Dick Pics

Every online creator gets them. Dick pics arriving unsolicited, usually from anonymous accounts, at hours that feel personal even though they’re totally random. It’s the background noise of being visible on the internet—so constant it becomes routine, but strange enough to never quite feel normal.

These guys must be operating on pure magical thinking. What’s the expected outcome? That seeing their hard cock will somehow inspire reciprocation? That the photo is flirtation? That a stranger looking at an erect dick sent to her inbox is anything other than an intrusion? The logic doesn’t track.

Kelly Svirakova, who makes videos as MissesVlog, was getting enough of them—along with the sidebar stuff, the requests for nudes and used clothing, the demands she perform for invisible men—that she made a video about it. Which makes sense. Call it by what it is, put it in the light, at least name the behavior instead of quietly deleting.

For women creators, this is just weather. It’s what happens if you’re visible. Men sending them dick pics the same way they might send a message, convinced that exposure is somehow communication. That showing a stranger your erection is bold or worth doing or matters.

I’ve been online a long time and I still find it strange. Not shocking—it’s too common for that—but strange in a way I can’t quite articulate. The person sending doesn’t think there will be consequences. The person receiving finds consequences everywhere. The internet made this gap possible: you alone with your arousal, thinking about someone you’ll never meet, convinced that she should see. That it matters. That you should tell her by sending the image.

Maybe something changed when everyone got cameras.