A 17-year-old girl used the pornography revenge analogy on TikTok, to make it clear that the problem never lies with the victim. For this she used a sandwich.
In the news in recent years, we've been hearing a lot about “revenge porn”. A dreadful concept that consists of taking revenge on a person by sharing on networks and on the web private, naked videos or photos (especially called "nudes") of a person to whom you want to harm. A way of doing things that seems abject to all of us at first glance, but which is in fact very widespread among adolescents. The problem: People tend to blame the victim for sharing these photos at the base, rather than the one who shared them without their permission.
A 17-year-old American girl, Meg Groff, posted a video on TikTok that explains in a simplified way the huge concern of “revenge porn”. To make an easy-to-understand analogy, she uses a sandwich.
The sandwich analogy
The teenager explains why she chose a sandwich. “I find that to make a big topic – like consent – easy to understand, the use of everyday objects and situations makes it easier to grasp".
In her video montage, Meg plays two characters. The owner of the sandwich, and the person asking for a bite to eat. First, the other person asks the owner for a bite of their sandwich, which they agree to. Only, after taking her track, she suggests other people if they want one too.
The owner of the sandwich: “Wait, I said YOU could take a bite”.
The other person : "You were okay with me taking a bite, so why can't they have one too?”.
The owner : "Because I don't know them and I haven't given them permission”.
The other person : "You gave me the sandwich, so I must be able to do what I want with it”.
The owner : "Yeah, but when I gave you the sandwich I thought only you would take a bite, not a complete stranger”.
The other person : "Ok, but if you didn't want the others to eat, then you shouldn't have given me the sandwich ”.
The girl's video has garnered 5 million views.
Meg explains that people tend to believe that what they are loaned is theirs. That if they are given something privately, they actually have the right to make it public and share it. While not.
Who is the real culprit?
“I've noticed that when this happens, we spend more time shaming the victim for sending the images in the first place than holding the recipient accountable for sharing something that isn't theirs. It's a matter of consent and privacy", Meg tells BuzzFeed. She explains that she is tired of seeing other people's bodies being used against them too often.
This is because no one allows anyone to share a photo or video privately on the pretext that they sent it. If it's private, it's private! We remind you that “revenge porn” is a crime and is punishable by law. No one has the right to distribute intimate content without the consent of its author.
“I believe that people of all genders and all backgrounds should have the right to express their sexuality without fear of falling victim to someone else's fundamental disrespect of someone else's boundaries. This question of victim responsibility goes far beyond the questions of pornographic revenge, but people still don't seem to understand why it is wrong. We spend more time teaching people how not to be victims than explaining why it is wrong to be the perpetratorThe teenager rightly says. The debate is well known: it is time to teach our children not to commit crimes, rather than to teach them not to be a victim.
Meg adds that while her video is shot from the point of view of a woman – who is most targeted by "revenge porn" – men are not victims either. “The larger message I'm trying to send applies to all genders. Getting revenge with porn or using someone else's body against them is never okay". Well said !