“An Italian man was jailed for more than two years for putting pornographic pictures of his ex-girlfriend on the Internet and sending them out in more than 15,000 e-mails.

The 32-year-old man had created a Web site that appeared to show his ex-girlfriend offering sexual favors and erotic games, with her phone number also on display….”

More at Reuters.

Comment:

Two years isn’t enough but bravo to the Italians for a good start. Now wait for the chatterati to howl about censorship. Punishing criminal behavior will be turned into an assault on free speech.

Of course it’s nothing of the sort. Publicly circulating pictures of this type is an assault of a very physical and damaging kind. In Iraqi Women and Torture (Chapter 8 of The Language of Empire) I argue that photographing and circulating nude or sexual pictures of women or men against their consent is an assault at least as bad as rape, and often much worse.

Our notions of consent and representation need considerable updating. I hope to be contributing something to that for the Routledge Key Concepts series.