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"    As Erica Goode reported in the New York Times yesterday, creeps who exploit their exes&amp;#039; explicit photos online\u2014a practice dubbed &amp;quot;revenge porn&amp;quot;\u2014have faced few consequences for their behavior. &amp;quot;When victims call the police, they are invariably told there is little to be done,&amp;quot; Goode writes.&amp;quot;Lawsuits sometimes exact payments from men who post photographs or succeed in shutting down a site. But once the images are online they spread, picked up by dozens or even hundreds of other Web sites.&amp;quot; On these revenge porn sites, intimate images aren&amp;#039;t all that&amp;#039;s exposed: Perpetrators routinely attach the victim&amp;#039;s name, address, workplace, and other identifying information to the photos, opening up the woman to stalking, violence, and shame every time a friend or employer searches her name on Google.  But scorned lovers should think twice before blasting lewd photos of their exes on the Internet. This month, California&amp;#039;s Senate passed a law subjecting revenge porn posters to up to one year in county jail or a $1,000 fine. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Wisconsin are working on similar bills. Although the rise in government interest is promising, drafting legislation has sparked a dilemma fit for the digital age: Is revenge porn acceptable if it involves &amp;quot;selfies&amp;quot;? That&amp;#039;s the distinction drawn by California&amp;#039;s law, which criminalizes distributing sexual images &amp;quot;with the intent of causing serious emotional distress&amp;quot; unless the victim took the photos herself. Dr. Holly Jacobs, victim and founder of End Revenge Porn, said her organization found that &amp;quot;up to 80% of victims won&amp;#039;t be covered by the bill&amp;quot; due to this clause. &amp;quot;Just think about it,&amp;quot; Dr. Jacobs told Marie Claire. &amp;quot;The pictures are taken so that they can be shared with someone who is not physically right there with them, so of course there&amp;#039;s going to be a lot of self shots.&amp;quot;  Jacobs and other advocates, like University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, peg theself-shot loophole to victim-blaming. According to Franks, when people say &amp;quot;She deserved it because she gave these pictures to her boyfriend,&amp;quot; they are invoking the same backwards ideology used to slut-shame rape victims. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s promoting a really terrible message about women&amp;#039;s consent,&amp;quot; Franks says. As Goode notes in the New York Times, these roadblocks aren&amp;#039;t slowing down activists, who have set their sights on both state and federal legislation. As Franks told MC, a federal law &amp;quot;would apply to everyone automatically and it could be the model for states to adopt.&amp;quot; This way, victims in states that have yet to pass legislation\u2014or comprehensive legislation, as is the critique of California&amp;#039;s law\u2014would still be protected. Expect the dialogue around revenge porn to continue in coming months, as the issue continues to build momentum nationwide. &amp;quot;I never thought I&amp;#039;d start a movement, but it&amp;#039;s looking like that, isn&amp;#039;t it?&amp;quot; Jacobs said. Until then, protect your selfie. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a8208/revenge-porn-crackdown/?click=rel>