A viral photo of two people appearing to engage in a public sex act near the Ohio University campus in Athens was actually rape, according to the woman photographed.

A university student photographed while appearing to be engaging in a public sex act near Ohio University’s Athens campus tells police she was being raped as fellow students watched and uploaded pictures.

As many as 10 people watched and tweeted pictures and even a video of the act while describing both their shock and humor of the scene unfolding, according to students who broadcast the scene on Twitter.

The couple, described as being in their early 20s, is seen in several shots leaning against a Chase Bank window on Court Street – just a block from the Athens police station – as the man goes down on her.

People on Twitter laughed and joked about the photos they saw — but the woman involved says it wasn’t consensual, it was sexual assault.

Links to the pictures, since deleted, were immediately trumpeted on the Web, including by a university nightlife blog, Athens Tonight, and a woman who sent it to former Revenge Porn manager, Hunter Moore, while boasting of having witnessed the scene first hand.

The woman involved woke to the pictures the next day and reported the incident to police Sunday night, according to 10TV.

Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle now tells the station that the behavior by the people who saw it and did nothing to help is just as shocking, if not more.

Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle says it is shocking that bystanders did nothing but take photos for social media — but perhaps they didn’t know what they were seeing.

“The community at large views this as they watched and witnessed a sexual assault occurring, and did nothing but watch,” said Pyle. “But the flipside of that is that they may not have realized what they were witnessing.”

After finishing the act a source told Total Frat Move that the couple posed for pictures with each other and bystanders.

Whether alcohol played a factor in the case is still under investigation.

In the photos, the couple is leaning against a Chase Bank window on Court Street not far from the Athens, Ohio, police station.

If one of the participants was “mentally or physically incapacitated, whether due to alcohol, drugs or some other condition,” it can be considered as cause for expulsion according to university policy.

Like police, Ohio student Allie Erwin says it’s not the punishment that’s surprising to her, it’s her fellow students.

“Our first instinct as a community was not to intervene and help this woman but to post it on social media, and make a mockery of probably the most traumatic experience of her life,” she told 10TV.

“All that needed to happen was to say, ‘Hey are you alright? Is this what you want to be happening?'” she said. “She obviously wasn’t OK with what happened. It was rape. She reported it to the police as rape.”

Police say an investigation into the photos is still on going and they are speaking with both students involved to fully understand what happened.