I’ve Never Sent A Dick Pic

So can you explain to me why you do?

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

“How did we meet? Oh, it’s such a charming story. I was using a dating app, he sent me a couple of meaningless messages, then when I didn’t respond to them, he sent me a picture of his penis — mostly erect, of course — and I knew he was the one.”

A question for my fellow men: do you think any woman anywhere is telling this story?

So why is it that whenever I talk to women friends and the conversation gets round to dating apps, their number one complaint is the sheer number of dick pics they get? (Number two is often wondering why so many men fill their profiles with pictures of them holding fish, but we’ll leave discussion of that to statisticians who want to explore if fishermen are just more likely to be single)

Now, I’ve never sent — nor have I ever been sent — pictures of genitalia on a dating app, so I have two questions to ask of any men reading this:

Why are you doing this? and Can you please stop it?

There’s an obvious and unpleasant answer to the question of why, of course. A lot of men aren’t doing this out of any desire for connection but out of contempt, anger and hatred. It’s a crude attempt to shock directed at someone who patriarchy and misogyny has convinced him isn’t a real person at all, just…