Want to stop revenge porn? Just keep your clothes on!

AT A 50th last month, the birthday girl got up and made her speech, in the course of which she said something about being divorced and on the market again that gave the merry throng of friends, admirers, family and her own children very slight pause.

‘And, gosh, I’ve also had to learn all about SEXTING,’ she said.

It wasn’t that the visual this conjured up was upsetting (she is a slim, stunning blonde) – more the fact that it is now quite normal for a woman that age to send pictures of her naked self to potential dates and partners.

In fact, it’s not just normal. It seems to be expected.

Men on Grindr, the gay hookup site, don’t use chat-up lines, they exchange pictures of their genitals. And according to some estimates, a third of schoolchildren have sent explicit images of themselves.

It’s so common that the acronyms NIFOC (naked in front of computer), GNOC (get naked on camera) NP4NP (naked pic for naked pic) and POS (parent over shoulder) need no explanation to anyone in their teens or 20s.

OF COURSE, sexual imagery, erotic art and pornography have always been with us, from cave paintings to Klimt to Tinder. But now – it hardly needs saying – such images aren’t kept on dusty shelves in garages or stashed under beds. They are around for ever.

And so a new genre of nastiness between the sexes has been born called revenge porn or, to give it its full title, the online distribution of sexually explicit i mages of a nonconsenting individual with the intent to humiliate that person.

Nine states in America have passed laws to prohibit the posting of such images, and now there are stirrings in the Lords to do the same here. Which is problematic, I fear. Obviously, it’s horrible and embarrassing and invasive to have an intimate, revealing, naked picture of you uploaded to some toxic website without your permission or knowledge.

But there are already four Acts on the statute book that prohibit malicious, indecent, annoying or needlessly anxiousmaking communications, and anyone who has a smartphone – which is pretty much everyone by now – should know that it’s just as dangerous as a loaded gun.

By some estimates, four-fifths of the images on revenge porn sites are self-generated – that is, taken by the subjects themselves. So if you point a smartphone at yourself and shoot, and then flip the image to a third party, you are the one who has taken the choice to distribute that image. You are the first point of publication, and therefore responsible.

It is very sad and stupid – but understandable – that so many girls send naked pictures or post them online. Sad, as it’s a way of seeking love and attention far more than it is a bid for sex. And stupid, as if girls think these images are only for private consumption, and not for distribution, they need their heads examined. Once sent, pictures are common property to be shared with the lads.

If a revenge porn law comes in, which makes posting such images by the third party a sort of sex crime, at best it could serve as a deterrent for the spiteful losers who post such intimate images, which one hopes were taken consensually in happier days.

BUT it won’t stop those who take them or send them in the first place. And at worst, it could even encourage people to sext selfies and videos with even greater abandon, as ‘victims’ can boohoo to the cops when they find them online, and have them taken down.

Instead of the Government tying itself in knots trying to police the wild west of the net, we need to tell girls (and women of 50) that in order to be loveable, or even dateable, we don’t need to take pictures of our T&A (I think we all know that one) and send them to strangers or unreliable boyfriends.

IRL (in real life), it’s smarter to keep privates private.