1 This is a draft chapter. It cannot be used for any commercial purpose. Suggested Citation: Meital Pinto & Guy Seidman, Introduction: Shaming: Definition, Historical Origins and Contemporary Proliferation of an Illusiveness Concept, in THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF SHAMING: AN ANCIENT SANCTION IN THE MODERN WORLD (Meital Pinto and Guy Seidman eds., forthcoming 2023, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd). Chapter 1: Introduction: Shaming: Definition, Historical Origins and Contemporary Proliferation of an Illusiveness Concept Meital Pinto & Guy Seidman Part A - Introduction A young man makes available online a file showing him having sex with a woman. The taping was consensual – the distribution, was not, it was an act of "revenge porn", 1 after the woman ended their relationship. 2 A person saw his neighbor littering the corridor of their apartments building. He recorded the act on his cell phone, then distributed the file in a tenants' WhatsApp group, under the caption 'stop littering our building!'. 3 A group of political activists tried to convince a supermarket chain to directly employ all of its workers, including cleaners and guards, currently working for a contractor. The employer refuses citing the additional costs. The activists react by putting up, in public large posters saying 'this supermarket chain [name and logo included] exploits its workers.' 4 All three scenarios share a fact pattern: someone intentionally makes public what he considers to be true information about another, without that other's consent or even against her will, causing, as clearly expected, serious discomfort, and reputational 1 This phenomenon is also called "Nonconsensual pornography" (see, e.g., Danielle Keats Citron & Mary Anne Franks, Criminalizing Revenge Porn, 49 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 345, 346 (2014); Zak Franklin, Justice for Revenge Porn Victims: Legal Theories to Overcome Claims of Civil Immunity by Operators of Revenge Porn Websites, 102 CAL. L. REV. 1303, 1304 (2014); Clare McGlynn, Erika Rackley, and Ruth Houghton, Beyond ‘Revenge Porn’: The Continuum Of Image-Based Sexual Abuse, 25 FEMINIST LEG. STUD. 25 (2017). 2 This hypothetical example is loosely based on the facts of Jane Doe v. David K. Elam II, 2:14-cv-09788 (C.D. Cal. May 22, 2015). As Franklin notes, id. at 1307, "former romantic partners are presumably the primary sources for the images that appear on revenge porn sites." 3 A similar incident took place in Leicester, England, where videos of individuals caught in various acts of littering were uploaded in 2009 to the neighborhood's YouTube channel (see "Litter droppers captured on film" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/8125754.stm; Jennifer Jacquet, Is Shame Necessary?, in FUTURE SCIENCE: ESSAYS FROM THE CUTTING EDGE 127-134 (Max Brockman ed., 2011). 4 For real cases of shaming supermarket chains for various environmental misconducts see Frank de Bakker & Frank den Hond, NGO Activism and CSR, in CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, 220, 229 (Andreas Rasche, Mette Morsing, and Jeremy Moon eds., 2017).