‘Revenge Porn’ is Still a Crime… Even if the Victim is a Douche
90 Day Fiancé is a documentary series on TLC that follows couples who have applied for or received a K-1 visa. A K-1 visa is issued to the fiancé of a United States citizen. It requires the person to marry their U.S. citizen partner/petitioner within 90 days of entering the country, or depart.
The program debuted in January 2014 and is currently in its sixth run. This season’s program follows six couples, including Colt Johnson and Larissa dos Santos Lima.
Johnson, age 33, is from Las Vegas, NV and Santos Lima, age 31, is from Brazil. The couple met via an online dating website, and eventually Johnson, a computer programmer who – according to Wikipedia — lived with his mother and three cats, flew to Mexico to meet Santos Lima for the first time. The couple spent five days together, and Johnson subsequently flew to Rio de Janeiro to spend six more days with her. Then, after eleven total days together, Johnson proposed marriage, and Santos Lima agreed to move to Las Vegas.
Hence, 90 Day Fiancé.
In an interesting — yet not surprising – twist, things are not seamless in Las Vegas. In fact, according to InTouchWeekly, it’s been a “pretty rough month” for the couple.
First, Santos Lima exposed Johnson, who was allegedly cheating on her with multiple women online. She shared screenshots from what she claimed was Johnson’s Dropbox account — semi-nude photos of multiple women constituting online relationships.
Pictured below: Johnson and Santos Lima.
The couple decided to work through Johnson’s online infidelity though, only to have their relationship tested again! Last week, also according to InTouchWeekly, one of Johnson’s alleged mistresses allegedly released nude photos of him. The photos were shared amongst 90 Day Fiancé fans, and Johnson confirmed that the photos were real.
The following day, Johnson took to Instagram to address his “revenge porn” scandal – because even though this guy sounds like a total tool, this is still the non-consensual creation and/or dissemination of sexual images.
“I think people are forgetting that what happened to me was technically a crime,” Johnson wrote via Insta. “I made mistakes in my relationship and I’ll have to atone for them sooner or later but that doesn’t mean you can release explicit images or video of ANYONE without their permission.”
Pictured below: Johnson’s Insta-s’planation.
In 2015, Nevada criminalized the unlawful dissemination of intimate images – what’s often referred to colloquially as “revenge porn” – via Assembly Bill 49. Fun fact: AB 49 also redefined some sex crimes against minors, recategorizing them from gross misdemeanors to category A felonies.
Though it’s unclear where the images were sent from – Perhaps the physical location of the sender muddies the images’ legality?– and though Johnson certainly seems like a less than stellar guy, the fact remains he was the victim of a crime. Perhaps calling attention to “revenge porn” perpetrated against a man will help other men survivors (and survivors in general) feel less shame?
And the fact that this guy is a public figure — dare I say, a celebrity of sorts — well, that could also help mitigate shame, while also saying so much about society in general.
Image via Jonathan Natiuk.