{"id":38743,"date":"2024-05-04T11:13:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T15:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/?p=38743"},"modified":"2024-05-06T11:15:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:15:01","slug":"huntington-news-state-legislature-to-consider-bill-protecting-victims-of-revenge-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/huntington-news-state-legislature-to-consider-bill-protecting-victims-of-revenge-porn\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntington News: State legislature to consider bill protecting victims of revenge porn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Alyssa Enright<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0news correspondent<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
May 4, 2024<\/span><\/div>\n
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\"The+exterior+of+the+Massachusetts+State+House.+Bill+H.4241+was+introduced+during+this+years+state+legislative+session.\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The exterior of the Massachusetts State House. Bill H.4241 was introduced during this year\u2019s state legislative session. Photo by Harriet Rovniak<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Massachusetts is currently\u00a0one of two states without any protections for survivors<\/a> of image-based sexual assault, otherwise known as revenge porn. This means that victims in Massachusetts cannot charge their abusers with nonconsensually distributing sexual content.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0Bill H.4241<\/a>, introduced during this year\u2019s state legislative session and titled \u201cAn Act to Prevent Abuse and Exploitation,\u201d is implemented into law, it will ban image-based sexual assault, and add coercive control \u2014 the pattern of behavior or actions used by a perpetrator to frighten, threaten, oppress and limit their victim \u2014 to the definition of domestic abuse. This would expand the definition of domestic abuse to include non-physical forms of abuse to the civil protection statute for survivors of domestic violence, according to Nithya Badrinath, the associate director of policy and advocacy at\u00a0Jane Doe Inc.<\/a><\/p>\n

For imaged-based sexual abuse survivor and advocate Katelynn Spencer, a 33-year-old from Wareham, getting this bill signed into Massachusetts law is essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will definitely break down and cry for excitement and to know that \u2014 God forbid this happens to anybody \u2014 at least they have protection. And they know that they can come forward and get justice and they won\u2019t have to go through the bullshit that I had to go through,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n

Co-sponsor of the bill, Lindsay Sabadosa, a Hampshire Democrat, explained that listening to victims\u2019 statements inspired her to support the bill. \u201cIt felt like it was really important, plus you never want to be the state with the loophole and law enforcement telling you that they are unable to do their jobs because of that,\u201d Sabadosa said.<\/p>\n

Spencer said that in May 2020, she found out there were two sexual videos of her on a Pornhub account. She said the owner of the account was a childhood friend of hers who she became closer to in high school and started \u201chooking up\u201d with, but never dated. Spencer said the video was published in 2010, but she didn\u2019t find out until 2020. At 18, she said she was pressured into making a sexual video for the man. She said she was also unaware a second video had been recorded and had been published.<\/p>\n

Since there was no law in Massachusetts to ban image-based sexual assault, the only charge the police could file against the man was distribution of obscene material, Spencer said. \u201cThe legal system is a joke,\u201d she said. \u201cThey screwed me over. I got nothing. It\u2019s just very frustrating but, again, at the end of the day I still have to continue with my life.\u201d She said the videos have been distributed to dozens of websites in five other countries and are on the dark web with over five million views.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ruined my entire life. \u2026 I\u2019m finally getting back on my feet, but it ruined my marriage. I ended up getting a divorce. [My former husband] cheated on me for a year because of all this,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cI lost friends, I lost family members, I lost my career, I was a funeral director. It had affected me so much mentally, it was affecting me physically and it was affecting me emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer explained that she tried to get justice years ago, but her case was\u00a0dismissed in March 2022<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cNothing ever happened and no lawyers can do anything because there are no laws in [Massachusetts] and no one wants to help me or take the case,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n

By June 2022, she began to heavily advocate for laws to ban image-based sexual assault, she said.<\/p>\n

Bills similar to H.4241 have been in the works for about three to four years and\u00a0passed both chambers last year<\/a>, but they didn\u2019t have enough time to get it passed in the last session, Badrinath said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMassachusetts is generally such a leader in other legislation that you would imagine rights for victims of these heinous crimes and victims of abuse would be at the forefront, but unfortunately things either slipped through the cracks or there is a lot of money in [the porn industry],\u201d said Isabella Pastore, public policy research associate at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.<\/p>\n

Adding coercive control<\/a>\u00a0to the bill means victims of image-based sexual assault won\u2019t have to wait until there is physical abuse to receive help from the law, providing them with extra protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvivors shouldn\u2019t have to wait for violence to become physical to get the help that they need,\u201d Badrinath said. \u201cThey are allowed to seek protection before violence escalates to physical violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

If passed by the Senate,\u00a0the punishment<\/a>\u00a0for image-based sexual assault would be no more than two and a half years in prison and\/or a fine of $10,000 or less.<\/p>\n

Representative Jeffrey Roy, a co-sponsor of bill H.4241 and Norfolk Democrat, said he believes there should be an alternative punishment for people under 18 years old that focuses on education about image-based sexual assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the statute is allowing for there to be a misdemeanor offense of transmitting indecent visual depictions and before an arrangement takes place the district attorney could offer a diversion program to the person who violated that particular statute,\u201d Roy said.<\/p>\n

As long as the person completes the\u00a0diversion program<\/a>, they will not have an arrest record or a conviction, Roy said. However, the diversion program hasn\u2019t been developed yet.<\/p>\n

Pastore said she hopes this bill will make Massachusetts a safer place to live so people don\u2019t have to live in fear of a sexually explicit video of them circulating the internet without their consent. \u201cIt will give them a path to justice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bill H.4241<\/a>\u00a0passed in the\u00a0House<\/a>\u00a0and a slightly altered version of the bill passed in the\u00a0Senate<\/a>\u00a0on March 21.<\/p>\n

According to Roy, a conference committee of three senators and three House members now need to reconcile the differences between the two bills. After that, it will come back to both branches for a vote on enactment and then will be sent to the governor for her signature. Roy said they do not know exactly if or when the governor will sign the bill.<\/p>\n

While Roy does believe this bill will help to prevent revenge porn, he is ready to make changes but first must see how it is practiced in law. \u201cI think these are good first steps. We\u2019ll see how it works and if we need to make further tweaks down the road,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll stand at the ready to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alyssa Enright,\u00a0news correspondent May 4, 2024 The exterior of the Massachusetts State House. Bill H.4241 was introduced during this year\u2019s state legislative session. Photo by Harriet Rovniak. Massachusetts is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38744,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38743\/revisions\/38744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}