Sadly revenge porn has been on the rise during the Covid lockdown, with many regarding intimate image abuse as a kind of grim “new normal”.  While the number of incidents is on the rise, recent research from the University of Colorado Denver suggests that many of the attackers live to regret their choices afterward.

The researchers looked at the way people who had been caught sharing explicit images online spoke to police officers.  In the cases where the culprit was both caught and convicted, nearly half expressed remorse and acknowledged shame at their actions.  A quarter of criminals, however, showed little remorse and instead tried to pass blame for their acts onto their victim.

It’s an approach the researchers refer to as “denial of the victim”, which is when the offender tries to suggest that the victim somehow deserves what happened to them.  For instance, the offender might argue that the victim was a bad person or did something to warrant the abuse.

“Sometimes, people choose to share sexual images of others without their permission,” the researchers say. “They do this specifically to cause harm, and sometimes they do it out of negligence and carelessness or because they think it doesn’t matter or they feel entitled.”

Showing remorse

While this is a sizeable portion of those caught for revenge porn, 44% were found to show at least some sort of remorse and accept that what they had done was both wrong and harmful to the victim.  All of this group had pleaded guilty to the charge and revealed shame at their actions, with most revealing that they had done so in a pique of anger towards the victim.

“What is particularly striking about this study is that a group of people who’ve done something really abusive are able to manage their shame by transforming their negative emotions into redemption stories about their better future selves,” the researchers say. “At the same time, telling a redemption story, apologizing, or expressing shame does not guarantee a victim’s or a community’s forgiveness.”

Such a redemption story is common and describes how the perpetrator talks about how they plan to redeem themselves after their act.  In revenge porn crimes this could involve paying for the removal of the offending material, apologizing to the victims or other attempts to make things right.

The researchers believe that their findings are important is that it might warrant a change in approach, as rather than stigmatizing such criminals, they argue that a more effective intervention might be to help them accept the guilt for their actions.  What’s more, we might do more to help them acknowledge the harm that their actions have caused.

“Instead of seeing everyone who shares a sexual image without permission as an irredeemable ‘bad person’ and just punishing them, it might be better for the victim if the person who committed this kind of harm could get some guidance and help to understand the effects of what they did and to try to find meaningful ways to repair that harm,” the authors conclude. “This is a society-wide problem that is rooted in gender norms – like the way some men feel entitled to treat women as sexual objects – so part of the solution has to be helping people understand why and how to unlearn those ideas.”