I just read a text exchange in which a guy tried to flirt with a stranger on Facebook by sending her a picture of his penis. The woman responded by ridiculing him, sending him lots of pictures of other men’s penises to demonstrate how horrible it is to receive dick pics, and suggesting that his dick was small and diseased. He got angry, and asked to end the conversation, which she didn’t do. Then he asked her not to share the conversation, and she posted the whole thing publicly, along with his name. Now it’s on my news feed because lots of people are reading it and finding it hilarious.
I hope I’m not the only one who thinks this is tragic.
The perception of dick pics as disgusting, low status, and worthy of ridicule is part of the larger perception of sexuality as shameful. I would much, much rather live in a culture where I sometimes received unwanted images of strangers’ genitals as part of clumsy flirting than to live in a culture where being open about sexuality is about as safe as making violent threats.
I would love to live in the nearby world where “you’re cute, wanna see my dick/vulva?” is a polite way of finding out whether an attractive stranger feels like sharing a casual online sexual interaction. The man’s actions in this exchange make me feel a lot more like I live in that world than do the woman’s.
I recognize that, given we *don’t* live in that world, *and* that the world we do live in includes a lot of people who feel women should be grateful for male attention and never allowed to protect themselves let alone retaliate, dick pics are often (usually?) more of a harmful spam tactic than a kind of benign if inept way of flirting.
I think it’s a good idea to discourage spamming people, and also to discourage treating women as if they have no right to refuse sexual advances.
But please, please, do not confuse strategic choice of social norms with the rush of a cheap status-boost. Do not play along with the game where we all punish each other for having bodies in the context of Christian purity and original sin.
So I gave my take on it:
The boy in question may not, himself, have realized he was performing an aggressive move. He may have just been emulating a move that he saw as successful, because when aggressive men make that move they often *are* successful.
It’s generally the less aggressive males, attempting to emulate aggressive strategies without even realizing that the underlying structure of the strategy is aggression, that get piled on for being aggressive.
The actual aggressive males get away with it, because no one wants to fight them.
If you’re winning the fight against a particular person, I guarantee you they aren’t the kind of person you think you’re fighting against.
If you’re making some fedora-wearing neckbeard cry delicious man-tears, if you’re viciously shaming some size 0 fetish model for promoting unhealthy body standards, if you’re screaming at some transgirl for “invading your safe space” and “not being a real woman”, if you’re savaging some internet pundit for using “transgirl” because they haven’t kept up with the lingo-of-the-week… you’re almost certainly attacking someone who’s probably been hurt worse by the Patriarchy than you have.
Because if you’re successfully attacking, and they aren’t successfully defending, then that almost certainly means you have more structural and institutional power than they do.
Feels nice, doesn’t it?
The conclusion only makes sense if we assume that structural and institutional power are virtually the only forms of power that exist.
It’s generally the less aggressive males, attempting to emulate aggressive strategies without even realizing that the underlying structure of the strategy is aggression, that get piled on for being aggressive.
…
The actual aggressive males get away with it, because no one wants to fight them.
…
If you’re winning the fight against a particular person, I guarantee you they aren’t the kind of person you think you’re fighting against.
…
Because if you’re successfully attacking, and they aren’t successfully defending, then that almost certainly means you have more structural and institutional power than they do.
Feels nice, doesn’t it?
This grosses me out more than I can properly articulate. The idea that if you ever “win” a social conflict that you’re really the bad guy is gross as all hell. The idea let’s virtually anyone off the hook. Were you successfully criticized for your behaviour? Congratulations, your detractor is a bully abusing their superior social power against poor meek little you. You fire a woman for getting pregnant, and she succesfully sued you and damaged your business’ reputation? What an abuse of power, you poor little thing. You harrass someone online and they actually stand up to you? You shouldn’t have to stand for such mistreatment. Were you cruel to a friend, and now less people want to hang out with you? You’re the real victim here.
This is the weaponization of the pretense of meekness. It’s the whine of particularly nasty members of the religious right, who complain, in naked envy of Saudi Arabia’s ability to persecute “deviants,” that their detractors would never be so critical of militant islam.
So yes, it feels fucking fantastic.
None of this is to say that anything in the name of ‘winning’ a social conflict is acceptable, or that one cannot be disprortionate, excessive, or sadistic and cruel towards others in response to mistreatment, or that what you’ve identified as mistreatment is accurately described as such. Nuance, proportionality, and compassion are excellent virtues. But it is vastly unjustified to cast ‘winners of social conflict’ as nearly equivalent to abusers of social power attacking the weak in place of the strong.
I don’t think dick-pic-sender’s name should have been released to the internet at large. Large, diffuse groups on the internet are personally removed from the situation, are frequently full of unprincipled people, and the individuals involved frequently feel like a snowflake in an avalanche. Consequently the people involved are often ignorant or apathetic of the scale of harm they as a group are causing, which can quickly become vastly improportionate to scale of the harm to which the group is responding.
I do think it’d be entirely fair game to show the messages to people within dick-pic-sender’s social group. It’s fair for the people in your life to know how you treat others, and I don’t think you necessarily deserve privacy when you treat someone poorly through unsolicited messages (IANAL, but I think the law generally agrees as well).
And for the love of fucking god I wish people would stop defending people like dick-pic-sender by trying to cast them as weak, bumbling little angels. Aside from the fact that there’s not much justification for it: you can mistreat the strong. You can be cruel to anyone. If you’re gonna argue that excessive responses, cruelty, and internet mobs are bad, do it because those things are bad in principle, not because they’re being used against a particular victim class you wanna defend.
op’s post is like the ultimate example of everything i find foul about the lesswronger worldview
even though the lesswrongers claim to be against “toxic sj,” in reality they just subscribe to a twisted backwards grotesque parody of the most misapplied sj identity politics, except in their version the primary “marginalized community” which they must fight for and protect at all costs is “dudes who are experiencing consequences for being shitty to other people.”
and notice the whining about “the actual aggressive males get away with it, because no one wants to fight them”- any sensible person would decide that the solution would be to fight to make it more difficult for aggressive men to mistreat people, but op seems to be implying that instead, we should try to make it should be easier for less aggressive men to mistreat people. it’s completely backwards and awful tbh.
also, i’m really grossed out by op comparing the backlash that the dickpic sender received to the harassment and mistreatment that trans women and eating disordered women receive. especially appalling is the implication that the dickpic sender has been hurt by the patriarchy on a level comparable to the harm the patriarchy does to trans women and eating disordered women. this is ludicrous, standing up to a sexual harasser isn’t comparable to bullying marginalized women, fuck off.
Do two wrongs make a right? Is it possible that the response to something bad is also bad? Do you think seeing pictures of genitals is worse than being publicly shamed? Do you think that male genitals are inherently evil and shameful?
The lesswronger mindset is that you must /update/ your beliefs about an individual based on evidence. That means after you hear additional information about a straight dude, you won’t continue to use your straight-line prior. You should
already you’re assuming that it was “wrong” to publicly shame the dickpic sender. tsk tsk.
Is it possible that the response to something bad is also bad?
certainly. but the op wasn’t just trying to claim the response was excessive, but also attempted to cast the pickpic sender as a persecuted innocent. which is absurd.
Do you think seeing pictures of genitals is worse than being publicly shamed?
sending a naked picture to someone is pretty clearly a sexual act, and performing a sexual act with someone without their permission is indeed many times worse than public shaming.
Do you think that male genitals are inherently evil and shameful?
no, i think performing a sexual act with someone without their permission is inherently evil and shameful.
The lesswronger mindset is that you must /update/ your beliefs about an
individual based on evidence. That means after you hear additional
information about a straight dude, you won’t continue to use your
straight-line prior. You should(swap! (*belief* 'straight-dude-g359) bayes-update new-evidence)
what possible additional information would make me decide the dickpic sender was actually an okay dude.
i….. i hate this. i hate this so much.
Thank you for your explanation. The last bit was in response to your framing of the situation as a between-group conflict and the lesswrongers taking a side. The problem is that there are ways to draw the line (hyperplane?) based on meta-level or object-level criteria, but even if you draw it right through the original culprit, you will sound like you are endorsing either sexual harassment or online hate mobs.
I understand you better now. I kind of assumed that you were a utilitarian. For a virtue or deontological ethics-ist your stance makes more sense. Or even an old-fashioned randian objectivist who thinks you forfeit your rights when you break the social contract, which I assume is an unfortunate accident.
thinking that people have a right to tell other people when they’ve been mistreated by someone isn’t incompatible with a utilitarian viewpoint. especially if one believes- as i do- that the beneficial deterrent effect of the punishment outweighs the harm caused to the dickpic sender. people are less likely to mistreat others if they know that the person they mistreat might inform other people. furthermore the dickpic sender will be less likely to act that way in the future.
i don’t think the dickpic sender “forfeited their rights”- it doesn’t remove any of his rights that people think negatively of him because of how he treats people. i’m not saying he should be killed or thrown in jail or whatever- but people he’s mistreated have a right to speak about it.
This means that dick pic sender would still deserve to have his name circulated as a terrible person if dick pic receiver had replied “what a beautiful penis you have” and then posted the screenshots by accident.
Our society with its expectations of masculinity on the other hand /rewards/ boundary-pushing when it works and punishes only when it fails.
Edit: Dick pic receiver has the right to post receipts. I am more critical of third parties; public shaming when it comes to victims posting receipts is a-ok. The victim is not the person who is punching down, the hypothetical internet person who reblogs the clear name of the guy might be.
i don’t buy this at all. i don’t buy that more masculine dudes get rewarded for sending unsolicited dickpics. i buy perhaps that more masculine dudes are more likely to get away with crossing peoples boundaries, because of the implicit threat of violence they can credibly maintain, but this idea that they’re getting rewarded for it is absurd. (as is the implication that this is unfair primarily to the less
masculine men who can’t get away with disrespecting peoples boundaries,
rather than unfair to the people the more masculine dudes get away with mistreating)
in the incredibly unlikely event of an unsolicited dickpic which was positively received (which i seriously doubt even exists), and the screenshot being posted by accident, then yes, i people who found out about that would still have the right to evaluate that action and for it to affect how they think of the person who sent the picture.
oh hey, i just saw the exchange which this whole thing is about: [link]
so just to clarify, THIS is the dude who OP and the-grey-tribe are casting as a poor gentle victim who only experienced backlash because he wasn’t masculine enough to get away with it, and had he been more “alpha” or whatever he would have been “rewarded” for disrespecting peoples boundaries:
lmaooooooooooo okay
Holy shit!
By the way, that woman’s “edits” are a thing of sublime hilarity.
I think the original argument still holds very well. When one is winning, it means the adversary is losing, and that usually kind of inevitably means one’s own side is stronger than the adversary’s in that specific battle. Sometimes people gathering together power to beat up on those who violate important rules can be useful to enforce those rules (just like cops are supposed to arrest people who do physical violence, and we don’t tell them to stop the instant they gain the upper hand), but they should never forget the simple fact that if they’re winning, they are the stronger side.
If people consistently remembered this one weird trick, it would probably help reduce toxic forms of sj by several dozen percentage points. Shifting the mindset from “I’m lashing out at the Oppressor and thus anything is justifiable” to “I’m using my contextual power to beat up on someone with less contextual power and my actions need to take that into account or otherwise I’ll just be a bully” would force people to keep in mind that with great contextual power comes great contextual responsibility and sometimes people need to even restrain themselves.
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