REALITY TV personality Stephen Bear was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Friday, after being found guilty of voyeurism and sharing intimate videos without consent.
He filmed himself having sex with fellow reality TV star Georgia Harrison and then uploaded the footage to subscription site OnlyFans, without her permission. Jurors were told that he had earned £2000 from the video in question.
During the trial, Harrison described her ordeal and how it had affected her, saying that it led her to “the worst state of my life – I can’t explain the shame I felt. I did not want to leave my room.”
She also said that knowing that the video was being circulated online made her feel “completely worthless”. She said: “People are looking at you and having sexual gratification over you and it’s completely out of your control.’’
READ MORE: Sextortion now biggest issue reported to revenge porn helpline
She waived her right to anonymity in the case so that she could speak out about the harms of what is commonly known as “revenge porn” but is more accurately described as image-based sexual abuse.
It’s an abhorrent crime and one that as a society we haven’t quite caught up with yet. Once an image has been widely circulated among a peer group or uploaded to the internet without consent, there is no way of undoing that harm.
Victims can ask for it to be deleted from one website only for it to pop up on another.
The knowledge that somebody is looking at an intimate image of you without your consent – somebody you have never even met – is profoundly distressing for victims. It’s easy to understand why so many decide not to report incidents to the police and opt to just try and forget it ever happened.
As with other crimes that are predominantly perpetrated by men, against women, it has become a magnet for victim blaming.
READ MORE: Georgia Harrison ‘stands with victims’ as Stephen Bear jailed over revenge porn
Women who have their privacy violated in such a way are blamed for the fact that the image or video exists in the first place.
They are blamed for being too trusting when the focus should be on perpetrators for not being trustworthy enough.
This might be a relatively new harm, but the misogyny that underpins it is as old as time.
The rapid growth of instances of “revenge porn” is indicative of a much wider issue that we must grapple with.
For every scumbag like Stephen Bear, who has so little respect for women that he cares more about money and fame than their privacy, there are hundreds of inactive bystanders who show equal contempt or care for others.
There is a market for images and videos obtained without the consent of the women in them. What does that say about us as a society?
There are the friends who share images of their girlfriends or ex-girlfriends in group chats and there are whole websites dedicated to the leaked nude images of celebrities.
Hundreds of people paid money to see the footage of Bear having sex with Harrison.
Image-based sexual abuse has been illegal since 2015 but it is notoriously difficult for victims to secure a conviction.
After the sentencing of Bear (above), the deputy chief crown prosecutor for the east of England said that Bear had taken away Harrison’s right to privacy in order to make money “in the most egregious way”.
“Whether or not sex is consensual, it is a crime to share or threaten to share sexual images without consent to cause distress”, she said.
It has been almost three years since Harrison’s ordeal began and the courage she has shown since has been remarkable.
In pursuing this, she will have been all too aware of the bile and hatred that would be directed her way on social media. She will have known that strangers would blame her for what happened, or cast aspersions on her motivations for reporting it to the police.
She has shown real guts and selflessness, too.
As a former Love Island contestant, Harrison has a large online following. Young women will have followed this case and heard the clear message that the verdict and sentencing sends out. This is not OK.
Women who find themselves in a similar situation shouldn’t feel shame or fear; they haven’t done anything wrong. The shame and fear should always lie with the perpetrators of this disgusting crime, not the victims. Young men will have come across the case too. They can now see the consequences of engaging in what their peers might have previously led them to believe is just “banter” or lad culture.
Discussions about so-called “revenge porn” often focus on the conversations we should be having with our daughters about how they should protect themselves against it.
Perhaps we should also think a bit more about the guidance we are giving our sons.
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