Let’s talk about explicit photos for a moment, shall we? The topic is on my mind again because I had a bit of an episode this morning in that respect, and I’m still somewhat traumatized. Perhaps sharing can help.
This story starts like many others involving the pursuit of romance. I met a man, in this case via Tinder (which I’m on the brink of quitting). He’s good-looking, to the point and expressed interest in taking me out. So I took the risk and gave him my digits. By now it’s probably clear that I like to get off of an app as soon as possible and into real life—and, I guess, pretend to take more of a 20th century approach as opposed to an entirely digital 21st century one.
The guy in question, in the week that he’s had my number, has behaved perfectly respectably. Once he asked if I was in Virginia or D.C. to gauge whether we were geographically close enough to have a date. We weren’t. A few other times he reached out with usual questions about the day, how it was going for me and what I was doing. Fine, fine, fine.
Then, this morning I rushed to the gym early to get in a workout before a full plate of deadlines and activities. Getting in cardio prior to 7 a.m. is scary enough. But then I went inside my apartment post-workout and hopped in the shower. By the time I was out and checking my iPhone there was quite a surprise:
A no-frills. uncensored, extremely graphic naked picture.
The culprit, as must be obvious, was the guy from Tinder.
No warning. No explanation (unless a caption of “Good morning” is more explanation than I’m realizing). Not as a result of a conversation or a request or him inquiring if I wanted something like that from him in my inbox. Just this man’s most private of private parts at full salute.
I screamed. I threw the phone down onto the couch and ignored any sort of buzzing for an hour for fear he’d send more like it.
Where, in God’s name, did this come from? We haven’t met yet. I couldn’t pick this man out of a line up yet he was sending me a really lewd and not the least bit sexy image.
This crosses a line. Asking me for an unclothed image crosses a line, and this might be worse, because he just went ahead and did it. I can’t unsee what’s been sent.
I can only assume the dick pic was meant for me and, though, his face isn’t in the shot, that it’s him. If not, well, that’s a whole different disturbing problem and I’m getting on a call with AT&T and Apple stat to prevent any further junk photos (literally and figuratively) from magically appearing on my screen.
What I don’t get is what Tinder guy thought the morning wood photo would accomplish. Was I supposed to be super turned on? Was I supposed to tell him how pretty his member was? P.S. gentlemen, there are no pretty male members in the world; there are only slightly less hideous versions of a body part that pales in comparison to anything a lady has in her arsenal. That’s just a fact. And science.
Or I guess really his hope was that his random, out-of-context, unsolicited nude photo would inspire me to do the same. I’d send him a racy boob shot, let’s say, and it would be on, a sort of sexting starting gun firing off.
For the record, I did none of these things. I don’t know this guy. I didn’t ask to know him in that way. Having such a vivid glimpse into what a male has going on down under is borderline sexual harassment. It’s decidedly not hot or inspiring.
Baffled and not super thrilled I continued to ignore the dirty photo for a while, going on with my day. It almost surprised me that he didn’t follow up, offer a good ole, “You like that, don’t you?” or something just as ridiculous and untrue in which he bragged about something I found gross. However he left it at the one shot.
Finally I just texted back, “Wow. That is very explicit.”
It did not encapsulate, in any way, how I felt and soon I regretted that. At the same time, I didn’t want to lecture him via text about the etiquette of dick pics. I’ll leave that to Dan Savage in the brilliant “Savage Love.” Certainly this was a savage act afterall.
In the meantime, when friends ask what could possibly be bad about being single and on the prowl, maybe I’ll thrust this photo in their face and catch them as off-guard as this gent caught me. Luckily he was the one with his pants down, not me.
–Dena