America's Next Sick Fuck

Popular US indie comedian Jake Fogelnest has dived right into the guts of the revenge porn issue with a video satire entitled America’s Next Sick Fuck, in which ousted CEO of American Apparel Dov Charney (Rich Fulcher from The Mighty Boosh) and photographer Terry Richardson (Moshe Kasher) are judges on a talent show, auditioning the world’s greatest demented perverts to see who will be America’s next top sick fuck (“I’m looking to start this, uh, all nude EDM Festival”.) The Sarah Silverman Program comedian Steve Agee also has a good turn as Hustler founder Larry Flynt. The irony being of course that both Charney and Richardson, while maybe not “sick fucks”, are no angels – American Apparel’s Board axed Charney from his own company after they found a video of him walking in the nude around employees and years of complaints of pervy behaviour (although he’s back now, working as a creative consultant). Richardson, too, is notoriously perverted, having attracted titles “fashion’s favourite pervert” and “predator with a camera”. No matter your level of respect for the dudes, you kinda gotta hand it to sketch-version Charney and Richardson, who fully lay themselves on the line, and in doing so, actually kind of successfully manage to highlight the importance of consent and delineate the difference between smut and exploitation, and it comes across funny and informative, rather than offensive.

Revenge porn (sharing sexually explicit images or videos of a person, acquired by a partner while in a relationship, and distributing them without that person's consent after a break up, using social media or text messages or public porn sites), and its apprehension (or lack thereof), has been a hot discussion ticket ever since the leaking of nude images of celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, who had their private accounts hacked. The celebrity scandal has promoted victims to speak out about revenge porn situations having permanently ruined their lives, being too scared or embarrassed to leave the house and so on. A distressing state of affairs, given that currently, revenge porn is not deemed illegal – which is becoming especially relevant considering the relevant harassment legislation mostly pre-dates Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and smart phone technology that makes it a whole lot easier to film and distribute this kind of material. This year, 6 out of 149 cases of revenge porn in the UK recently ended in a measly police caution or charge. You can press charges if it's moved into another legal territory like blackmail, or when the pictures are of kids, but at the moment there’s no serious jail terms for revenge porn. The penalties, even, seem light - a two year suspended sentence was all that was given to a 45 year old dude from Bristol, who, driven by anger at having gotten the flick, sent private pics of his ex (who, in the "extremely explicit" pics was perfuming a "jaw-dropping" sex act) to her family and friends (beelining straight to where it will hurt - can you imagine your kid cousins, and your nanna, seeing you like that?) and than posted the pics onto adult websites, raking up nearly 50,000 views.

Driven by politicians and campaign groups pushing  for new laws to provide better support to victims, UK’s House of Lords are looking at an MP’s proposal later this October, in which revenge porn would be deemed a crime, wherein people complicit in the distribution of revenge porn be prosecuted. The sentencing powers would be aligned with the Sexual Offences Act, meaning custodial terms of up to three years could be handed down to offenders. If these laws go through in the UK, they’ll set a precedent for the rest of the world on the topic of revenge porn. Australia currently has digital distribution and copyright laws that can be used to prosecute users who nonconsensually share intimate photos online, however Australian laws regarding invasions of privacy in the digital age are “considerably lagging - legislation across the country is best described as a patchwork."

If you’re experiencing a situation that you think is revenge porn, Gizmodo has some steps you can action HERE.