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Comment by wvh | Hacker News Reader

This might not be a popular opinion for some, but can't we move as a society beyond the point where having a naked picture online would not be upsetting or harmful for the person involved? I can't help but think that if we were all to put a couple of nudes online, the whole "Oh! Shame!" moral outrage would be pretty much over.

On the one hand, there's a person's privacy and individual rights, but on the other hand is also society's response which makes a bigger deal out of erotic and sexual material than it perhaps needs to be. It might be worthwhile to also fight this from the other side and try to re-educate society not to point the finger at people for having sex or appearing in nude imagery. After all, the concern seems mostly about the consequences to the lives of the people involved rather nudity itself, so why not also try to turn the whole concept into something more positive on a societal level and fight the victimisation and shame that way?

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Yeah, it’s really pathetic that we accept this as horrible without questioning whether or not it needs to be that way.

In a few generations when some stigmas go away and we are slightly closer to this mythical society… distributing personal moments of others, especially in compromising positions will still be wrong.

So now, and in the future, we need to punish the victimizers.

the problem is involutory porn. that is what the article focuses on, not the moralistic aspect of nudity

Involuntary porn is so harmful specifically because of the moralistic aspect of nudity.

We could just accept that sex is normal and a video of you fucking isn’t different than a video of you playing golf.

Irrespective of one’s moral views, whether one consented (to the act, or filming the act or publicly sharing the video) is a serious concern.

Sure, but being involuntarily filmed while having sex is currently much more harmful than being involuntarily filmed while golfing.

There is no good reason it has to be this way, sex is one of the most normal activities one could be engaged in.

Perhaps we should assign some blame to the society around the victims?

Because sex is intimate and personal. Today getting involuntarily filmed kissing is more harmful than involuntarily filmed playing golf, and kissing is socially acceptable in most western cultures.

You’re really standing up a straw man here and I’m not convinced you’re even winning against it.

I’m not sure that you know what that means.

What straw man are you referring to?

Of course sex is normal, but thousands of years of societal development in vastly different circumstances around the world tend overwhelmingly to agree that it is a private matter, not a spectacle for public entertainment.

Perhaps we shouldn't be in quite such a hurry to discard centuries of tradition just because "gee, the internet makes it easy and anonymous..."

I disagree. I'm not trying to be inflammatory but it seems like your statement is similar to saying "rape is so harmful specifically because of our society's attitudes to sex". Yeah, social stigma can make the consequences of rape a lot worse, but that's not at all the only reason why rape is bad. I think the same logic applies to involuntary porn.

Among other things, involuntary porn is a massive violation of privacy. Maybe some individuals don't feel that this area needs to be private, but what matters is whether the _victim_ wants it to be private. If your solution is "the victims shouldn't make such a big deal of this", that's wishful thinking not a solution.

> If your solution is "the victims shouldn't make such a big deal of this", that's wishful thinking not a solution.

That’s a really twisted interpretation of what I wrote.

Rather, I believe that we should strongly condemn those who further victimize these people by voicing their puritanical views in any form.

Having revenge porn of yourself on the internet is extremely traumatizing regardless of what other people think of it.

It’s precisely the opinions of other people which makes it extremely traumatizing.

Lets not pretend that this is some inherent part of human nature.

No, it’s not, and victims of revenge porn will tell you as such.

Everybody thinks muggings are wrong, and yet people are traumatized by muggings. People thing school shootings are wrong, yet they’re traumatic.

I suggest you go ask one for yourself if you don’t believe me, because frankly you don’t know what you’re talking about.

What you’re spewing out is utterly nonsensical.

This is cultural, not something we’re inherently born with.

Muggings are inherently worse, someone taking your freedom and possessions under the threat of violence.

> someone taking your freedom

God, you're so, so close. I seriously urge you to go talk to somebody who's had revenge porn distributed of them, or go read an account of the personal violation they felt.

I cannot help you any more than that, it's your own journey to discover empathy and theory of mind.

How people behave regardless of culture is human nature.

So what evidence do you have that humans behave in this way regardless of culture?

I don't disagree, but a problem can be solved – or at least improved upon, because I'm not sure this can be solved – on multiple fronts. Leaving the question of whether containment is possible on the internet aside for a minute, we could also work on improving society where the stigma connected to nudity and pornography – voluntary, non-voluntary and anything in between – is not such a burden it destroys people's lives.

To throw back your own example, topics such as rape, drug abuse and depression can be made discussable openly in society instead of keeping them hidden, shameful and isolating. It might also be good for young people to understand that what they do in private in the heat of the moment, might later on come back to haunt them, exactly by keeping the conversation going.

It seems to me people make a big deal out of it exactly because of society's overwhelmingly negative response, which is also something we could work on. In the case of rape, there is something going wrong between two people, but in the case of sexual imagery leaking, there's the added element of a voyeuristic society imposing moral judgement, the negative impact of public opinion, which is a problem beyond whatever happens between two people in their private lives.

Most accept that people are human, and humans don’t normally think sex is equivalent to sports in regards to involvement from others in public.

Are you arguing that this is an inherent part of human nature? Your comment doesn’t make any sense otherwise.

Could you provide some evidence to support that claim?

I am claiming is that this isn’t an inherent part of human nature, and therefore we can do better.

If you are instead making a statement regarding current state of things, you’ve failed to read the comment you’re replying to

Humans are human nature. I may be generalizing from 7 billion data points though:)

What you’re saying still doesn’t make any sense in context unless you’ve misinterpreted me very badly.

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