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.”
I think part of why she didn’t seen men fighting some of the shitty stuff online is due to the echochamber effect of those communities. Any resistance is downvoted, dogpiled with hateful comments, and maybe even removed by a biased mod. A lot of the good men who would defend in those comments don’t even browse those specific forums because of how toxic and shitty they can be.
The good men aren’t there and don’t even know what’s going on. I’ve used Reddit and Lemmy but have blocked the NSFW/NSFL stuff. There is no opportunity to denounce or report because I remain deliberately blissfully ignorant.
Also why would I ever recognize a space like that and not run away. “Calling out” is still participation, and why would I want to participate (incl. from the legal perspective). I have the moral obligation to do that because…I am man? As if being a man was being part of a club.
I have the moral obligation to do that because…I am man? As if being a man was being part of a club.
They explicitly don’t want us non-shitty men there to harsh their vibe and will refuse to listen, so yeah, what the fuck are we supposed to do?
If I see it happening IRL I shut it down and use my 6’4" powers to look down at whoever’s doing it and give them a good scare, but I’m not gonna go to the fucking incel forums and make my day worse for no goddamn reason
Right. In real life you can look someone in the eye and see some semblance of humanity (or at least fear). Online, it doesn’t matter what you say or how you’re perceived, because people get to hide in their perceived anonymity. And you never know when some psychopath with no morals or sense of decency is going to have you swatted.
I believe we (as in, people) all have a responsibility to hold each other accountable. But we can also only do so much, and inserting yourself into a toxic community founded for the sole goal of normalizing that toxicity in some misguided attempt to reform such people is beyond what any one person can be expected to engage with.
Precisely. It’s completely different from doing that in your group of friends, where confrontation is a way to establish common values, and in an internet cesspool where anyway I am going to be moderated out.
Just yesterday I was reading a great article about how social medias compare to TV when it comes to feeling part of a group. “Calling out” people in such places wouldn’t be anything else that virtue signaling (to yourself) to reaffirm your own identity (I stand up to sexism), and at the same time allow those people to reaffirm themselves (I get confronted because I am speaking truth).
Basically it would be at most a performance.
I believe we (as in, people) all have a responsibility to hold each other accountable. But we can also only do so much, and inserting yourself into a toxic community …
Me too, both. That we have responsibility for others and that we are not obliged to put ourselves at harms risk.
But this is a particularly shitty, maybe wicked problem. There are three groups: A bullies B, and C could stop A, but isn’t bothered by anyone. Now, is C obliged to pick a fight with A, or is B just in bad luck to be born as a B?
I think here, it is very easy to have strong opinions, while very hard to formulate a concise moral argument. Things get muddier/harder the more we factor reality in.
What’s the point of wrestling with a pig? You both get muddy, and the pig likes it.
Maybe it’s because I grew up with the old, “mean” internet, but my response to communities full of trash is to leave them alone and let the blind lead the blind. Seriously, what the hell is arguing with them going to do? They expect to be challenged, they will not see reason, they will not suffer to be helped, and you are not going to be the person who changes that.
You’re absolutely right, but haven’t I read that they’re learning to lie about their presence in the manophere? So if it’s, say 10% who actively think and act that way, plus 15% passively subject themselves to it without going all in, but who aren’t really judging, that’s 1/4 guys who I wouldn’t risk a relationship with, many of whom are actively hiding their positions. I can see why it wouldn’t be worth it to date any man. Especially for someone with her experiences.
And my IRL impression is that it’s way more guys than 15% who intentionally expose themselves to it, and slightly more than 10% who fully buy into the misogyny.
I agree, and in my opinion, women and partners in general need to get better at leaving piece of shit men (or shitty partners in general). Many of them keep acting like this cause they get away with it after some small talk and a nice dinner just to be a piece of shit again next week. I’ve known girls who date men who genuinely claim that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote and all i can think is “why is this girl staying with someone who hates them?”
These women don’t leave because these men are narcissistic assholes who have destroyed their self-esteem and made them think they are worthless and won’t find anything better and can’t live on their own.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And you can (continue to) shut down the more “minor” conversational shit that normalizes and perpetuates that mindset.
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.”
Instagrams algorithm purposely pits extreme opposing view points against each other to drive engagement via hate comments to sell enraged consumers knickknacks and graphic T-shirts.
Christian vs atheist
Red vs blue
Abortion vs choice
Even vegan vs carnivore
The faster we abandon social media sites the better.
I explicitly stay away from such groups. I call it out in person, and politely check my friends when they say something that they might not realize is harmful, exactly the same way I expect them to check me, but that’s just it. That kind of discourse isn’t welcome in these groups because they were created with one explicit purpose: to justify and normalize the absolute shittiest behavioursof the most sexiest of male culture.
She’s right, it isn’t a small amount of men. But it’s a supermajority in certain circles, and a tiny, neglible minority in others. She, unfortunately, exposed herself to the worst of men enmasse. We should instead go to those latter circles, and avoid/ostracize those former circles, until they realize if their only goal is sex, they’ll have to figure out how to be a decent person first. And men, choose to be better.
Guys seem to like going into a game together and fighting against overwhelming odds, working together to shoot down the enemy. Even if they “die” several times.
Maybe it would be interesting to get together and make a raid/foray into one of these manosphere forums, supporting each other’s arguments and shooting down sexist crap.
Several studies also describe the backfire effect, I.e., people getting more entrenched in their position when confronted with opposing arguments. I doubt I can ever succeed where a decade+ of education system failed.
By yourself probably not. But a battalion of opposing arguments could possibly turn the tide. These guys have already demonstrated how susceptible they are to peer pressure, after all. And they’re not all online at once, so if they’re suddenly in the minority in their usually toxic forum…
We should weaponize bots to do this. With AI it doesn’t even need to be real people anymore.
They’re using them against us and it’s long past time we responded in kind.
Then good news! There are people doing this. I’m in a discord where some people work on a bot that basically calls out that stuff on reddit. Making the bot is straightforward, the problem is it keeps getting banned for arguing. The hardest part is keeping the reddit account alive.
Any decent man who has spent enough time in locker rooms understands that ~30% of men are shitty people and of those, somewhere around half are probably violent.
Once you have a daughter or put youraself in womens shoes, you realize how terrifying those odds are for women trying to navigate this world.
This is why when my daughter announced she was gay, I was absolutely thrilled. She gets to go on this new journey with the part of humanity that 1) can’t cause a teen pregnancy and 2) much less abusive
Though, do be careful because there are abusive same-sex relationships and sometimes it’s even harder to get away because the people around you are telling you “but women can’t be abusers!”
OMG I’ve witnessed so many abusive lesbian relationships. Women can be straight up psychos too, and are often a lot more calculated about it.
Yeah, look at Facebook when there’s news about some 13+ male kid who got raped by a woman. You’ll get grown men saying how “lucky” that kid was, and that they wish the same had happened to them at his age.
But hey, other way around it’s also often shit like “look at her clothes, she was asking for it, can’t be surprised”.
The study that statistic comes from is seriously methodologically flawed.
The statistic is that lesbians are more likely to have experienced abuse in previous heterosexual relationships. These are lifetime prevalence rates.
I can’t be bothered to read the paper, but here are some evergreens that make this result hard to interpret:
- The sample includes women from all ages and boomer Karens would not report abuse
- On the other hand, being bi or lesbian has only been accepted by society since the last 10-20 years. Don’t believe me? Just watch some 90s sitcom like Friends.
- Being bi or lesbian still comes together with a special type of discrimination that a straight woman most likely will never experience; hence, straight women are potentially less sensitized to abuse / might have a different bar for what they consider abuse
- Putting together these very different groups of people with very different experiences on what is “normal” will result in them having a very different sensitivity towards what they would consider abuse
- In other words a young, bi/lesbian woman is probably more likely to report abuse than an old straight woman, an old lesbian woman who is just happy might never engage with researchers because of the past societal stigma that makes her keep her life private
Of course we don’t know any of that, but these psychological studies are difficult to conduct because in theory you’d have to account for these effects and in practice that might be impossible. But again, I haven’t bothered to read the whole thing just to prove a point.
This is 100% correct. I have 4 daughters myself and an amazing wife. I see it almost daily. In the current landscape, it’s even harder. My older female family members don’t even care. They “got theirs” and could give a shit about women growing up in this world.
I will always defend women, and I patiently wait for the day a woman in my presence gets disrespected by some Chad, Andrew Tate loving motherfucker.
I’m here for all my human sisters, as we should all be equal on this planet. Fuck these men with no morals and no human equality compass. Scared of something they don’t understand or what incels tell them to act like. Its madness and makes me sick.
God I hate that you are right. I only have like one male friend because I legit had to distance myself from ao many other male friends who were just horrible people and I couldn’t stand to listen to them anymore.
Similar experience. Had a best friend who kept saying more and more misogynistic bs. After he said: “I could rape you, yoo know. And you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”
Over time, I made a munch of male friends who are awesome. Nothing beats binge watching the Owlhouse with the bro’s. Or a drunk pillow fight. Or a boat trip. They are fun. One friend is the kindest, humblest dude I ever met. I view him as a role model if anything. I’m also friends with a war veteran, and he is a kind guy who loves to train dogs and people.
It’s hard to find these people though. Most men don’t want friendships with women. They just fuckzone em.
What places do you go? My pool is super chill, I have seen all kind of uplifting moments. Maybe certain gyms have a selection bias? I don’t know.
I was thinking high school locker room when I read it. Cause it fit my experience there.
Oh, I guess different school systems, so that didn’t even come to mind to me. At least in my country high school is from 15 to 19, I think lots of people thankfully mature and change after teenage years.
That just seems… Insane? My experience certainly doesn’t reflect this. But I never do averages based on a sample size of one.
My experience certainly does.
I’ve worked with some really great people. But maybe 1 in 5 or so was a loudmouthed shitbag, and when you called them on being shitty, they either threatened you, or acted like it was all a joke or a big misunderstanding, and you were at fault for being upset, etc. I can’t guarantee that the shitty people I’ve known have harassed women, but the probability seems high.
r/FemaleDatingStrategy is/was a subreddit as well (seems inactive since 2023), it was basically the same as r/theredpill, just for women.
Weird that this is getting downvoted, but nobody is elaborating why, just downvoting it and moving on.
Because the sort of people who would downvote that, have learned to avoid trying to get into these conversations.
People would likely be downvoting because if we’re having a conversation about group A doing Z bad thing to group B, changing the conversation to “well group B does Y bad thing to group A” is generally seen as a not cool thing to do.
The problem for me now is, someone is going to come and try fighting me over how men can be, and are, victimized. I know that. Anyone with a brain knows that. Men need more support than they’re getting, also, and toxic masculinity (ironically, the same kind you can find in the Man-o-Sphere) is so, so mean to men, telling them to walk it off, to suck it up… I can’t tell you how much work I’ve had to do to help deprogram the fiance, who spent 20 years in the Army… But that wasn’t the discussion. It’s changing the topic.
You’re not allowed to talk about any problems women face, without someone saying, “but men have problems, too,” and then getting mad at you for being a man-hater if you don’t immediately drop the thing you were talking about to discuss the problems men face. Which is such a shame, because it solves neither problem, and just serves to piss people off.
So now that I’ve engaged you, and said the thing those people weren’t saying, someone (possibly multiple someones) are going to try and fight me. I’m going to try and ignore them, but I have ADHD, so we’ll see what happens.
I read through their new posts and “strategies” frequently, mostly out of a sort of morbid fascination, but also a desire to protect myself from men.
Sound advice, it’s useful to recognize the bullshit lingo & rhetoric that’s all a part of these idiotic schemes (see: “Pickup Artists”). I realized that one of my acquaintances had started slipping those catchphrases into convos years ago, and it caught me off guard. They hadn’t seemed like much of an asshole before, but it raised my hackles knowing that they weren’t just reviewing the media, but integrating it into their personality/beliefs without any sort of filter.
“beta males”
Just keep in mind that the whole alpha/beta/etc taxonomy is a myth created by the misogynists.
I’m a big man with a gravelly voice and a shaved head. Bikers always give me the nod. I doubt if anyone would call me a beta (not that I care) but I’m fully bought into not being a shit towards women. So associate with whoever you want to, but don’t assume from appearance or behavior that only one certain type of man is less toxic. It’s not that simple.
Honestly knowing what I know about guys, I wouldn’t date them either if I was a chick.
beautiful quote, saved…saved to my wank bank! had you going there for like 7 periods! I need to share this on twitter
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.
I suspect there is some amount of survivorship bias type thing going on here. The type of men to hang out in such places are the type that enjoy it, and as such would never call out such behavior. The men that don’t enjoy such will tend not to come across such content in the first place.
So the first group just doesn’t care, the second doesn’t see it in the first place.
There is also probably some degree of the second group of men acknowledging that trying to call out such behavior won’t go very far. If you said “hey don’t share this woman’s pics” on 4chan, you’re going to immediately get laughed at, ignored, and probably called a bunch of slurs. And then they’ll keep on doing it because you told them not to. And that’s in no small part because these places are puedo anonymous.
Men can’t get away with such behavior as easily outside of the internet. Calling them out in real life is far more likely to go somewhere. However ther are caveats. Again comes the survivorship bias thing I mentioned. But worse, if done in real life and calling out that behavior backfires, it becomes a teaching moment. “Don’t tell other men to behave decent or they’ll ostracize and harass you”.
It’s a fucked up situation all around.
Let’s not forget that the people that call out said behavior get banned and their comments deleted… you can’t authentically claim nobody calls them out because you don’t actually know if anyone is or not… because ban.
I’ve called these assholes out on reddit to in the past. My reward was not only getting banned from their sub, but also getting auto-banned from a bunch of unrelated mainstream and progressive subs.
The idea that we can just go in and win an argument with these clowns is incredibly naive. I get the sense that the author didn’t actually try to do this herself. Social media is specifically built to push people into impenetrable bubbles because the algorithms intentionally favor combative tribalism, which drives up engagement.
But social media is only part of the problem. We have bigger issues related to how we think about men, and how we raise boys, that drive them into this mentality in the first place. Toxic masculinity is not new, it’s just been spread rapidly by technology.
I think so to. I’ve seen a lot of pornography and never encountered a community like that. I think the vast majority of dudes are just skimming the surface and never get into communities about it. Most of the guys i know would think doing so was weird. I had a couple dudes try to show me pictures their girlfriends sent them in the past but I did call them out for that.
I think the vast majority of dudes are just skimming the surface and never get into communities about it.
I’ve come across them. But only on 4chan, which there is fuckall anyone can do about, short of breaking into their site.
Most of the guys i know would think doing so was weird.
I would hope the same of my friend group. I’ve tossed a lot of friendships in the trash because of their behavior. So those that remain are hopefully those that are actually good.
An apropos of that. I’m Chinese/Viet half-and-half and was born in the UK. I have friends in the UK that are half-Chinese and half-British (white/caucasian). I had no idea that there were so many “half-Chinese” specific groups online.
Also, I can’t remember but there was some business about having a Chinese dad was better than a Chinese mom (I could have them switched). However, it’s mainly boys/men with this problem and they’re having issues dating or with school and everything and blame it all on their Chinese parent. My friend tries to chime in to talk some sense into them but the self-victimization is really strong and he gets pushed out.
However, it’s mainly boys/men with this problem and they’re having issues dating or with school and everything and blame it all on their Chinese parent.
Yeah that touches on a related problem, the fact that we’ve designed society to be anti-social.
- You can’t easily hang out with friends, because they’re half way across the city/state/etc.
- Nobody has consistent free time due to the enormous energy and time requirements for a financially stable life if you can even have one.
- There are no third places to meet people
- Cars divide everything with highways, busy roads, and slow traffic.
It’s incredibly hard to have a social life, and as a result people lash out. And they tend not to care about if the thing they lash out against is the correct thing to lash out against.
And it’s a self feeding cycle. Because men tend to lash out in the form of right wing populism, and any woman who knows anything will steer clear of that nonsense. So it feeds into itself.
In your case it’s self hatred racism, but it’s driven by the same forces.
- Cars divide everything with highways, busy roads, and slow traffic.
I’m glad you pointed this out. I realized how isolating cars are after moving to a walkable neighborhood. I’m convinced walkable neighborhoods foster community.
Asian Mom White Dad is more likely to be seen as fetishized, or in a monetary relationship, especially if the man is older than the woman. White Mom Asian Dad is seen as a sign the man is rich or success to pull a white woman, especially if she is younger.
There are asymmetries like that in marriages between members of many groups. For example, Arab Dad, Anglo Mom is far more common than vice-versa. Same with Black American Dad, Asian Mom. And yeah, how those relationships are viewed includes a large measure of internalized colonialist grovelling.
Davies was contacted by seven men over seven days who had all been scammed or catfished by seven different fake accounts that were using her images. She wrote an Instagram post to warn others and a BBC journalist got in touch, leading to her first documentary When Nudes Are Stolen. This was life-changing. “It was the first time that I had sat down with campaigners and experts who laid all those images out and said that what happened to me wasn’t OK,” she says. “No one had ever said that before. No one had ever said: ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ It was such a moment for me. It lifted the weight off my shoulders.”
Good Lord, that’s depressing. When people take advantage of you, it’s not your fault. What is this world doing to people?
