‘It’s Torture for the Soul’: The Harms of Image-Based Sexual Abuse

AuthorNicola Henry,Anastasia Powell,Clare McGlynn,Nicola Gavey,Erika Rackley,Asher Flynn,Kelly Johnson
Date01 August 2021
DOI10.1177/0964663920947791
Published date01 August 2021
Subject MatterArticles
Article
‘It’s Torture for the Soul’:
The Harms of Image-Based
Sexual Abuse
Clare McGlynn and Kelly Johnson
Durham University, UK
Erika Rackley
University of Kent, UK
Nicola Henry
RMIT University, Australia
Nicola Gavey
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Asher Flynn
Monash University, Australia
Anastasia Powell
RMIT University, Australia
Abstract
Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is
known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term
that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images.
Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative
study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual
abuse in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We adopt a feminist phenomenological
approach that permits more nuanced and holistic understandings of victim-survivors’
experiences, moving beyond medicalised, trauma-based accounts of harm. Our analysis
develops five interconnected accounts of the harms experienced, that we have termed
social rupture, constancy, existential threat, isolation and constrained liberty. Our
Corresponding author:
Clare McGlynn, Durham University, Palatine Centre, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK.
Email: clare.mcglynn@durham.ac.uk
Social & Legal Studies
2021, Vol. 30(4) 541–562
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663920947791
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findings shed new light on the nature and significance of the harms of image-based sexual
abuse that emphasises the need for more comprehensive and effective responses to
these abuses.
Keywords
feminist phenomenology, image-based sexual abuse, non-consensual porn, social rup-
ture, ‘revenge porn’
Introduction
Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of new criminal laws and high-level policy
initiatives across the world aimed at addressing the non-consensual creation, distribution
and/or threats to distribute nude or sexual images; what we term ‘image-based sexual
abuse’ (Flynn and Henry, 2019; Franks, 2017; Haynes, 2018; McGlynn and Rackley,
2017). Indeed, reports on image-based sexual abuse are rarely out of the news. Yet such
attention has largely been driven by scandals – exceptional events, often high-profile
cases, sometimes involving celebrities and frequently causing significant harms. While
these exceptional events have served to highlight image-based sexual abuse as a serious
issue, scandals can lie, silence, distort and prevaricate. Scandals, as Gavey (2019: 236)
argues, ‘deceive’: ‘They allow us to fixate on what we can pretend is a terrible aberra-
tion ...while the more systemic problems in the everyday workings of culture and
society (from which scandals erupt) remain invisible to us’. Scandals suggest we know
more than we do and – crucially – that we are doing more than we are.
Beyond the scandals, we know relatively little about the reality of image-based
sexual abuse, particularly the harms which are less visible, consequential, or which do
not fit the paradigmatic ‘revenge’ narrative so commonly told in media and other
public discourses. Despite the ostensible outrage and condemnation of image-based
sexual abuse, many victim-survivors continue to experience a lack of understanding
from others about the nature and extent of the harms experienced. This not only limits
efforts to prevent and respond to image-based sexual abuse, but – as with other forms
of sexual violence and abuse – creates space for ambivalence: for professed outrage,
action and recognition on the one hand, yet on the other hand, framings and outcomes
that serve to minimise, blame, disregard, misrepresent or justify harm (see further
Gavey, 2019).
Although quantitative research has begun to investigate the pervasiveness of image-
based sexual abuse (see e.g. Powell and Henry, 2019; Powell et al., 2019; Ruvalcaba and
Eaton, 2020), few studies to date have empirically examined the experiences of victim-
survivors. Those studies that have focused on the harms of image-based sexual abuse
have been with small participant numbers and/or concentrated on one specific form of
such abuse (e.g. Bates, 2017).
This article seeks to address this knowledge gap. It reports on the first, cross-national
qualitative study of the experiences of victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse
living in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In drawing on data from 75
542 Social & Legal Studies 30(4)

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