The How, Why And What-Were-You-Thinking Of Dick Pics

What drives men to send unsolicited photographs of their genitalia to women? Is it immaturity, lack of dating etiquette or a coercion technique?

- Arnesh Ghose

When the Utsav Chakraborty story blew up on my timeline, it took a while for me to wrap my head around it. Utsav’s a senior from college and I have seen the guy around campus being inconsequential and nondescript. After college, I heard of him as the popular Twitter handle, @satanbhagat, and his provoking criticism of Chetan Bhagat (mother of ironies, anyone?), which finally led to the Mumbai Mirror coup of getting them to meet and interview each other. A few years later, Utsav had become a comedian. He started off“meh” and went on to become “woke”. Fast forward to last month and I read about Utsav the creep, the perv and the dick-pic-sendingspineless-disgusting-piece-of-shit.

Why do men send photographs of their genitalia? During sexting, it’s kinky and, most importantly, consensual. It has been asked for. And even in today’s #MeToo climate, we must remember that consensual sex and kinky indulgences of every kind is OKAY. What has never been okay is to invade somebody’s privacy without invitation. “Sliding into DMs” might be a phrase casually flung around, but in all seriousness, let’s stop with the casual obscurantism and be clear about the fact that it isn’t. Continuously pestering someone with propositions to meet or fuck is not okay. Asking for photographs of their bodies is not okay. Sending a string of photos of your genitalia is NOT OKAY.