Victimization of image-based sexual abuse can severely impact victims. This impact, caused by the incident itself, can be aggravated by various factors, among them the social perception of the victim by society, the institutions that operate within the society, problems with the investigation and/or the prosecution stages and victim blaming.

Victim blaming in research is mainly self-reported by victims, while few studies have empirically investigated the way in which society perceives victims and attributes blame. This study aims to examine the way in which victims of revenge porn are perceived, how blame is attributed, and which factors influence the attribution of blame.

Using a vignette-based survey describing revenge porn scenarios including a female victim, we asked participants to reflect on the situation using the Public Victim Blaming Scale (PVBS, Cramer e.a., 2013; Rayburn e.a., 2003) and to answer questions regarding the perception of the victim and the offender. The survey was carried out in Israel during March 2020, using an online panel company (N=618).