturally acceptable for men to gaze upon women for their enjoyment, and women are suffering emotional, mental, and physical distress because of it (Bates, 2017). The online sexual abuse of women has been an issue since the early days of internet popularity. Over 20 years ago, feminist scholars called for an end to cyber-sexism through structural and psychological changes in U.S. media culture (Sullivan, 1997). Unfortunately, as proven by current revenge porn, this end has yet to come. Advances in internet technologies, especially social media platforms, have given more opportunities to online sexual abusers. Social media platforms allow for the instantaneous and anonymous circulation of misogynistic content like revenge porn.

Social Media and Gender

Social media platforms have changed U.S. media culture. They have allowed for instantaneous two-way communication that transcends geography, space, and time. This connectivity has drastically changed business, journalism, and politics (Edosomwan et al., 2011; Hermida, 2010; Loader & Mercea, 2011). The pervasiveness of social media has also had impacts on gender, both on a cultural and individual level. Unfortunately, research suggests that most of these gendered influences negatively impact women.

Social media use greatly impacts the self-identification and self-construction of gender, especially among women users (Blower, 2016). Unfortunately, many of these impacts show gendered biases. Salter (2016) argued that a public online male body is celebrated. Male athletes, fitness professionals, and models show off their bodies on social media and are praised for it. Their bodies serve as examples of physical strength, health, and dominance. According to Salter (2016), a public online woman’s body, however, is considered explicit. Women’s bodies are shamed or sexualized. These women are either called sluts or are reduced to sexual functions for the enjoyment of male conquest. Social media can perpetuate rape culture offline via online celebration of male sexual conquests, slut-shaming, and sexualization of women (Sills et al., 2016).

Nonetheless, both men and women use social media platforms to display their bodies. These bodies, however, are represented and received quite differently. Men are more likely to be shown on social media as dominant, active, and independent, while women are more likely to be shown as attractive, yet dependent and weak (Rose et al., 2012). Sexualized body parts of both sexes are subjected to gendered judgments as well. Male abs, while sexualized, are viewed as strong, dominant, and desirable. Women’s breasts, on the other hand, are viewed as sexualized yet objectified and shameful (Ringrose & Harvey, 2015).

According to the 2017 Love List Brand Affinity Index, an annual research study conducted by Condé Nast and Goldman Sachs (2017), the social media platform, Snapchat, has replaced sexting as the most popular way for young people to share sexually explicit material with each other. Usually this content is shared willingly, but under the assumption that the explicit photo will be for the receiver’s eyes only and disappear after just a few seconds. Snapchat screenshotting, however, has led to the unwanted sharing of these photos and has resulted in the slut-shaming of the sender (Handyside & Ringrose, 2017). Snapchat Sluts was a revenge porn site specifically created for the purpose of reposting sexually explicit Snapchat screenshots (Hill, 2012). The site has since been taken down.

Social media platforms provide an environment conducive to revenge porn. In most cases, users can post revenge porn content instantaneously and anonymously. In addition, most online content is permanent. Screenshots and internet archiving allow revenge porn content to remain in the public sphere, even if it is taken down, as shown in the Kardashian-Blac Chyna example. Social media content tends to reify mainstream media ideals that perpetuate the male gaze and male-dominated narratives (Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2016).

Embracing Critical Pedagogy

The current media culture reproduces hegemonic themes of gendered inequalities. The male gaze is still very present in media production and encourages the objectification of women. Social media platforms have amplified these effects through gendered sexploitation like revenge porn. Revenge porn is the ultimate form of online image-based sexual abuse by exposing victims to public voyeurism, shame, and judgment. The engrained and accepted misogyny in modern media culture allows crimes like revenge porn to continue to be a major problem in the United States.

Critical pedagogy is a tangible way to push back against narratives that promote masculine dominance and feminine submissiveness. These strategies should encourage both men and women to have conversations about sexist issues in the media from a young age (Salter, 2016). Educators, especially at the collegiate level, have the opportunity to create safe spaces for these conversations to happen. Sexuality, objectification, and misogyny are sensitive topics to discuss in a co-ed environment, but that doesn’t mean these conversations should not happen. If an educator can transform their classroom into a nonjudgmental space of open dialogue, then fruitful discussions can lead to real solutions.

The idea of the “safe space classroom” is contested in the current literature (Holley & Steiner, 2005; Mae et al., 2013; Roestone Collective, 2014). What may be an effective pedagogical strategy for a White, heterosexual woman may not work for a professor of color or a professor who is a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community. This applies to students as well; some students may consider a classroom “safe,” while others do not. While it is impossible to tailor classroom strategies for every individual situation, there is promising research that gives general suggestions for creating a safe space in a classroom where potentially sensitive topics like revenge porn may be discussed (Ludlow, 2004; Spencer, 2015).

According to Holley and Steiner (2005), a safe space classroom does not refer to only the physical safety of teachers and students, but rather protecting everyone from psychological and emotional harm. That being said, Mae et al. (2013) argued that safe space classrooms should not strive to be conflict-free. In fact, quite the opposite. Mae et al. (2013) conducted a focus group of students taking a class where feminist issues were discussed. They found that students felt safe in classrooms that encouraged conflicting viewpoints. The students in this study were more willing to speak openly and honestly because they felt they were not disrupting the class, but instead engaging in back and forth discussions.

The physical space of the classroom is also important in creating a safe space. Through a survey of college students, Holley and Steiner (2005) found that students felt more protected in classrooms where the desks were arranged in circles or squares so all of the students faced each other. Of course, not every teacher has the ability to rearrange classroom spaces, and so there are other ways teachers can create safe spaces. In the same study, Holley and Steiner (2005) found that students felt the safest with professors who were perceived as nonbiased, respectful, and caring. These results were also found in a similar study conducted by Cooper (2013).

In addition to the characteristics they portray, teachers can also create a safe space classroom by instilling certain pedagogical practices. Ludlow (2004) suggested creating a Student Bill of Rights and Responsibilities that outlines classroom behavior expectations to create an environment that fosters constructive discussion among students. This Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should be issued the first day of class. Spencer (2015) interviewed college professors who engage with feminist topics about their pedagogical practices for creating a safe space. She found that many professors use data rather than emotion as counterarguments for students who disagree with them. This can be especially useful when discussing revenge porn because there are many statistics on the topic. Instead of counter-arguing with emotion or opinion, Spencer (2015) might suggest responding with the fact that one out of every 10 women under 30 in the U.S. are victims of revenge porn.

Revenge porn falls under the broader category of representation of marginalized groups in the media. Media messages have major impacts on cultural and societal norms and values, especially concerning sex and gender. Kellner and Share (2005) argued that training students in critical media literacy is one way to shift the power of meaning-making back to the media consumer, thus allowing for an influx of varied viewpoints and opinions. Critical media literacy can serve as a site of resistance by giving individuals “power over their culture and thus enables people to create their own meanings and identities and to shape and transform the material and social conditions of their culture and society” (Kellner & Share, 2005, p. 381). Students should be taught that media messages are constructed and negotiated in the context of history and culture. These messages should not be blindly accepted as truth, but questioned each and every day in an attempt to foster independent thought and positive change.

Bashford and Strange (2004) noted the importance of understanding media messages about sex in a historical and cultural context. They suggested analyzing media texts from the past and present to understand how cultural norms of sex have changed throughout the years. This would be an important critical media literacy lesson for students in an effort to have them connect “between sexual expertise, advice, publicity, and possibly practice” as displayed by the media throughout time (Bashford & Strange, 2004, p. 99). First understanding how the media influenced public perceptions of sex throughout history would allow students to better understand how revenge porn is situated today.

Kahl (2015) developed a critical media literacy activity for students to help heighten their awareness of antifeminist dialogue in the media while helping students learn how to respond to such ideas. He suggested having students watch YouTube videos produced by masculinist groups like The Million Man March. After engaging with the videos, Kahl (2015) suggests having students reflect on critical questions like: Why are these beliefs problematic? How do social structures give men’s groups power to make these claims? This same activity could be applied to revenge porn. Students could analyze text from revenge porn sites, provided by the instructor. For example, this quote was taken from a site called My GF Porn: “all the world could see his slutty GF going wild.” Reflecting critically on why these beliefs are problematic and what social structures help to normalize these beliefs would help students understand how the current media climate encourages gendered crimes like revenge porn.

Conclusion

Revenge porn victimizing women is a major problem in modern U.S. media culture. One in 10 women under the age of 30 have been victims of or threatened with having their private sexually explicit images shared with the public without their consent (Data & Society Research Institute, 2016). While there are some legal repercussions for revenge porn offenders, the current media culture still perpetuates this sexist action through emphasis of the male gaze and male voyeurism and a social media environment that encourages gendered sexploitation. Most of the research on revenge porn is from a legal perspective and is concerned with copyright, free speech, and privacy. There is little to no research that digs deeper into the cultural situation of revenge porn. This essay aims to fill the gap in the literature by exploring revenge porn through the methodological approach of feminist phenomenology.

Phenomenology understands the media as a phenomenon with cultural, societal, and individual impacts. Feminist phenomenology is specifically interested in the role of gender within phenomena. The current media environment in the United States is dominated by male-oriented narratives (Oliver, 2017). These come to fruition through an emphasis on the male gaze and male voyeurism. The male gaze encourages media consumers to relate to male characters and viewpoints while disregarding women’s viewpoints. The male gaze fosters the normalization of the objectification of women (Wright et al., 2015).

The normalization of objectification is a problem that needs to be addressed both in research and in practice. Gendered media messages that encourage the objectification and sexualization of women’s bodies are leading to real-life issues like revenge porn. The purpose of revenge porn is to cause humiliation, and statistically women are more likely than men to become victims (Data & Society Research Institute, 2016). A woman should not perceive her naked body as shameful and a man should not use it to his advantage, but the current media environment lends itself to this way of thinking. If a woman’s body was not presented as shameful and sexualized, then revenge porn would be used as an act of retaliation. Women’s bodies should be celebrated, not criminalized.

Critical pedagogy can be a solution in combating the spread of revenge porn. Current research on critical pedagogy offers useful suggestions for teachers to create safe spaces where sensitive topics like revenge porn can be discussed constructively while striving to protect the psychological well-being of all. Critical media literacy courses can also be a potential site of resistance as they encourage students to push back against the normalization of gendered prejudices in the media. Future research should continue to explore sites of resistance to the growing problem of revenge porn. No victim should have to fear or endure humiliation and social alienation because of their body.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Stefanie Davis Kempton

Notes

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