Sex, Lies & Videotape
(Okay, so the headline is a cliché. So shoot me.)
Via Dammit Janet, this stunning decision by Quebec Superior Court Justice Sylvianne Borenstein.
It's in the other official language so we'll quote from Law in Quebec.
In a brief four-page ruling, Quebec Superior Court Judge Sylviane Borenstein held that the man breached her fundamental rights by intentionally and illicitly invading her privacy, and that his conduct cannot be tolerated or trivialized by the courts. “The actions were ignoble and the Court expresses its indignation over these actions. One can understand that the woman, who is only 20 years old, feels betrayed and humiliated.”
The Court issued a publication order that forbids media from identifying the parties in order not to aggravate the harm she has suffered.
Judge Borenstein barred the man from communicating, distributing, publishing, reproducing, or transmitting pictures, e-mails or videos of the filmed events as well as prohibited him from reaching her in any way. Further, the Court prohibited him from having in his possession photographs and videos of the plaintiff.
As deBeauxOs puts it, ''good.''
This is no one-off kind of situation, a rarity, in which a guy shoots himself with a woman doing the squishy thing and then posts it online. It happens a lot.
People post sexually explicit images without consent all the time, says Janine Benedet a professor in the UBC faculty of law. "It is a devastating attack. There is no legal mechanism for victims to get their pictures back once they're out there, despite the fact that there is lingering harm."
Any Canadian who posts online content is subject to obscenity laws laid out in the Criminal Code of Canada. Even if the server that hosts the content is outside Canada, if there is a connection to Canada, the offender can be charged.
But Benedet, who specializes in pornography law, says there are very few cases where Internet posts have been deemed illegal by the courts. In one Ontario case, a man was charged with distributing child porn. In another Ontario case, a man was charged with extortion for threatening that he would post nude pictures of a woman on the Internet if she didn't continue to sleep with him.
I know of one victim, as well as another young woman whose ex-boyfriend threatened to post a video (shot without her knowledge or consent) if she would not get back together with him. In the latter case, I will just say that it got handled in a way that was legal, but just legal, if you get my drift.
While I suppose it can work both ways with the occasional vengeful woman posting compromising pics of her ex online -- and I know one woman who did that too -- let's not kid ourselves. It's all about slut-shaming and humiliating women.
What I don't get is why this decision hasn't received more publicity.
It should be front page news.
In spite of the fact that the decision on this civil suit has not made headlines, fathers4justice types have been googling the judge's name and visiting DAMMIT JANET!. One left a comment suggesting that the poor man in this situation was "pushed" to do what he did.
As it turns out, the man who posted the images and recordings of sexual intimacy with his ex-lover accepted responsibility and made a statement acknowledging his culpability. He doesn't need F4J to make excuses on his behalf or to justify the motive behind the action he took, by blaming a woman.
Posted by: deBeauxOs | July 08, 2009 at 08:48 PM