Cover image credit to East2West News, retrieved from Unilad. 3-minute read.
Another day, another disturbing story about hidden cam footage ending up on porn sites.
Here’s what happened.
Ukrainian gynecologist Dr. Vyacheslav Tripolko has been accused of secretly filming his female patients’ private medical procedures and uploading them to porn sites. The charges emerged when one of his patients discovered a video of her own ultrasound published on a porn site. Responding to her report, local police found a hidden camera installed on Dr. Tripolko’s office computer.
Authorities suspect Tripolko used the hidden camera to record dozens of female patients’ appointments and sell the footage of the naked or partially naked women to online porn platforms.
He denies these charges, claiming that rival gynecologists in his practice must have snuck into his clinic and installed the camera without his knowing.
Porn’s ultimate privacy invasion
Dr. Tripolko is still under investigation, and it remains to be seen just how involved he actually was in the production and distribution of his patients’ intimate footage.
But regardless of the trial’s outcome, the facts are simple: hidden cam footage uploaded to porn sites is a problem because there’s demand for it.
There are few things more private and personal than an invasive medical procedure, yet even those are entertainment-worthy in the sexually exploitative world of online porn. Consider how the countless laws, medical practices, cultural norms, and official procedures to protect and respect an individual’s healthcare and medical privacy are disregarded entirely in this disturbing case.
But when have porn sites been known to refrain from crossing serious boundaries with the content promoted on their platforms?
No matter who is responsible for the hidden camera in the exam room or the uploaded videos of the medical procedures, porn sites bought or otherwise allowed the videos to be uploaded and distributed with no check as to the legality or otherwise unacceptable nature of the content.
If it should be protected, porn has exploited it
Sadly, nonconsensual content gets uploaded to porn sites daily. This story is not isolated.
There’s image-based abuse—or revenge porn—of unsuspecting exes finding what were once private photos or videos displayed across the internet.
There are cases like this one from Ukraine, where over 80 men had what they thought was a private, consensual sexual encounter that was secretly filmed and distributed online.
Related: Why Over 22,000 Women In South Korea Are Protesting Against The Spycam Porn Epidemic
There are former performers like Mia Khalifa who, after choosing to leave the industry after a few short months, have to fight continually for ownership of their content—and most often lose.
Then there are the countless instances of voyeuristic porn, when someone films another in a sexual, compromising, or intimate context without their knowledge or consent and posts it online. Coaches have posted videos of girls changing in locker rooms. College students have installed secret dorm room bathroom cameras to capture footage for porn sites. Bosses have filmed employees in vulnerable conditions. World-famous K-pop stars have shared secret footage of themselves raping unconscious women.
And of course, there is heartbreaking reality of child exploitation porn. That’s as nonconsensual and invasive as it gets.
As if this violation of consent is not heartbreaking enough, modern technology tends to worsen it. Consider how once media content has been published online, it is almost impossible to completely remove it.
This kind of personal violation can cause serious mental, emotional, and psychological harm to the exploited. A person’s privacy gets reinvaded every single time someone clicks on their exploited content. It can take a lifetime to recover and move on from this violation.
It can’t be ignored that the porn industry is an active creator, distributor, and enabler when it comes to privacy invasion and exploitation.
It’s time they be held accountable for building a global empire that profits from and distributes such privacy violations. You with us?
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
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