Professor Annmarie Chiarini, Anisha Vora, and Dr. Holly Jacobs have a few things in common: They've all had explicit photos of themselves shared online, and they've all decided to do something about it. In August of 2012, Jacobs started EndRevengePorn.org and quickly found out that the concept of pornography as vengeance is even stranger than it sounds when we type it out like that. Working with Vora and Chiarini, she discovered that ...

5 Everyone Will Blame You

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If you see a picture of a naked person online, the default assumption is that they put it there themselves, because we want to believe that the world is a beautiful place full of consensual genitalia. Of course, it's a bummer if your boss finds those pictures, because most workplaces frown on that sort of thing. When Jacobs first heard from human resources at her school, they made the default assumption and came after her: "They were pursuing it so much and asking so many questions insinuating that I was doing this myself ... I legally changed my name." To clarify, the problem isn't that a school was concerned that their employee was being sexually inappropriate with their students -- they of course need to watch out for that shit (it's only charming when Indiana Jones does it). The problem is that, after it became apparent that this was an attack on one of their teachers, the school's very first reaction was to put as much distance between them as possible. It's virtually impossible to convince people that it's not somehow your fault.

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"If you didn't want this to happen, then why are you always naked under your clothes?"

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One revenge porn site was run by a single mother who posted the pictures jilted wives sent her of their husbands' mistresses. She of course did nothing to verify these stories or identities before posting naked photos of strangers, and when questioned about the lives she was affecting, she insisted that women "love the attention." Because as we all know, there's no such thing as bad attention -- even when it's technically a form of sexual abuse that essentially ruins your public life, at least somebody thought nice things about your butt.

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"COXcum469 doesn't throw praise lightly. You should be honored."

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There's some kind of general assumption that, once you send nudes to somebody, the picture is theirs to do with as they please. But the gift of an intimate photo doesn't automatically include permission to plaster that photo on the Internet, any more than telling someone where you hide your spare key so they can feed your cats gives them permission to post that information on Craigslist under the title "FREE CAT MEAT."