In 2024, Iowa legislators passed House File 526 and became the 35th state to criminalize nonconsensual pornography. The law makes it a crime “to employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, coerce, solicit, knowingly permit, or otherwise cause or attempt to cause a minor or a law enforcement officer or agent posing as a minor to engage in a prohibited sexual act or in the simulation of a prohibited sexual act.” This law requires the perpetrator to “know, or have reason to know, or intend that the act or simulated act may be photographed, filmed, or otherwise preserved in a visual depiction.” However, this law fails to adequately address the disparities women and girls face from perpetrators that disseminate nonconsensual pornography (“revenge porn”) because offenders often use a third party, such as a website, to distribute the nonconsensual pornography. As a result, no party is charged because the distributor did not know or have reason to know the pornography was non-consensual, and the offender is able to hide behind a third party to escape liability.
Nonconsensual pornography is more often perpetrated by men, while women and girls are more likely to be victims and face harsher consequences resulting from victimization. These disparities are exacerbated by rape culture, where sexual consent is assumed, and women are not believed when they come forward to report an assault, especially if they have engaged in consensual sexual acts in the past with or without the same partner. Given the immense social consequences women and minors face in pursuing a legal remedy, Iowa legislators should seek to minimize these disparities and produce equitable results, so victims are encouraged, rather than punished, for speaking up about crimes committed against them.
Danielle M. Arkfeld, How Iowa’s “Revenge Porn” and AI-Generated Porn Laws Disproportionately Harm Women and Minors, 29 J. Gender, Race & Just. 79 (2026).