Unsolicited Dick Pics and Cyber-flashing: The absence of consent within online spaces
Content warning:
This article includes mention of unsolicited dick pics, rape, and sexual violence. Please utilize the “Quick Exit” button on the top right if needed.
Image: Pixabay
Last week, Zendaya shared via her Instagram that HBO will release two special episodes of Euphoria later this year. Thousands of fans rejoiced online, referring to the announcement as the only good news to come of this year. However, the immensely popular and positively reviewed first season faced criticism for its portrayal of drugs, sex, and nudity on screen, including a scene that featured 30 flaccid penises. When I asked a friend what she thought of the show and that scene, in particular, she shrugged her shoulders and responded, “that was a lot, but I’ve gotten that many, or more, dick pics from men online.” As we scrolled through her block list on IG, our conversation quickly turned to how terrifying online spaces can be.
The Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children at Western University includes non-contact unwanted sexual experience and cyber-flashing, as manifestations of cyber misogyny which is defined as “the various forms of gendered hatred, harassment, and abusive behaviour targeted at women and girls via the Internet.” Participants in a short online survey Thaen X circulated for this article said they felt disgusted, violated, in shock, and scared after receiving unsolicited dick pics online. Participants also named almost every social media app, including Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, in addition to dating apps and phone texting features as platforms they received dick pics through. Recently, there has been a rise in the use of Apple’s Airdrop feature to send unsolicited dick pics to people. The Airdrop feature allows Apple users to send photos to another device within a 9-meter distance. A preview of the image pops up on the screen before the “drop” is accepted.
According to a study by Pew Research, almost 60 percent of the women surveyed, ages 18-34, were sent a non-consensual sexually explicit message or picture from someone they’ve met on a dating site or app. Despite the developing research on the area and media outlets continuing to refer to the use of Airdrop as a relatively “new” phenomenon, unsolicited dick pics have haunted our online and mobile spaces for years. One participant of Thaen X’s survey recalled having to block users on MSN, almost 15 years ago, after men she trusted sent her explicit photos in an attempt to solicit nudes from her in return.
Following the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Vidhya M., an Eelam Tamil woman living in the United States, was sent dick pics by Sinhala nationalists through Instagram. “I just don’t get why that’s necessary? Do you like to scare women and violate their privacy by sending unwanted pictures?” Vidhya questioned. I wasn’t surprised when I heard of this incident, especially considering Sri Lanka’s widespread use of sexual violence as a tool of racial oppression. In this particular case, the nuance of gendered hate and race is essential to consider. Unfortunately for these Sinhalese trolls, dick pics as a response to criticism of their racist government by a Tamil woman only further proved the relationship between state violence and racist gendered attacks against the Tamil community. Vidhya’s experience also reminds us that racialized women experience sexual harassment far differently and at much higher rates than white women. In addition to excluding an intersectional lens in their work, mainstream feminist movements rely heavily on state interventions to keep them safe from sexual harassment.
Mainstream feminist movements resort to engaging in activism focused on implementing or changing laws around online sexual harassment. Freelance writer and editor Victoria Law, describes carceral feminism as “an approach that sees increased policing, prosecution, and imprisonment as the primary solution to violence against women. This stance does not acknowledge that police are often purveyors of violence and that prisons are always sites of violence. Carceral feminism ignores the ways in which race, class, gender identity, and immigration status leave certain women more vulnerable to violence and that greater criminalization often places these same women at risk of state violence.” Laws don’t necessarily protect people. The criminal justice system exacerbates harm by re-traumatizing survivors while also resulting in higher criminalization rates, especially among racialized communities.
Besides, addressing online sexual harassment within a legal framework only results in more unclarity and confusion. How unreliable the legal system can be was pointed out to Luxe Xt Saunthar by a man who called her on her bluff about reporting him. “Not only did he use a fake account that resembled a makeup page, but he knew that I couldn’t turn to the legal system for help,” she told Thaen X. “I tried to use empty threats to make him stop sending me photos, but he was confident nothing would happen. He asked me who I was going to report him to. ‘the law doesn’t protect you, and I’m not touching you’ is what he said to me, right before he sent me more photos.”
The question remains: How do we protect our online space? Participants in Thaen X’s survey mentioned that they have resorted to making their social media accounts private, self-censoring or limiting themselves from speaking about topics that may garner misogynist attacks, monitoring suspicious messages online and blocking accounts. “But it’s so hard to protect your online space,” one participant rightfully pointed out. Another participant pointed out how ineffective blocking can be, “this one guy kept making fake accounts to harass me online. I blocked all of the accounts, over five different ones that I knew of, and resorted to making everything private.”
I’ve read far too many articles online listing all the ways to restrict our social media accounts and information about reporting, but why does the onus always fall on women to push back against rape culture? A webinar by Possibility Seeds last week focused on Engaging Men to Address and Prevent Gender-based Violence on Campus and shared essential strategies to involve men in consent education. The webinar cited education, campaigns, by-stander and up-stander programs and discussion groups as ways to engage men in these conversations actively. The White Ribbon Campaign has been working with men to address issues of gender-based violence since 1991. Their approaches centre around education, particularly concerning the breaking down harmful narratives of masculinities that contribute to rape culture.
A gentle reminder: being online can be exhausting, and working towards creating safe spaces can be heavy. As many of us have moved completely online during the pandemic, taking breaks away from online spaces, harmful ones, in particular, is necessary to avoid feeling burnt out.
If you are currently experiencing an emergency, please contact:
Good2Talk - Helpline for Post-secondary Students 24/7 Ph: 1-866-925-5454
Toronto Rape Crisis Centre: 24/7 Ph: 416-597-8808
First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Hope and Wellness Line 24/7 Ph: 1-855-242-3310
Support Service for Male Survivors of Sexual Assault: 24/7 Ph: 1-888-887-0015
Gerstein Crisis Centre Ph: 416-929-5200
LGBT Youth Line: Ph: 1-800-268-9688
Access your nearest walk-in clinic or hospital emergency department or call 911
