Revenge pornography and manhood acts: A discourse analysis of perpetrators’ accounts

Revenge pornography (hereafter, revenge porn) is the online, sometimes offline, non-consensual distribution, or sharing, of explicit images of someone else by ex-partners, partners, others, or hackers seeking revenge or entertainment – also referred to as non-consensual pornography. The vast majority of revenge porn is committed by men on women ex-partners. In this paper we discursively analyze men’s electronic texts accompanying their posting of explicit images on arguably the most popular revenge porn specific website MyEx.com. Situating our analysis as a contemporary form of online gendered violence and abuse, we show the complex ways in which manhood acts are invoked by men to account for their practices. The impacts on victims/survivors and possible interventions are also discussed.