Rules around consent are forever, even after a nasty breakup.

A Canberra woman has recently managed to avoid jail time after she shared explicit videos of her ex on OnlyFans. She had his consent to share the content initially, but after a breakup he asked her to take the videos down and pursued legal action when she didn’t. Why did she nearly face jail time over videos that had previously been on her OnlyFans with no problem? Because consent in adult content isn’t just optional, it’s legally required—and it can be revoked long after the content is initially shared.

Here’s the case in a nutshell: a woman who is a content creator on OnlyFans made six explicit videos with her ex and captured multiple intimate images of him that she also shared on the adults-only platform. When the relationship ended in 2022, her former partner withdrew his consent to distribute the content. He asked that the content be removed from OnlyFans, and she not only refused to do so but mocked it publicly—even posted a legal letter on Instagram. For her actions—or lack thereof, in this matter—she received a suspended jail sentence and a 12-month good behaviour order.

The reason the ruling in this case matters is because when consent is given initially to create explicit content, the consent to distribute said content isn’t permanent—especially when it’s being distributed for profit, which is what the Canberra woman was doing with the explicit videos of her ex. When someone revokes their consent to distribute continuing to sell or share that content immediately becomes non-consensual distribution. At that point, it’s revenge porn. This is illegal in many places, including Australia. OnlyFans as a platform does have a very strict consent clause in their TOS, but cases like this get the attention not only of the techies, but the lawyers whose job it is to make sure that OnlyFans remains a safe and legal operation.

It is important to note that consent isn’t just a one-time deal. It can be changed or withdrawn at any point, and creators have the legal—not to mention ethical—responsibility to honor the revocation of consent whenever it happens. Continued sharing of content after a collaborator has withdrawn consent crosses a legal line, even if the creation of the content was initially a mutually agreed-upon project.

Even when there are factors that complicate the nature of a dissolved relationship, that isn’t an excuse for continuing to share explicit material once consent is revoked. The court in Canberra considered mental health factors and incidents of family violence when issuing their sentence, but determined that wasn’t enough to excuse the behaviour. The law still recognized that harm was done to the woman’s ex-partner when she continued to share the images without consent. Personal trauma may be valid, but it’s not an excuse to distribute sensitive content without consent.

For both professional content creators and amateurs filming encounters with their partner for fun, consent is a legal and ethical imperative. Protecting yourself and others means getting consent, respecting everyone’s boundaries, and discussing ahead of time how you will proceed if one party revokes their consent.