I wish I had a more fun, cheeky thing to post on before a holiday weekend, but I can’t just let this new sex tape scandal thing slide. In the past, I’ve suggested that men who film women (with their consent) having sex and then release it (without their consent) are committing a form of sexual assault—-not legally rape, of course, but indistinguishable from other forms of rape in that the intention is to use sex as a weapon to hurt and humiliate the victim. I feel that releasing a sex tape without the permission of everyone involved needs to be elevated to the level of a crime, because it has so much in common with other forms of violence against women, and simply making it a matter for the civil courts isn’t doing enough to stop this practice. The victim in this case is Kendra Wilkinson, and the story is really illustrative in this case of my point.
I had to look the woman up, because I had no idea who she is. Turns out she’s a reality TV star and former Playboy model. As you can imagine, her history in sex work is creating confusion around the issue, due to the myth that sex workers can’t be raped. I was frustrated to see this line of reasoning trotted out at Broadsheet without a firm denunciation.
Kendra Wilkinson expects the leak of her private sex tape to be “really hard”—“probably the hardest time” of her life. It might seem surprising from a woman who has already posed naked in the pages of Playboy and co-dated Hugh Hefner with two other women. Such a woman is expected to gamely catch the wave of publicity and ride it out to her own benefit. It’s what she’s been working toward all along, right?
I don’t think Tracy Clark-Flory sees it this way, but she’s also not bringing up the fact that this is the same argument always used against victims of sexual violence, particularly sex workers, the old “non-virgins can’t be raped” myth that should really have been put to rest centuries before the video camera was even invented. Again, to be clear, I’m not saying that releasing a sex tape is the same thing as rape, but it certainly falls on the scale of sexual harassment and assault, as far as I’m concerned. And it should be treated as such by criminal courts. If Justin Frye, who sold the tape, and the folks at Vivid, who bought it, were facing criminal penalties for this, I’m sure they would have thought a lot more carefully about violating this woman’s right to control her own body and sexuality.
What makes this entire situation more disturbing is the sexual violence aspects may not be limited to the releasing of tape. I was alarmed to read this blog post at Jezebel describing the contents: