‘Revenge porn’ can break victims without breaking a state law

The horror and humiliation left Alecia Clemmons sobbing, curled up in a fetal position on the floor.

She had just opened an email from an address she didn’t recognize, warning her that “someone did something nasty to you.”

Clicking on an accompanying link, the single mother of two sons saw pictures of her naked body — pictures taken by her former husband several years earlier in an unguarded moment as she stepped from the shower.

Now those pictures were posted online for anyone to see along with her name and the Kansas City suburb where she lived. They also were linked to her Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

For Clemmons, it was a devastating introduction to the world of “revenge porn.”

And what had been done, she soon learned, was not against the law in Missouri, where she lives, or Kansas.

“I was absolutely astounded,” Clemmons said.

Laws in both states make it a crime to secretly photograph someone against her knowledge or to use compromising pictures to extort or blackmail someone.

But neither state prohibits making public pictures shared during a previous intimate relationship without the consent of the person pictured.

After getting over her initial shock, Clemmons became motivated to do something about it, especially after reading about teenagers who committed suicide after their pictures were disseminated online.

As an adult, Clemmons said she knew that the depression and feeling of violation she experienced would pass.

“A 16-year-old doesn’t know that,” she said.

Clemmons has become an advocate for efforts in Kansas and Missouri to criminalize revenge porn.

She testified earlier this year on behalf of proposed bills in both states, but neither bill passed out of committee.

Lawmakers who proposed the bills felt frustrated over how little legislative support the proposals received.

The law needs to catch up with cellphone technology, said Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Republican who introduced a revenge porn bill in Kansas.

Unfortunately, she said, there is still the attitude among some legislators that if you share those kind of pictures, you deserve whatever you get.

Rep. Kevin Engler, a Farmington Republican, proposed a similar bill in Missouri.

“It destroys lives,” he said. “It needs to be addressed.”

Though not destroyed, Clemmons’ life was turned upside down.

She moved, changed jobs and endured a torrent of abusive and sexually aggressive emails and messages from “every scumbag in the world.”

“It was awful,” she said. “They said such grotesque things.”

She also learned that she was far from alone. She has talked to many other victims and started a Facebook group, End Revenge Pornography Missouri & Kansas, to educate the public.

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have revenge porn laws on the books.

Nationally, individuals and groups are working to combat revenge porn and help its victims.

Erica Johnstone, a San Francisco lawyer, co-founded the nonprofit Without My Consent to provide information and advice to victims, lawyers and police officers.

She called the damage done to victims “reverberating and endless.”

“When you take away somebody’s total self-worth, it’s really, really hard to get it back,” she said.

Absent specific laws addressing revenge porn, prosecutors have to get “creative” with existing laws, but those efforts are not always successful, Johnstone said.

An example occurred last year when Overland Park police and Johnson County prosecutors won a conviction by using the telephone harassment law to prosecute a man who posted a woman’s nude image and phone number on a dating site.

“That caused her phone to ring off the hook,” said Overland Park police detective Ken Bilderback. “It was completely embarrassing to her.”

Plans are being made to introduce a bill in Congress that would make revenge porn a federal crime.

“There is a real urgency,” said Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn-based lawyer and board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. “Internet conduct is outpacing the law.”

Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom already have adopted revenge porn laws, she said.

“This is a borderless crime,” Goldberg said. “Ultimately this is an issue of consent.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 3:58 PM with the headline "‘Revenge porn’ can break victims without breaking a state law."