Sending dick pics: A means to enforce receiver submission

The subtle and overt power play of a full-frontal image

There’s nothing quite like the anxiety and revulsion that swims to the back of your throat when receiving and unknowingly opening a nude photo.

You stare. It seems to stare back. You feel bare and yet not. Exposed and assaulted yet nothing physical has occurred. They can trigger trauma and distress. It’s a quick glance and yet enough to produce a fight, flight, or freeze response from the viewer. It feels little different from a penis-owner walking up to you and exposing themself in public (which yes, has happened to me).

The notorious dick pic is context specific — sometimes sent consensually within the context of a preexisting relationship with preexisting consent, conversation, and established trust — other times, between strangers.

In the instance of the latter it feels like a threat warranting a reaction of what are you planning to do with that?

In many cases, the photo is an implicit warning. A bomb ready to detonate.

Without warning, without notice, sending dick pics is a form of assault and sexual violence. It is an intrusion, a stripping of privacy of boundaries.

Michaelangelo’s Statue of David

---

Research published in 2016 demonstrates that these instances of performance — exposing one’s full-frontal, snapping a photo (or a few), and sending them to a stranger(s) — is often done as a power play. The sender positions themself as the dominant figure while the receiver is sentenced to submission. Their space, sense of security, and personal integrity have been breached by an (often unknown) external source.

Unsolicited picture sharing is a way for the sender is assert control, intending to intimidate or dominant the recipient.

And while any body can be the recipient of these pictures, this is typically enacted against female bodied individuals as male bodies often believe they are entitled to sex, for this is what they have been taught subtly and overtly.

In this context, unveiling oneself in a virtual space — where identity, the body, and socioeconomic status is remixed, obscured, or obsolete — concepts of legality and morality falter amongst senders. Rules of decorum become less clear and actions are done without thought or consideration of others.