Sen. Holt’s ‘revenge porn’ bill passes full Senate

The full Senate has approved Sen. David Holt’s legislation to make “revenge porn” against the law in Oklahoma. Approved Wednesday on a vote of 42 to 2, Senate Bill 1257 criminalizes the dissemination of non-consensual pornography, sometimes called “revenge porn.”

“Non-consensual pornography is a purely destructive act,” said Holt, R-Oklahoma City. “It targets women and it should be a crime. Prosecutors have told me that our current laws are inadequate, and I hope we can get this legislation through to change that.”

SB 1257 provides that a person commits a crime when they intentionally disseminate an image of another identifiable person who is engaged in a sexual act or is nude; they obtained the image under circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to know that the image was private; they did so with intent to harass, annoy, humiliate, intimidate, coerce or alarm, and they knew or should have known that the dissemination was nonconsensual. It exempts disseminations related to law enforcement investigations or when the exposure or sexual act was committed in public or in a commercial setting. The first offense would be a misdemeanor and the second offense would be a felony.

Holt’s measure now proceeds to the House for consideration, where Rep. John Paul Jordan, R-Yukon, is the House author.