By Kim Jae-heun
An appellate court upheld Wednesday a lower court ruling that gave a suspended jail term to a man for posting pictures of himself and his ex-girlfriends having sex after blurring out their faces.
It ruled that the blurring of the faces did not mitigate the women's humiliation.
The Seoul Central District Court had sentence the man, surnamed Kim, to six months in prison suspended for two years for uploading the photos, which he took with their consent at the time, and posting them on a porn site without consent.
The court also ordered Kim to attend 40 hours of lectures on sexual offenses and banned him from working at institutes related to or involving children for two years.
After the lower court verdict, Kim asked for a reduced penalty at the appeals court, saying the victims' faces were not shown in the photos and other parties could not recognize the women involved. But the court rejected this.
“The victims were aware their photos had been posted on a porn site and their pictures had been exposed to many people online,” the court said. “His act was enough to hurt the women's feelings even though their faces were not disclosed directly.”
Although Kim said he did not mean to disgrace the women, the high court said his crime was grave considering he took photos of the women during sexual relations or naked and distributed them against their wishes. “The victims have received great psychological trauma and feel betrayed and sexually humiliated,” it said.