The transnationalization of online sexual violation: The case of “revenge pornography” as a theoretical and political problematic

The growth, and popularity, of the Internet is unprecedented. The rise of Internet usage has coincided with rising of a variety of transnational online sexual abuses and violations. In this chapter, we examine the relatively recent phenomenon of ‘revenge porn’, as an example of online sexual violation, and a site of transnational dispersions of sexualities, violences and sexual abuse/violations, and as an interconnected theoretical/conceptual and political/policy problematic. This text/image-based sexual abuse is an urgent problem, posted online very largely by men. The impact on victims/survivors is profound regarding physical and psychological health and well-being with reports of some taking their own lives. We discuss transnational approaches to the analysis, theorizing and politics of this phenomenon – its production, consumption, interventions to counter it, and indeed its very existence as a new online-offline configuration – and how, in turn, ‘revenge porn’ assists rethinking transnational and online processes.