Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?
As I sit to write this, I’m experiencing something I never anticipated in my professional life. I just wrote the phrase “Dick Pic Culture” in the headline.
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Beyond just my blog, I can’t believe I’ll be writing about a study from a respected, peer reviewed scientific journal with the words Dick Pic in the title.
When I started working with problematic sexual behavior nearly 20 years ago, I did not foresee this. Yet here I am, writing, again, about research involving young women being sent pictures of men’s penises. And just how often those pictures are sent without consent.
Enough Shock. Now the Study.
I recently came across this study, published in 2021, by researchers in the United Kingdom. It addressed the experiences of teenage girls being sent “dick pics” and it was done in a rather creative way.
The study examined a number of situations. The first was the unwanted receiving of the pictures from older men on Snapchat. Then they asked the girls (aged 11 to 18) about their experiences receiving these images from their same aged peers.
In the United Kingdom where the study took place, sending a picture of your genitalia to someone under the age of 18 is a sexual offense.
A 2018 survey in the UK of women aged 18 to 24 found that 47% of those women had received an unsolicited image of a man’s penis.
46% of those women received the image from an adult man before they were 18 years old. Therefore, nearly half of the women in that study were a victim of a criminal offense.
For this study, the authors ran focus group discussions combined with an arts-based method of social media post drawing to provide a space for the girls to share their experiences. The researchers worked with 144 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 who were all in school.
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The Results
76% of the girls in the study had received a dick pic and, for the most part, these images were not requested.
However, despite these images being unwanted, the girls did not usually report the sender either to the social medial platform or their school. They stated that it was easier to block or ignore the sender than to report them.
Additionally, 70% of the girls had been asked to send nude images of themselves. The standard manner in which this is done is by sending an unsolicited dick pic in an attempt to solicit a trade of nude images.
The researchers refer to this as a transactional dick pic. Images sent by peers are often sent to be transactional.
How Does Dick Pic Culture Reflect on the Victim?
The study’s respondents reported stigmatization if it becomes public knowledge that they received a dick pic. There is an assumption that the girl would have sent an image in return, even if they didn’t. If the trade is refused, she may be subject to the anger of the sender. Or the sender might outright lie about getting a nude image in return.
When someone that the girls thought was a friend sends an unsolicited image, the respondents reported their reaction goes from feeling disgusted, to feeling awkward around the friend to the process being normalized.
Many reported that it was more “of a big deal” when they received a dick pic from someone they thought of as a friend.
When the sender was a friend, it brought up trust issues in the friendship and awkwardness when they would see the sender as they could not unsee the images.
The authors of the study do point out that not all girls are bothered by the receiving of unsolicited sexual images. Some girls have come to associate being sent these images as a sign of desirability.
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What do the Authors Think About Dick Pic Culture?
The authors conclude that apps such as Snapchat have been integral in the increase in prevalence of unsolicited penis pictures.
In talking to the girls, they also found that they did not consider receiving these images a form of sexual harassment and, because of this, they more often than not, did not report the senders either to the app platform or to school officials.
In their conclusions, the authors suggest adopting the concept of online sexual harassment and image based sexual harassment. Doing so will help everyone involved better understand what happens when image sharing becomes a nonconsensual practice. Whether that be an unsolicited dick pic or the nonconsensual re-sharing of a consensually shared image.
A Perspective for the US
In the US, we tend to only take the sending of unsolicited sexual images seriously if the recipient of the images is a minor. This is a criminal offense.
When the recipient of the images is an adult, there appears to be little legal recourse.
This brings to mind an article recently published by the Canadian Lawyer Magazine, where Michael Spratt argues that the unsolicited dick pic should be criminalized, but with care.
Reference: Ringrose, J, Regehr, K. & Whitehead, S. (2021). Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment. Sex Roles, 85, 558-576.
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Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.
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