in my quest to understand this baffling phenomeon, i've turned to science and lo and behold, there was a study on this!

"I’ll Show You Mine so You’ll Show Me Yours: Motivations and Personality Variables in Photographic Exhibitionism"

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https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1639036 https://twitter.com/__justplaying/status/1302720475005628416

there were a number of popular theories floated in the replies: exhibitionism, the fact that it seems to work a small number of times, it's a power play and so on.

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but what does Science says about it all?

let's dive into the paper!

it starts with this:

"Modern digital technologies have allowed the phallus to continue to stand in for the man in more realistic ways than ever before: Men are now able to showcase their own genitalia."

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i mean,,,,sure,,

the paper first asks whether the act of sending dick pics is a form of sexting or sexual harrassment: the answer, unsurprisingly is that it can be both, but it's interested exploring exploring the latter, under which unsolicited dick pics fall under.

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the paper notes that "some unsolicited dick pics are, in fact, welcome; Tziallas (2015) found that many gay men using dating apps such as Grindr reported positive reactions to unsolicited dick pics", however, it focuses and studies "men who exclusively have sex with women".

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they are quick to point out though that

"female reactions to receiving unsolicited dick pics tend not to be so positive, with women reporting feelings of shame, harassment, objectification, anger, and disgust"

wow, i'm 0% surprised.

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the sheer prevalence of sending dick pics did surprise me a bit, though

"a study conducted in 2017 found that as many as 27% of millennial men have sent a dick pic at least once (YouGov, 2017)"

more than one in four!

here's the article on this https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2017/10/09/53-millennial-women-have-received-dick-pic

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"24% have done so without being asked", says YouGov, but "not all "dick pics" are unsolicited – 34% of millennial men have been asked by a woman to send one" — the latter falls under sexting per the paper.

if you ask the women though, the numbers are a lot more damning.

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"over half of millennial women (53%) have received" a dick pic, and out of these "roughly 3 in 4 millennial women (78%)" have received at at least one *unsolicited* dick pic, which is, yeah, not great!

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indeed, "more young women responded that they’d received an unwanted "dick pic" than had received one because they asked for it (69%)."

so yeah we're not off to a great start.

let's get back to the paper, though.

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the paper floats a number of theories which i'll skip, because we'll get the answers to them anyways and people already floated most of them in the replies.

what's more interesting is based on them, what kind of questions they asked from the 1087 participants.

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"A questionnaire developed for this purpose inquires into potential motivations such as flirtation, transaction, power and control, misogyny, unresolved childhood conflict, and personal sexual satisfaction."

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"Further, an additional questionnaire investigated the desired reaction (fear, arousal, anger, etc.) that senders hope to provoke in their recipient(s)."

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"Participants were also asked to report on any previous nontechnologically mediated exhibitionist behavior and to complete surveys that measure narcissism, erotophilia-erotophobia, and sexism."

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the correlation data is not *that* interesting so if you want to read that, read the paper.

what i was interested in is the motivation, which were organized into six categories.

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"Transactional mindset, partner hunting, unresolved childhood conflict, misogyny, sexual or personal gratification, and power and control."

so which one was the most prevalent?

*drumroll*

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"the transactional mindset was the most highly endorsed motivation for sending genital images, with an average of 43.6% of senders endorsing the items in this category."

i'll admit i was at least a bit surprised by this.

breaking it down,

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"the most popular endorsement was “I have sent dick pics hoping to receive sexy pictures in return” followed by “I have sent dick pics hoping that the person will want to have sex with me”. "

the most prevalent thing is not exhibitionism but, ah, the simple things.

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"The second most frequently reported motivational category was partner hunting, with an average of 32.5% of senders endorsing each item in this category."

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"Within the partner hunting motive, the most popular validations included “I have sent dick pics in the hopes of turning someone on” and “I have sent dick pics to let someone know I have a sexual interest in them”."

once again, it's the simple things!

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the combination of these two categories comes out at 77% (when you round the two categories to the nearest integer).

so the overwhelming majority of men send unsolicited dick pics because of a variation of "i like/want this girl".

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the rest of the results are:

"Sexual/Personal gratification" - 18%
"Power and control" - 9%
"Unresolved childhood conflict" - 6%
"Misogyny" - 6%

this table has a nice overview of all the reasons.

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and what do men hope to get out of sending unsolicited dick pics?

“I hoped to make the person who receivedmy dick pic feel … ”

"Sexual excitement" - 82.4%
"Attractive" - 50.1%
"Valued" - 22%
"Shock" - 16.8%
"Fear" - 14.5%

you can see it all in the table below.

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truly i'd almost call this wholesome if it wouldn't be for the fact that this is still sexual harrassment and that most women really don't seem to appreciate it (see earlier in this thread).

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indeed, the authors of the paper note, that "these findings suggest positive intentions on the part of the image senders, these motivations fail to acknowledge the inherent issue of consent which is violated by the sending of unsolicited dick pics"

which is a good summary.

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"It is possible that this failure to acknowledge the issue of consent is related to male sexual over-perception bias; that is, men may fail to acknowledge that this is an issue because they themselves would appreciate reception of such images even when not solicited."

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"This [...] may be related to men’s greater response to visual sexual stimuli, such that men may be more aroused by unsolicited images & sexual overperception bias leads them to erroneously believe that women will be similarly aroused by such images, regardless of consent."

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"It is also possible that men who send dick pics are intentionally violating the consent of their recipients. [...] significant minority of men reported sending dick pics w/the intention of eliciting negative emotions in the recipients, primarily shock, fear, and disgust."

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"Further, approximately one quarter of unsolicited image senders reported that they would rather receive a positive response to a dick pic than a negative response."

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"These findings corroborate feminist theoretical works suggesting that unsolicited genital images can be construed as a form of sexual harassment and intended to harm or negatively affect women."

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"This suggests that the failure to acknowledge the issues of consent inherent in the sending of unsolicited dick pics is not always unintentional, and that violating consent may in fact serve the sender sexually or otherwise."

not a great look!

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finally, men who sent unsolicited dick pics "demonstrated higher levels of narcissism and endorsed both ambivalent and hostile sexism" compared to the ones who didn't; which is, given studies on related topics, "unsurprising".

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the researches do note that "clearly though, there is a need for additional research to further examine this relationship."

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"Men who sent unsolicited dick pics also demonstrated higher levels of both ambivalent and hostile sexism, further supporting [...] sexist motivations [...]. The significance of the relationship between sexism and unsolicited image sending aligns with previous research"

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"Interestingly, no significant group differences in exhibitionist tendencies between senders and non-senders were found, despite our hypotheses. [...] may suggest that there is little overlap between individuals who display exhibitionist tendencies online versus offline."

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now, the caveats.

"Our data was collected from a self-selected convenience
sample limited to heterosexual men; thus, the results may not
be generalizable to broader populations."

so yeah this is primarily heterosexual men from the pools the researcher used.

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that pool being "a sizable Western Canadian university [...] adverts placed in local businesses, coffee shops, and universities. Participants were also recruited via snowball sampling through various social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter."

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but!

"Most of our sample (84%), however, was gathered through Mechanical Turk, where participants were awarded 25 cents CAD for their participation."

i do think their findings are good and valid but indeed, further research is very much welcome.

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there's a lot more about the limitations in the paper, including, how it excludes everyone who's not a heterosexual man, how the design could have been confusing at times, how things could have been piloted and so on, check the paper for these.

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indeed, "Despite these limitations, the results of the study
provide a framework for understanding the phenomenon of
the dick pic. The large sample size and heterogeneity of the
sample improve the generalizability of the current findings %

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% and the anonymity afforded through online data collection
likely minimized social desirability concerns"

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and then they go into how this could be researched more, again, check the paper for that stuff.

so, what have we learned?

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"It was established that men primarily sent unsolicited images as a strategy with the hopes of receiving either similar images or sexual interactions in return."

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"A significant minority of men who send dick pics reported engaging in this behavior for their own sexual or personal satisfaction, while relatively few reported doing so for childhood conflict, misogynistic, or controlling reasons."

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"By sending unsolicited genital images, most men hoped to elicit sexual arousal in the recipient(s), though a minority hoped to elicit negative feelings. In general, men who sent dick pics reported higher levels of narcissism as well as ambivalent and hostile sexism."

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"These results provide evidence to suggest that while unsolicited dick pic sending is motivated by sexist and misogynistic ideologies in some men, the majority do not intend to cause harm or negative psychological outcomes."

intent and impact are are not the same, though.

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nevertheless, "the unsolicited dick pic phenomenon cannot be viewed solely as a sexist campaign, nor as a positive outlet for sexuality; instead, cases must be considered on an individual basis"

nuance ruins the day again!!

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"Given the disparate theoretical frameworks underpinning
this study–feminist conceptualization of the dick pic as
a hostile cultural product & the individualistic sexting/
deviance discourse–it is perhaps unsurprising that both
perspectives were represented in our results."

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"The present research bridges the gap between these frameworks by demonstrating that an overlap exists between the two conceptualizations; thus, future research must work to pry apart the specific contributions of each framework."

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"We find it likely that the apparent normalization of this phenomenon is the piece that ties the two frameworks together; that is, though
most men are not consciously motivated by sexism or hostility, they are contributing to these forces %

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% (intentionally or unintentionally) by participating in the sending of unsolicited genital images for reasons which inhere in the individual but are accepted, to some degree, by the contemporary milieu."

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"Further critical consideration of the dick pic phenomenon, particularly with regard to recipient experiences, remains necessary."

go forth and do more science!

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"The dick pic lies at the intersection of the zeitgeists of consent, gender, sexuality, and technology & further research on the subject could provide insights into myriad contemporary topics such as online sexual harassment, online dating culture & gender relations"

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and that's the gist of the paper in 53 easy tweets.

one thing this study did not study (pun intended) is what responses the participants got from women; for that we have some data from YouGov above (again, Not Great!).

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tl;didn't read the thread: yes i get it, it seems like a good idea for a lot of men and even *feels* benevolent — and anecdotally it does seem to work at times (not very often, though) — by far and large women are not amused nor aroused and would rather you didn't do it.

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