What is image-based abuse? A plain-language guide
Real images shared without consent, recordings made in secret, deepfakes, sextortion. These are different crimes with one thing in common: they are sexual abuse, and the words we use decide how seriously we take them.
By Susanna Gibson
If you have landed here because something happened to you or to someone you love, start with this: you are not alone, it is not your fault, and there is a path forward. This guide explains the vocabulary you will meet along that path, in plain language, so that you can name what happened and ask for the right help.
One harm, many forms
Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is the umbrella term for the non-consensual creation or distribution of private sexual images. It covers several distinct situations that are often lumped together under the misleading phrase “revenge porn.”
- Nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NDII): a real image or video, whether it was taken with consent or not, shared without the consent of the person in it.
- Recording without consent: images or video captured in secret, including hidden cameras and recordings of sexual assault.
- Synthetic NDII, usually called deepfakes: images or video manipulated or generated by software to make a real person appear nude or engaged in sexual conduct.
- Sextortion: the threat to share real or synthetic intimate material unless the target pays, sends more images, performs sexual acts or does something else against their will.
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM): any sexual depiction of a person under 18. This is always a crime, including when the child is now an adult or when the image was self-generated.
Why the words matter
“Revenge porn” is wrong twice. “Revenge” implies that the person in the image did something that invited retaliation. “Porn” implies a product made for an audience. Neither describes a private moment that was weaponized against someone. The phrase quietly shifts attention from the person who caused harm to the person who was harmed, and it has shaped how police, platforms and headlines respond for more than a decade.
Calling it what it is, sexual abuse, changes the response. Abuse has perpetrators. Abuse is reported, investigated and prosecuted. Survivors of abuse are supported rather than interrogated about why they trusted someone.
Who is targeted
Anyone can be targeted, but the harm is not evenly distributed. Women, particularly women of color, and LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately targeted, and the consequences, from job loss to physical danger, fall harder on them. Women in public life face a specific version of this abuse: intimate material used to drive them out of campaigns, newsrooms and leadership. That is a privacy violation and an attack on representation at the same time.
What the law says, in one paragraph
Nearly every U.S. state criminalizes the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, though definitions, penalties and coverage of deepfakes vary widely. At the federal level, the Take It Down Act, signed in May 2025, makes it a crime to knowingly publish nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated imagery, and requires covered platforms to remove it within 48 hours of a valid request. Civil remedies exist in many states as well. The law is improving, unevenly, and the gap between what is written and what survivors can actually use is a large part of why this work exists.
Going deeper
The terminology page on this site carries the formal definitions used by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. Call It What It Is, out in March 2027, expands every section of this guide into a practical handbook: takedowns, digital privacy, legal remedies, mental health, how to support a survivor and how to change the law.
