To this day, she remembers the racing thoughts, the instant nausea, the hairs prickling up on her legs, the sweaty palms. She had shared a photograph of herself in her underwear with a boy she trusted and, very soon, it had been sent around the school and across her small home town, Aberystwyth, Wales. She became a local celebrity for all the wrong reasons. Younger kids would approach her laughing and ask for a hug. Members of the men’s football team saw it – and one showed someone who knew Davies’s nan, so that’s how her family found out.
Her book, No One Wants to See Your D*ck, takes a deep dive into the negatives. It covers Davies’s experiences in the digital world – that includes cyberflashing such as all those unsolicited dick pics – as well as the widespread use of her images on pornography sites, escort services, dating apps, sex chats (“Ready for Rape? Role play now!” with her picture alongside it). However, the book also shines a light on the dark online men’s spaces, what they’re saying, the “games” they’re playing. “I wanted to show the reality of what men are doing,” says Davies. “People will say: ‘It’s not all men’ and no, it isn’t, but it also isn’t a small number of weirdos on the dark web in their mum’s basements. These are forums with millions of members on mainstream sites such as Reddit, Discord and 4chan. These are men writing about their wives, their mums, their mate’s daughter, exchanging images, sharing women’s names, socials and contact details, and no one – not one man – is calling them out. They’re patting each other on the back.”
Right. As a guy, I’ve never received a nude pic of a girl from a friend. I’ve never had a friend tell me that he sends girls dick pics. I’ve never been in an online community where photos of women are traded like what is described above - I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for this. I’ve never heard about anyone I know having their pictures shared, or anyone I know sharing pictures of someone else in an unethical way. This is quite simply a social sphere that I am completely excluded from. The idea that I have any responsibility or capacity to police this kind of behavior is ludicrous - what am I supposed to do? Talk to my friends and say “So, look at any unethical porn lately, bro?” Or spend my time seeking out toxic communities so I can debate them/report them, instead of going outside and having a life?
“I’ve never had a friend tell me he sends girls dick pics” Well he wouldn’t, would he? They know it’s toxic behavior even though they enjoy doing it and might even brag about it with equally toxic guys. This is a problem women constantly have, the men in their lives don’t believe things are happening because it doesn’t happen when they’re there. It’s a far less niche sphere than it appears to you, and I agree it’s probably not going to be out in front of you for you to do something about. But you can start by assuming women mostly don’t bring things up unless they’re really bad, because they put themselves at risk by doing so. So if they do, they’re probably not lying or imagining it. Even if your experience of that guy is completely different. And you can (continue to) shut down the more “minor” conversational shit that normalizes and perpetuates that mindset.
I don’t think their intention was to shut anything down and or about not believing women.
It seemed like the user your responding to was expressing frustration over the portion of the excerpt that implies it’s the fault of all men for not calling this out when there’s a lot of men who don’t ever encounter this directly to call it out like that.
Ideally I wouldn’t assume anything based on such broad generalities. I would base my understanding on my understanding of the person making the claim. If the woman making the claim has shown tendencies in the past of lying and starting drama, I will likely do nothing, and will sort of quietly wander away to find another conversation because I don’t want to be involved in whatever shit she is starting now. Though I will also probably never be present for this conversation, since I probably would have removed this person from my life a long time ago and would actively avoid interacting with them, because it is an unpleasant experience. If I know the woman to generally be trustworthy and straightforward, I will say “wow, that sucks, let me know if I can do anything to help you feel better”.
I’ve known several women who confessed to me that they’d been sexually assaulted in the past. My response, more or less, was “wow, I’m sorry that happened to you. Let me know if you want to talk about it more, or if there is anything I can do to help.” And that is the extent of what I can do, since I have no idea who the people who assaulted them are. It’s not like I can just bust down some random guy’s door and beat him up.
Such as…? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. I assume you are talking about the conversations where guys say things like “no means yes, yes means anal” - which, again, I have never, ever been involved in. Like, ever. I don’t know who these people are or where they hang out. I infer they exist based on second hand accounts if others. But they seem to not like me, and don’t invite me to their parties.
When my male friends and I talk about women, our conversations usually go: ugh, why don’t girls like me?; ugh, my girlfriend is being distant and standoffish; ugh, my girlfriend broke up with me. I’ve never had a friend speak poorly of women in general, say they “deserve” anything as a group, or anything like that.
So, again, this seems like a big case of “I can’t do anything about this, so I’m not going to worry about it.”