Nimhans study explores victims' response to non-consensual pornography

Bengaluru: A group of researchers from Nimhans have tried to understand how people around the victim and the victims themselves react to incidents of non-consensual pornography and the factors that influence who is to blame for the incident.

Non-consensual pornography is defined as the practice of sharing nude or sexual images of an individual without the consent of the person in the image or video. In most cases, the perpetrators are known to the victim and this makes the situation worse. 

The research titled Snapping, sharing and receiving blame: A systematic review on psychosocial factors of victim-blaming in non‑consensual pornography, studied all the literature published in the domain over the last 10 years and concluded that the cultural background of the victim, the environment and the interpersonal skills of the individual play a crucial role in attributing blame.

The conclusions, the researchers believe, could help draw treatment lines for such victims given that mental trauma is obvious in such cases. 

The study revealed that society would generally place the blame on the victim if the victim is a female and this was not the case if the victim was a male.

“A female victim whose intimate images were self‑taken received the most negative feelings and blame, reflecting a social gender stereotyping where blame attributions and negative feelings are disparate due to differential interpretation of taking nude selfies for male and female victims,” the study stated. Owing to gender stereotypes, female victims are also most likely to blame themselves in many of the incidents. 

On the other hand, irrespective of the gender of the victim, women are said to be more compassionate towards the victim and are more likely to have positive compassionate feelings toward them.

“Further, the attributions of male victims of revenge pornography are often trivialised than female victims,” the study noted. Culture and morality also played a crucial role in placing the blame on the victim. The study also revealed female victims are often blamed on moral grounds, ignoring the situational factors that caused the incident.

Apart from gender, culture and morality, a host of other factors influence blame attribution, researchers said. 

“The interpersonal skills of the victim, how well they can communicate, their previous experiences, and many such factors also influence blame attribution,” Dr Manoj Sharma, one of the researchers, told DH. 

With the advent of technology, the number of incidents of non-consensual pornography has been on the rise. However, though mental trauma is an obvious effect of such incidents, the number of victims seeking medical help is low, Dr Sharma noted. Societal pressure and the stigma could have been the restricting factors. However, the reluctance to seek support could lead to major mental health issues in future. 

M A Saleem, DGP, special units and economic offences wing, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), told DH that more victims are approaching the police now owing to increasing awareness.

“The victims should come out and fight. Only if they reach out to us can we block the images and videos from being circulated. Also, in such cases, it is easier to track the perpetrators down with the help of the victim since he/she would most probably be someone close to the victim,” he said.