To answer the question of this article's title, it's both. But lets dive in to figure out why.
Negative news is starting to circulate about a “disturbing” site called MaleGeneral. In reaction to this, several people claim the site isn’t revenge porn but they’re sadly mistaken.
From what I can tell, this news story started from Dazed which first reported on “the disturbing revenge porn forum.”
The site is a forum where someone can share a picture of a guy and then ask others if they can find naked pictures of him. While several posts involve male porn stars or celebrities, many also include every day men found on apps like Grindr. As you can imagine, the latter can cause complications.
Dazed tried to frame those in charge of MaleGeneral as difficult to work with if you wanted to get your nude pictures taken down, which isn’t true.
While the “removal requests” page is immature/rude for calling people who failed to follow the rules of contact turds or morons, the rules themselves are fairly simple (and not “a number of hoops” like PinkNews suggests)
- Include the URL to the post with your picture(s)
- Include a verisign (a picture of yourself holding a paper with the site’s name written on it for verification) that won't be shared publicly
- Don’t contact their ISP
That said, multiple news sites have decided to take the moral high ground and are adamant that the site is disgusting and cruel.
One way of doing that was to include an interview with a man (identity withheld obviously) whose pictures were shared on the site.
“Last year, I received a DM on Twitter from someone I didn’t know,” he told Dazed. “It said something along the lines of ‘Hey, have you seen these photos of you naked on this website?’ and it included a link. I thought it was just some fake junk mail circulating but for some reason I clicked on it and there it was. I just closed it down as fast as I could, and when I got home I looked into it more and I figured out how horrific that website is. I kept quiet because I didn’t exactly want people seeing that of me…”
“When reading the terms of how to get the post removed from their website,” Jack continued, “I saw that you have to send (to the people running MaleGeneral) a picture of yourself holding a sign with your details, and if you don’t do it ‘correctly’ they publicly post the photo on the site to shame you.”
(Note: The removal requests page doesn't ask for personal information on the verisign but just the name of the site. Also, not doing the process “correctly” means contacting the site’s ISP or outright threatening them, which only complicates the issue further and prolongs taking the pictures down).
“I was disgusted… and of course, I didn’t want to do that so I kept quiet about it, thinking no one knew the website existed. I was never ashamed because I knew a lot of people do send photos like that, it was just unfortunate it was me that all this happened to.”
That comment brings up another idea. Why are we talking about it here? By posting about it, I’m ultimately giving MaleGeneral free publicity.
Honestly, I’m posting because it’s an interesting story that’s worth reading for multiple reasons. Most importantly, this is a reminder to think before sharing nude pictures.
This stance has nothing to do with morality or bias about "loving one's body," but is wholly based on the realities of sharing nude pics. When doing so, we ultimately risk others sharing those pictures anywhere and with anyone.
But if you do share a butt pic or a dick pic and it’s uploaded on a site like GeneralMale, does it count as revenge porn?
As people have pointed out since this story started circulating, many of the site’s posts aren’t made out of hate or revenge. Instead, most guys are just thirsty for dick pics.
But, it was Queerty that pointed out that 38 U.S. states (and several other countries like the U.K.) now identify any nonconsensual sharing of pornographic images as revenge porn. That means, the term revenge porn applies even if you’re sharing because you think a dude’s hot and want others to agree.
Dazed goes even further to point out that the term revenge porn applying doesn’t mean it can be fought in court.
“It is possible that posting these images may be a criminal offense under the so-called ‘Revenge Porn’ law, but that would require intent to cause the victim distress, which is difficult to prove,” Alex Haydock, a legal assistant at Open Rights Group explains. “Laws around harassment and copyright may apply in some circumstances, but this still leaves some room for people to share explicit images without permission.”
With many posts being about guys just wanting to see dick pics for pleasure and not for punishment, MaleGeneral is in a legal grey zone.
All that said, the site and its users aren’t innocent. At the end of the day, they're sharing naked pictures of other people (most often porn stars or celebrities, but also every day guys found on dating apps or social media too). That's not ok.
On top of that, a few more insidious posts start with lines like, “Can anyone catfish this guy?” And, personal information like social media accounts and full names are shared frequently.
Ultimately, the burden falls on the men sharing the original naked pictures. They take on the responsibility of dealing with any problems that may arise after sharing, and its them who'll have to advocate for legal action.
So again, think before you share.
Author's Note: This article is the opinion of the writer's and not Instinct Magazine's. In addition, choosing not to demonize the site does not equal supporting it.
Okay wait, this is just
Okay wait, this is just uploading pictures that are not of you? That's wrong, obviously.
But I thought Revenge Porn was masqurading as your ex, for example, claiming you have a Rape Fetish or something and you give out his address, etc. and people go and 'perform the fetish' on your unsupecting ex–that's Revenge Porn/Rape/Sexual Assault amite?
Whatever this is, claiming others photos are yours, is not the same. There should be a screening process like Instagram, if anything sticks out (different people, something off, investigations, etc.) then the photo should be revoked.
If photos are allowed to go live without ANY KIND of overhead, that is an inherent flaw in the webpage.