At 45, I Received My First Dick Pic — and I’m Not Having It

Where are the protections for women in online spaces?

Ever since I began writing about vulnerable topics and expressing my creativity with nude self-portraits, I’ve experienced the same cycle of empowerment/disempowerment over and over again. The feeling of joy and fulfillment that I get from my work is beautifully overwhelming to me.

To have a photo shoot work out well and gift me with dozens of shots that give me a feeling of ownership over my body after a lifetime of feeling that it was at the mercy of other people…I have no words for that joy. To be able to speak freely about my sexual experiences, frustrations, and desires is just as ecstatic as actual sex.

And then to put that into the world by posting one of those photos on social media or publishing an essay about sex… That, to me, is a power and sovereignty I have never known.

It is the act of becoming the queen that I want to be.

And yet, each time I take action as the queen I want to be, a man will use that action as an invitation to take my power away. Most often, that has come in the form of solicitations for sex or incessant bullying (four or five full-page emails detailing why I’m a useless cunt, for instance, or DMs across platforms to make sure I know that I’m being “watched”).

Sometimes, the guy will send an email that sounds really sweet until he transitions from complimenting my work into a long sexual fantasy that he has been enjoying, featuring a wild wolf woman in a red cloak. Yes, me. And yes, he will go into great detail about all the things I do to his hard, big (it’s always big) cock.

Each time this happens, it makes me want to quit my work and go back to an anonymous desk job. I have been subjected to these violations one too many times (and one is too many), in real life and online. It does a real number on my mental health to experience those feelings of creative fulfillment and personal achievement only to have my work perverted by the entitled men who are looking to prey on women like me.

No woman deserves that.

So imagine how far I recently fell after the high of a visit with friends that was a personal and creative revelation that a man took for his own sexual gratification. I just spent three days in photographer’s heaven taking nude portraits of friends of mine and allowing them to take nude portraits of me, all of which have me so excited about where my photography career is going and with how comfortable I am becoming with my body (which is a revelation, if you know my history with body image issues).

In the days that followed, I posted two nudes on social media that my friend took of me that I absolutely love. Neither of them were taken with the intention to be sexy or provocative, but just to be me, in my own skin, without shame.

And right on schedule, I got a response from a newsletter subscriber who pasted my own portrait into the email, and then followed it with a tit-for-tat “non-sexual” (so he said) photograph exchange: a close-up of him holding his dick.

Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve received a dick pic. And the feeling it gave me was just as awful as I imagined it would be.

If you are a man and can’t imagine how a woman might feel about this kind of behavior, I will gladly tell you: It feels like shit. It is like walking out your front door for the first time in years because you’re finally ready to face your fear of the predators that lurk outside your door — and then encountering a man who immediately assaults you in your own front yard.

Do you think the metaphor is too dramatic? I don’t.

Imagine if this behavior were happening in real life (and believe me, it does). Imagine going to work, doing your job, and having a male colleague or a man who just happened to be passing by your office drop in, visit you at your desk, and scream at you for half an hour about what a cunt you are. Imagine turning in a stellar report at the end of a quarter, feeling incredibly proud of yourself, only to have one of the board members who reads the report corner you in your cubicle and whisper to you his detailed sexual fantasy about you that was inspired by the impeccable attention to detail in your report. Imagine being solicited for sex just because you showed up at work in a form-fitting outfit.

This is disgusting, abusive behavior. And for the most part, it’s also illegal.

Do you think it is any different for a woman to experience this in the cyberverse? The same power dynamics are at play. It is a sexual violation — hence why the metaphor of being assaulted in your own front yard stands.

Now imagine a stranger flashing their genitals at you in public. Again, I think most people agree that this is abusive, inappropriate behavior. And again, it’s illegal.

But guess what? It is not illegal to do this stuff to a woman online. Men can harass women online. And sexually intimidate women online. And send unsolicited dick pics to personal and professional email accounts and/or social media direct messages.

There are some exceptions here and there, depending on the state in which you live, and the state in which the perpetrator lives. And believe it or not, Texas now has the only law in the country that criminalizes dick pics (the one thing they’ve done right in the past few years). But by and large, women are mostly unprotected in online spaces.

I have no recourse here. I can’t report this man to a social media platform because he sent me his dick pic via my work email account. I can’t report him to MailChimp because they only care that I don’t violate their rules of conduct — my subscribers can do whatever they want. And I can’t report him to Gmail (his email carrier) or Zoho (mine) because they don’t seem to care what happens within private emails. If he had posted this in Google Drive or Docs, I’d be able to take action, but I can’t do anything about an email.

I wonder why there are so few protections for women in online spaces. That’s interesting, isn’t it?

And here’s another great question, brought up by a very thoughtful Twitter pal: If social media and other platforms regularly use AI to scan for photos of the naked female body in an attempt to prevent sexual content that violates their terms of use, then why (why, why, why) aren’t they also scanning for male nudity in the form of dick pics that are so ubiquitous these days?

No, seriously: Why?

I’m sure the answer to that is more than clear.

If you have come here to ask why it’s okay for me to post nude photos and then balk at receiving them, let me clear that up for you.

1. I am a photographer. This is my business, which is clearly stated to those who encounter my work.

When people opt-in (by clicking on an article, browsing my website, or following me on social media), they already know what I do and what to expect in my feeds. I am very consistent on each platform so those who follow me won’t ever be surprised by an unexpected nipple (you won’t see nudity in my newsletters, for instance). In short: Opting in to follow my work is the equivalent of consent.

2. I do not send nude photographs of myself in private messages to readers or those who follow my work who are strangers to me.

I post my work in public spaces where my followers (who have already consented to seeing this content with their opt-in) can choose whether or not they want to engage.

And if you’ve come here to argue that breasts only exist to sexually arouse men and that I have to deal with the consequences of putting those breasts in the public eye, then, honey, I only have two words for you and I’m sure you can guess what they are.

It’s true that men have every legal right to engage in this behavior, but for those who choose that path, know you are playing with fire. I have a long list of items to take up with my representatives and this is yet another. Because hell if I’m going to accept a world in which I have to open my work email and find myself staring at some stranger’s dick.

We have your phone numbers, guys. And/or your names. And/or your email addresses. And/or your geotags. And/or an actual photo of your dick.

Have you thought about that?

I’ll admit that I cried when I saw that dick in my inbox. Especially in the company of my beautiful nude portrait that was copied and pasted into the email, with the message that I inspired this “equal share.”

Maybe there is some odd truth in that — maybe there are men who are so vulnerable and repressed that seeing a woman put herself out there makes them want to meet that level of courage.

But also…that is no excuse for this kind of behavior. No excuse for sending an unsolicited dick pic. No excuse for following that by telling a long, involved story about the joys of blow jobs to a perfect stranger who is just trying to do her job.

That is not okay.

Edward Riley reminded me not to let this steal my thunder — that those of us in my circle are gods and goddesses and no one can bring us down. Demeter Delune said, “Laugh and delete.” Kathryn Dickel said, “It’s the privilege mindset of men to think that we create for their bravery, amusement, or sexual energy. We create for ourselves.”

And that’s exactly right. I create for myself. And for other women. And if there are men out there who resonate with my work and enjoy it, I’m thrilled to have them along for the ride.

But I don’t accept dicks in my inbox or anywhere else they haven’t been invited, no matter how “inspired” someone feels. If I didn’t ask to see it, keep it in your pants.

And get a new hobby, because someday, this is going to be illegal everywhere, as it should be, and you’re going to find that you suddenly have a whole lot of time on your hands…

© Yael Wolfe 2021

Please read my friend Demeter Delune’s experience with this:

https://readmedium.com/stop-sending-unsolicited-dick-pics-and-videos-please-7be429f16ea7

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