When a couple breaks up, even on amicable terms, there are usually an array of lingering feelings that remain, such as anger, regret and possibly still, love. One of those feelings is usually not revenge. Nevertheless, some spurned lovers feel a need to exact revenge in the most embarrassing and salacious way possible.
Marianna Taschinger, a 23-year-old woman from a small Texas town, is a victim of such vengeful thinking. Taschinger broke up with her boyfriend after having an on-again, off-again relationship that almost made it to the altar. When they were still considering marriage, he asked her to pick out a wedding ring. He also asked her another favor: to take nude photos of herself and send them to him.
"He said if I didn't want to send them to him, that meant that I didn't trust him, which meant that I didn't love him," Taschinger told the New York Times.
Taschinger's boyfriend said the photos would never be shown to another living soul. Then last December, over a year after they ended their relationship, nude images of her popped up on a website showing what is known as "revenge porn." Taschinger is now suing the site, as well as her ex.
Revenge porn sites feature nude photos of people, mostly women, posted by angry ex-lovers, and are usually accompanied by derogatory descriptions and details about where the women live and work, and often links to their Facebook pages. The burgeoning sites are not currently subject to criminal prosecution, but that may be changing. This month, California lawmakers passed the first law aimed at prosecuting revenge porn websites, The New York Times reports.
The effects of the sites can be devastating on victims. Victims of revenge porn say that they have lost their jobs, been recognized by strangers who have seen the photos, and were even estranged by friends and family. Some victims have been forced to change their names and/or their appearance.
"Sometimes I want to get into a fetal position and cry," said Taschinger, who was forced to give up her job at a restaurant and was stalked by a man in a car outside of her house.
What makes matters worse is that once the images proliferate, they are spread by dozens, or even hundreds of other sites. The owners and operators of the sites are mostly protected by a federal law that allows them to shirk responsibility for material posted from third party sources.
"It's just an easy way to make people unemployable, undateable and potentially at physical risk," said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland.
Legal scholars and women's rights activists have pushed for criminal penalties for people who post on such sites, but so far only New Jersey (and soon California) has a law standing that would prosecute such individuals.
Some states are reluctant to adopt such laws because they believe it would infringe on First Amendment rights. A bill aimed at stopping revenge porn recently failed in the Florida Legislature.
The California law is also not very strong. The law, which awaits Gov. Jerry Brown's signature, would only make some forms of revenge porn posting a misdemeanor punishable by a high fine or jail time. It only applies to photos taken by others and posted "with an intent to cause serious distress," The Times reports.
Due to the lack of laws on the books, women who have been victims of such behavior have filed civil suits based on claims of invasion of privacy, copyright infringement or sometimes child pornography.
Taschinger is one of 25 plaintiffs, five who are minors, who are suing the now defunct site Texxxan.com and its operator, GoDaddy, for an invasion of privacy.
Taschinger's ex-boyfriend, 35-year-old Eastwood Almazan, is named in the suit along with seven other men. Almazan claimed to The Times that he did not post the images, and that he did not own a computer at the time of the posting.
"I don't know where they're getting this information from," Almazan said.
Texxxan.com is under investigation by the F.B.I's cybercrimes division and the Orange County Sheriff in Texas. Aaron McKown, a lawyer representing GoDaddy, filed an appeal claiming that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act exempts the site from liability for posted material.
Revenge porn first came to the public's attention in 2011 when Hunter Moore, the remorseless creator of the site isanyoneup.com, said in an interview with Anderson Cooper that he had no problem profiting from revenge porn. "Why would I?" Moore said. "I get to look at naked girls all day."
Moore, who shut down the site in 2012, drew outrage from the public and is currently being investigated by the F.B.I.
Some are skeptical about making such crimes punishable by jail time. Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said that the laws would come up against First Amendment challenges.
Yet, Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar at the University of California, said he did not see a constitutional obstacle to a law written narrowly to prevent the posting of naked images without permission.
"I think that's a kind of invasion of privacy that the courts would say can be prohibited," he said.