The Scarlet Letter | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Asher Flynn
It’s not about revenge, and it’s definitely not porn - it's image-based sexual abuse. In this episode, you'll hear from Associate Professor in Criminology Asher Flynn from Monash's School of Social Sciences to unpack why the term "revenge porn" doesn’t cut it. She dives into her research on image-based sexual abuse, exposing just how widespread and damaging this digital form of violence really is. She breaks down Australia’s world-leading legal responses, new tools being piloted by Facebook, and the quiet revolution happening in how we talk about consent, tech, and abuse.
First published 2017.
The Scarlet Letter podcast is produced by the Feminist Legal Studies Group. This podcast features interviews with feminists connected to the law, discussing their life, work, and feminist perspectives. It's perfect for anyone passionate about feminist legal scholarship.
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Transcript | The Scarlet Letter | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Asher Flynn
Tamara Wilkinson: [00:00:00] Good morning, this is Tamara Wilkinson and you're listening to The Scarlet Letter. In this episode, I'm interviewing Associate Professor Asher Flynn on her research on image based sexual abuse. We wanted to let you know that some of the issues discussed in this podcast around image based sexual abuse may be confronting for some listeners.
Thank you for listening and please enjoy this episode.
Good morning, I'm Tamara Wilkinson and welcome to this episode of The Scarlet Letter, the monthly podcast of the Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash University's Faculty of Law. Today I'm joined by Associate Professor Asher Flynn from Monash's Criminology Program. Asher is the Director of the Social and Political Sciences Graduate Research Program at Monash University.
So Ash's research utilizes a socio [00:01:00] legal framework to understand, critique, and transform legal policy and practice, with a particular focus on gendered and technology facilitated violence. Her research examines experiences of accessing and negotiating justice, and she's published widely on technology facilitated violence and harassment, with a specific focus on image based sexual abuse, as well as sexual and gender based violence.
plea negotiations and access to justice. Asher is currently the chief investigator on an ARC, Australian Research Council discovery project, and recently completed two criminology research council projects. Asher, thank you so much for joining me today. I had the privilege of attending your presentation on image based sexual abuse, the extent, nature and harms a few weeks ago, which was so interesting.
I think way more confronting than I expected it to be. So would you be able to tell our listeners a little bit about what the term image based sexual abuse actually means for those who haven't heard about it [00:02:00] and why it's better to use this term than something like revenge porn?
Asher Flynn: Yeah, sure. So thank you for having me along today.
It's a real privilege to be on this podcast. I listen all the time, so I'm very excited. It's so nice to hear. So when we talk about image based sexual abuse, we're basically referring to the creation or the distribution or threats made to distribute a nude or sexual image of another person without their consent.
The reason why we use the term image based sexual abuse as opposed to revenge pornography, which is more of a media generated term, which although it's salacious and quite thought provoking, some of the key issues that I think is important to flag for people listening is that the term itself is a bit of a misnomer and it only captures a very narrow set of circumstances.
For instance, when you talk about revenge pornography, all you're thinking about is revenge. So it doesn't capture any motivations beyond that, [00:03:00] like blackmail and extortion or control, sexual gratification monetary gain, all sorts of other factors that come into play in this type of abuse. It's also very narrowly on the non consensual.
of that image. So that fails to address the other forms of image based sexual abuse such as the non consensual taking or creation of those images in the first place.
One of the other key issues is that it automatically links in people's minds to commercial pornography and image based sexual abuse often has very little to do with mainstream pornography and it acts to minimize the harms that victims experience and also has those victim blaming connotations.
So in the sense that you somehow think that the victim must be complicit in some way in the creation of the photograph. Yeah. And I think finally, the main element is around the idea. That revenge pornography is focusing on the content of the image rather than actually the abusive actions of [00:04:00] the perpetrator Who's created or distributed or threatened to distribute this image.
Tamara Wilkinson: That's such an important point And I remember it really when I was listening to your talk a few weeks ago that just hit me so strongly that We do always focus on the image. We don't focus on the abuse And it wasn't until you actually framed that as focusing the term image based sexual abuse, focusing on the abuse rather than on sort of the image and what has happened that I really reframed it in my head and thought, of course, that's the way it is.
Asher Flynn: Oh, I'm so pleased that you did that because it is, it's really highly problematic and it does. Focus, yeah, people's attentions on the victim and what she or he in some circumstances was doing, why they were engaged in having the photograph taken, why they trusted someone to send the photograph. And it's no, let's take it back to the abuse here and the abuse is the responsibility person who took that image or shared that image or threatened to share that image without consent.
Tamara Wilkinson: [00:05:00] Yeah.
Asher Flynn: That was
Tamara Wilkinson: yeah, that's so important. Yeah. So I don't know much, about the philosophy behind this area of research. Is that framework something that you have developed, or is that coming from years of scholarship? Yeah,
Asher Flynn: so no, this is a relatively new area, and I guess that's the same with any kind of technology facilitated form of violence.
That's not to blame the technology for what's going on. Because this type of abuse has been around in the past. So for example, people might have had photographs printed and then gone and made posters or put flyers out and, put images around people's workplaces and things like that.
It has existed, but I think what's made it more common now is the fact that it's so easy to send images and it's also very easy to reach a large population. But it has been something that my colleagues and I have been really strongly advocating for a change in the term, but it's [00:06:00] also globally, all the academics who are working in this space and the advocates are pushing for different.
Terminology to frame it as well as a form of sexual abuse. So the harms are being recognized.
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, absolutely So we hear about high profile examples of image based abuse in the media from time to time Jennifer Lawrence seems to be the one that always springs to mind Unfortunately for her I'm sure yeah, and then Iggy Azalea more recently you brought to my attention has had Images from a shoot she did for GQ sent out without her consent or leaked without her consent.
So it's obviously occurring on a much wider scale than just celebrities. Although you can, see the monetary appeal for for exposing celebrities photos. Can you tell us a little bit about the prevalence of image based abuse in the general community in Australia and the harm findings that have come out of your research?
Asher Flynn: We did a survey of Almost [00:07:00] 4, 300 Australians, so they were aged 16 to 49 years.
And we found that overall, one in five, or around 23%, actually reported being a victim of at least one of those experiences. So whether that was the creation, the distribution, or the threats made to distribute the image.
That's huge. Yeah, it was. We were, blown away with the findings in a really negative way. Yeah. If that makes sense. But most commonly were sexual and nude images being taken of a person without their consent. So we have one in five reporting those experiences. And this was followed by sexual nude images being sent or distributed without consent.
So that was around one in 10 and about 9 percent of our patients. experiencing the threat made to share an image. We did also ask our female participants about upskirting and downblousing. So that's for anyone who might not be familiar with the terms is when someone takes a photograph up your skirt or a video up your skirt or of your cleavage area.
And we had 1 in 10 women say that [00:08:00] someone had taken an image of their cleavage without their consent. And 1 in 20 who had a image taken of their skirt without their consent. That's disgusting. Yeah, it was, yeah not a great outcome. And those are the only, the ones who know about it. That's the thing, and that's one of the key findings, and one of the elements we keep saying is that even though these prevalence rates are huge, But that's only victims who've become aware that their image has been taken or shared without their consent.
So there is a significant proportion of people who wouldn't realise that this had even occurred to them. that we aren't able to document or record on. In terms of the harms that people have experienced, respondents who identified being a victim of image based sexual abuse were twice as likely as those who didn't to report experiencing high levels of psychological distress.
So the highest were for our victims who experienced the threat to distribute an image, of eight sorry, of whom 80% reported having high levels of psychological distress. And that was actually consistent with a [00:09:00] diagnosis of moderate to severe depression and or anxiety disorder. So it was still high for the other victims.
So 67 percent of those whose images were taken without their consent and 75 percent of those whose images were actually distributed also reported these high levels of anxiety. So it was really important findings because they did demonstrate for the first time the serious nature of the harms that are experienced.
It gives you a bit of a platform to also advocate for why we need particular changes. One of the other key elements to come out was victims reporting that they were very or extremely fearful for their safety as a result of having their images shared. And part of this is because sometimes when someone will distribute an image or post it online, they'll also include details about the victim.
So their name, their social media status, where they work, their phone number, all sorts of things like that. It's just horrific. Oh, it is. It's unbelievable what some people do. For this we noticed particular differences between women and men. So women were significantly more likely than men [00:10:00] to report feeling afraid for their safety.
And interestingly men were more likely to report that they actually found their victimization experience to be funny, that they were flattered by it or that they felt okay with it. So we had 80. 8 percent of our male victims saying that. they identified with one of those feelings compared with, less than 50%, 47 percent of women said that they were okay with it.
Yeah. The other thing I think is important to mention is that the findings reflected sort of the patterns of abuse and harassment that we see more broadly in relation to sexual violence in society generally. We had one in two indigenous Australians reporting that they were victims of image based abuse, one in three lesbian, gay, and bisexual respondents.
We also had one in two respondents with a disability reported that they'd experienced it. And one in three young people aged 16 to 19. So again, we're seeing these groups that are subjected to discrimination and harassment on broader levels also being reflected in the prevalence rates.
Tamara Wilkinson: That's really [00:11:00] interesting to notice these vulnerable groups that are disproportionately suffering as well.
Yes. It's interesting you mentioned 80%. Of the people who are threatened experience psychological distress. And for the other groups as well. That's got to correlate pretty closely with sort of the harms experienced from other forms of sexual violence as well, which is really interesting because I feel like in the past, and I guess, especially for people who've never experienced, there'd be that tendency to say, It's not that big of a deal, but clearly it is.
Asher Flynn: That's right. And I think particularly with the threat, I, part of the psychological pain behind that is not knowing if today is going to be the day that image is released. So knowing that someone has your image or claims to have your image and is threatening that there's a chance they're going to release it and the impacts that would have on you and your family, your colleagues, your life is just incredibly psychologically damaging.
Tamara Wilkinson: I read an [00:12:00] article just the other day about a woman whose partner had distributed Images that she didn't know had been taken to her whole, I think she was telling them to her whole client list. And she'd had to contact each client individually and explain what the circumstances were and just ask them not to look.
And she said most people were understanding. She lost a few clients, which is just, it's just awful, but you can understand how that threat, yeah. At least once it's happened, you can deal with the reality of it. But yeah, like you said, not knowing. It's any kind of uncertainty is always psychological, psychologically damaging.
Yeah, that's right. Like how do you prepare people that this might happen? Yeah. And you're still hoping that it won't. Yeah, exactly. So this is obviously an extremely important area and I think your research is clearly doing a lot to highlight just how important it is with the prevalence of the internet, with smartphones, with social media.
It seems like it's only going to keep growing. [00:13:00] So can you tell me how originally you first became interested in this sort of emerging research?
Asher Flynn: Yeah, sure. So my background was originally looking at access to justice issues and plea negotiations and things like that, and looking at, What came out of that research was how people experience justice or don't experience justice as the case may be.
And I also developed an interest in sexual violence in that regard, partly to do with the fact that, the latest stats are like 1 in 6 women and 1 in 9 men by the time they're 16 have experienced sexual abuse and it only gets higher as the ages go up for women. That I just think there was something that I thought.
Okay, we need to address this and if people are going to experience sexual violence and they're going to come before the courts, what can we do to make that process better? So that's where I started getting into the sexual violence. side of research. And from there it was looking at problems with rape law and consent and challenges in that regard.
And a couple of my colleagues who I [00:14:00] work on this with Nichola Henry and Anastasia Powell, from RMIT. They were starting to look at technology facilitated forms of abuse and harassment, and we were chatting about it one day, and they said, Oh, we think there's an issue here. And I was like, Yeah, it's a massive issue.
And what can we do to address it? And so we put together the idea for this project with no idea that we were going to uncover the prevalence rates and the harm and impact at that stage That we didn't. Yeah. And that's it that we just started to want to put a voice to this issue and be able to start to explain, look, this is going on.
What do we need to do to address this legally and also within society?
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. That must've been very, Surprising in a terrible way. Yeah,
Asher Flynn: it absolutely was because it was something that and again, so this was probably five years ago, four or five years ago that we started working in this field.
And since then, the technology has just gotten more and more. advanced and there's new ways to perpetuate harms and control [00:15:00] women in particular and it's only getting more problematic. So it's important that we're on top of this and addressing ways to, to respond and prevent.
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. At least the one silver lining is that you know that your project was fireball.
Asher Flynn: So we can report back to the funding bodies that yes, you were correct to give us the money to do this. Yeah. This is a huge issue. Yeah.
Tamara Wilkinson: Some countries around the world are starting to introduce laws and also non legal measures to combat the non consensual sharing of images. Can you give us a brief rundown on what the situation is here in Australia at the moment?
Asher Flynn: Sure. So Australia has actually some of the most advanced legislation responding to this. So we're doing awesome, which is great. And most Australian laws that we have recognize all three behaviors, which is good because it's often. not captured in some of the international jurisdictions.
And we also capture things like photoshopped imagery, because some legislation says all the damage wouldn't be as much if it's a photoshopped image of you, even though [00:16:00] nowadays a photoshopped image looks just as good. Yeah, that's it. So eight of Australia's nine jurisdictions, including at the federal level, have introduced laws specifically criminalizing image based sexual abuse.
And this has all happened within the last few years. Fantastic. Even this year was the latest one to be introduced. Yeah. So the only state left is Tasmania. So we've got to advocate for them to step up and do something about this.
The federal government also introduced fantastic initiative called the civil penalty scheme and this was in August last year and basically it gives the office of the E Safety Commissioner investigatory powers to be able to administer a complaint system and this means that so anyone who is a victim of image based sexual abuse. Or someone who's authorized to act on their behalf can actually report their victimization experience to the office and they can issue a takedown notice to an individual or a corporation that requires them to remove that image within 48 hours. That's fantastic. Yeah, [00:17:00] and if they don't do it, the office can issue, a formal warning infringement notices seeking injunction or civil penalties order, and they can actually face fines.
So individuals can face fines up to 105, 000 and corporations up to 525, 000. So we're really seeing the government stepped forward and said, okay, we need to do something to address this. One of the key things victims want Initially is the photo down and the photo gone. Yeah. So this is a way to actually be able to advocate for that type of change.
That's fantastic. And the penalties are not insignificant. No, they're not. And even for large corporations, a 525, 000 fine can be quite significant. And I think the other unique element of this is that it empowers victims in a sense that they can know that there's something being done about their image.
If they want to be the ones that are negotiating with them. The company that where it might be on the social media platform. They can do that with the support of the safety commissioner, but if they don't want to be having those conversations, there's someone there to do it for them and take carriage of the [00:18:00] issue.
That's fantastic.
Tamara Wilkinson: So for instance, if if someone posted a non consensual image on say Facebook and I know Facebook have their policies about nudity and everything, yes, ignoring those for the minute the office of the E Safety Commissioner would contact. The individual or Facebook as the platform.
Do you know?
Asher Flynn: So it would depend on the complaint that's being made, but they would be, they would in the first instance, contact Facebook and Facebook would then have an obligation to take that image down and then it would depend on the circumstance, whether or not. The individual was then contacted as well.
Yeah.
Tamara Wilkinson: Okay. That's interesting. So you recently won the vice chancellor's award for research impact social and economic in 2018. Congratulations in recognition of your role and advocacy in this space and generating change in laws and sort of these other responses that we've been talking about. And you mentioned that you've also been actually invited to Facebook headquarters to meet with their production development team, to work on a new [00:19:00] tool to prevent image based abuse, which is.
It's pretty amazing. Are you able to give us an idea of what changes we might expect to see in this area in the future?
Asher Flynn: Yeah, sure. So I think that what we're starting to see is some really big shifts in terms of legal responses to image based sexual abuse, but also in these corporate and organizational responses.
So we're starting to see a bigger focus placed on their role as bystanders and actually intervening and doing something. And, Starting to take acknowledgement for the fact that yes, they're creating platforms where we can communicate and create communities, but there's also problematic elements happening out there. So they need some responsibility for what is going on. So in terms of Facebook and social media, we're seeing responses like policies being introduced, like you mentioned before, no nudity and things like that, but policies being introduced, where if you know that your image has come up online or if anything like that has happened, you can contact them and they'll remove the image and you can go through that process.
Facebook are also running a pilot trial at the [00:20:00] moment. With people, with the office of the safety commission in Australia, but then also in Canada and the UK and the US where it's a prevention tool. So basically if you know that someone has an image of you and you've got a copy of the image, it's a trustworthy process, but you can upload using messenger.
You can upload that to Facebook and there's a particular service that you connect to, to do that. So you upload a copy of that image, they then take a digital fingerprint of it and destroy the image. And if anyone on Facebook's platform, so that's Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, if they upload that image, it will automatically recognize it.
And before they can post it, it will not enable them to do it. And they'll be reported for having attempted to do this. So it's those kinds of things like really incredible tools that we can see as a way to. Help prevent this before it occurs. It does take that element of trusting that your image, that's where it's going to end.
And I can [00:21:00] completely appreciate the difficulties in doing that, but at least it's a step forward in that regard. It's quite incredible, isn't it? It is. It is like an, a quite an amazing thing to do. And there's other elements that are being looked at. There's issues when it comes to America with some of their, amendment, sorry, with some of their constitutional rights.
So the right to freedom of expression, freedom of speech can be upheld a little bit more rigorously than they can here. So some elements of ideas are things like when you go to post an image, because we know that they can detect what's in the image. So if it is someone in like a bathing suit or underwear, or if it's, Someone who's naked that there's a chance for them to, and they recognize it's not you in the image that there could be like a little pop up note that says, We recognize this image isn't new.
Do you have the permission of the person who's in this image to post it? So little things like that, that it may not stop everyone, but it may remind people that, Oh, hang on. Oh, do I have that person's [00:22:00] consent? Oh no, I don't. I better not post this at this time. So little factors like that, that I think are going to make a difference in the future.
Tamara Wilkinson: And it also communicates to the person that Facebook is aware that this is happening. Yeah. So it's been flagged. There may be consequences. Hopefully they follow that through. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that what you highlighted about you having to trust Facebook is going to be such a hurdle for them, given, everything that's going on.
It's Oh, would I send my photos to Facebook? Would I trust them? Not entirely sure. It's a difficult question. Yeah. Bye. I guess that's why you run the pilot. And as it gets more established, that level of trust will hopefully rise and they'll be able to combat it.
They must just, I can't imagine the Facebook and Instagram being run off their feet, trying to deal with all the issues that pop up that would not be, it wouldn't be an easy job.
Asher Flynn: Definitely not.
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, that's so interesting. [00:23:00] Wow. You mentioned this a little bit in your presentation the other week in undertaking the research for this project.
You and your research team came across some fairly distressing material. Some of the revenge porn sites were just Yeah. And, and we in the presentation were only seeing these fairly sanitized, that you showed us. Thank goodness. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what so were and are some of the challenging aspects of this project?
Asher Flynn: Yeah, look, I think that is one of the key issues. In one of the projects that we did, we looked at sites of distribution and it really contains some of the most derogatory, misogynistic, hateful commentary about women that I've come across in my career or my life. Yeah as a woman So it is it does hit home and it does make it really difficult Our research is also involved [00:24:00] speaking with victims and Asking them questions around how it's impacted their life and their psychological well being and their health and you know asking them quite private and pressing questions and Hearing their stories is incredibly Horrific.
Yeah to hear about what people have gone through and experienced and it can be It takes its toll, yeah, as a person and as an empathetic person. I hope I am it is really difficult. I think one of the key things for me in particular has been the fact that we've been able to see change as a result of what we're doing.
So we've had laws introduced, we've had the Office of the E Safety Commissioner expand to dealing with issues for adults, not just children. We've had the introduction of a Victim's Reporting Portal where, you access help and get resources on what to do when they experience this. [00:25:00] That, and we've had, amazing victim advocates like Breanna Rose and Noelle Martin, who have just, bravely stood up and said, this is what happened to me.
This is why it shouldn't happen. This is why we need change. And when you, from incredible women like that coming forward, and it makes you go, what I'm doing is so important and it's making a difference. And you don't always get the chance in academia to do the kind of research that makes change and makes a real difference for people's lives and the benefit of society.
So to have that opportunity, you can. You can push through all the awful side of it to be like, but maybe we can make a difference. Maybe we can help change cultural attitudes and views towards this type of thing.
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah. And that's huge. I was actually reflecting on that when I was writing up the notes for this episode.
I was thinking about my own PhD research and how unimpactful it is and then comparing it to this. And I was like, this is, this is incredible. This is changing people's lives. And. The [00:26:00] changing laws and everything is fantastic, the office of the e safety commissioner is fantastic, but even if the only change is communicating to people what we talked about at the start of the episode, that this is not the victim's fault and this is not funny or, something that you just accept or put up with that's huge in itself.
And then obviously there's so much, more going on. on top of that as well. So yeah, you're well done. on behalf of women. No. So to finish up, are you able to tell us about any future projects you have on the horizon?
Asher Flynn: Now that we've started to get a bit of an indication about the prevalence and the nature and impacts in Australia, we're currently working on expanding this overseas.
So we've got an ARC discovery project. It's doing the same thing but across New Zealand, the UK, and we're running another survey in Australia as well. So we'll have a, an update on the prevalent side of things and how that's changed in the last few years, which will be really good to know. And that [00:27:00] also includes interviews with victims and stakeholders as well to look at how the laws are working, if they're working effectively, how support systems are working.
So again the benefits of that are going to be really able to comment on, okay, this is what was wrong, this is how it's changed and has it improved for victims experiences. Oh, wow. So good. The other project I'm working on at the moment, so this one's from the Criminology Research Council, and this is on bystander intervention with image based sexual abuse.
So it's looking at ways that we can raise people's awareness of image based sexual abuse as a problem, raise their awareness of the laws and the available support mechanisms there, but also ways that they can safely intervene and help to empower them to be able to do so for example, in situations like if you're standing with a group of your friends and one of them shows you an image of someone naked without their consent, the person that you would feel how, what kind of mechanisms can we give you to make you feel comfortable to say, I don't think that's [00:28:00] okay.
Or do you have that person's consent to be doing that? And challenged that notion of things. Or if you saw someone Taking an image up someone's skirt on public transport giving you the kind of powers to know, okay who can I report this to or how can I deal with what's going on in this space?
Yeah, and part of that is looking at how we can challenge some of those problematic behaviors and attitudes that we've been speaking about. So this idea of, particularly male cultures that sort of support non consensual sharing of women. Yeah. But that culture of victim blaming that not only excuses the behaviour but also minimises the harm that are experienced.
So if we can start to generate more awareness on this issue and get the message out there that. This isn't okay. Here's what you can do to help. And here's how you can help empower the victim. Here's what you can do for the perpetrator. Then we think that's an important message to communicate.
Tamara Wilkinson: That's so interesting. And like you said, it's so important because it is a large part of this, like the threat society, but a lot of this is to do with sharing the [00:29:00] images. If people aren't receptive to receiving those images, that
Asher Flynn: Yeah, exactly right. And so if we're able to yeah, get the message out there and make people feel comfortable to, to be the one that says, no, that's not okay, because a lot of the time you'll find that there might be five people standing there and four of them are thinking, I'm not comfortable with this, but no one's quite got the knowledge or the capacity to know what to say, to be like, okay, I don't want to, tell off my friend, but I want to get the message across to No, this isn't the right thing to do, or how do I stand up for a stranger, or what do I need to do?
So it's about creating an environment where we all accept that this is not okay, so what can we do to address it?
Tamara Wilkinson: I remember when when that huge release of celebrity nude photos happened. It was a couple of years ago now, wasn't it? Yeah. And the responses were just horrifically disgusting. Yeah.
Over people, just [00:30:00] absolutely gleeful. And I do think, I hope, that if that happened again today, and hopefully it won't, but Yeah. I hope that if it happened today the narrative would be a bit different and it would be less about, Oh, we're so lucky we got all these photos and it would be more about this is a huge violation and I know there was some discussion when that happened of people saying, I'm choosing not to look at these.
I'm not going to engage with this. Yeah. Hopefully more people, a few years I'll do that. Yeah. Yeah.
Asher Flynn: And it's interesting because even with the Iggy Azalea horrific experience that you mentioned earlier one of the porn sites, and I won't mention that by name but one of those sites actually refused to publish the images.
And they said that they, and they put a quote up on social media saying we stand with Iggy Azalea and recognize that this is a non consensual sharing of her image and we will not post it. And they reported that the spike for searches of her name on their website, when it came out that they'd been released, it went from 50 to 350 or something within the [00:31:00] space of a couple of hours.
There's hope there, that things can change and that the response can be different.
Tamara Wilkinson: Yeah, I think I potentially know which site you're talking about, if I do. They have actually been fairly proactive in this space, which is really encouraging.
Asher Flynn: It is, and again, and it helps highlight part of that Like we were talking about at the beginning that revenge porn, like the terminology and the image based sexual abuse is not pornography.
And then, there's all sorts of debates around pornography that we won't get into. But I think that's a really positive sign that if a porn, pornography site is able to say, we can recognize the difference between consensually produced pornography, which is okay, and non consensually produced pornographic images.
Then I think that we can all start to understand that and accept it. Yeah. They can lead the way we can.
Tamara Wilkinson: That's it. We can gratefully follow. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's yeah. It's very interesting, isn't it? Asher, thank you so much [00:32:00] for joining me today. This has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it despite the fact that it's, but a very serious and It's a very upsetting topic, but I think it's wonderful what you're doing.
I have so much respect for you and your team members. This project is needed and I'm so glad that it's working out. I'm not glad that you're finding, the results that you're finding. It's better to know about it than not to know about it.
Asher Flynn: That's it. It's really true. And thank you so much for having me.
And the only other thing I want to say is that if anyone is listening and they have experienced image based sexual abuse, I strongly recommend you look at the Office of the E Safety Commissioner website. There's options there to report it if that's what you want to do, which not to the police, but to them so they can take carriage of it.
Or they also have a lot of support resources. So I really strongly encourage you or there's someone, that's experienced it to do it. And I also just want to reiterate what we said at the beginning, which is, this is not your fault. None of this is your fault. It's the fault [00:33:00] of the person who's done this to you.
So just stay strong and we're there for you.
Tamara Wilkinson: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Scarlet Letter. You can find us on iTunes and also on our blog, which is found at www. feministlegalstudies. wordpress. com. And don't forget to subscribe to The Scarlet Letter to make sure that you never miss an episode.