Clare McGlynn and Kelly Johnson: Cyberflashing: Recognising Harms, Reforming Laws (Book review)

Abstract

In 2017, Rebecca Hayes and I reviewed scholarly literature that might help us understand the contemporary phenomenon of men sending dick pics to women. There has been a lot of popular media discussion about men’s dissemination of unsolicited photographs of their own (or other men’s) penises via electronic devices. A Google search undertaken at your own risk yields “about 3,230,000,000 results” comprised of pornography, websites where you can upload your dick pics, advice on how to take a ‘good’ dick pic that women will like, and numerous articles pondering why men send dick pics to women. Given the sheer volume of this content, we were surprised to find so little academic research on the phenomenon. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that the incipient research and policy on image-based sexual abuse was focused on the distribution of sexual images of others without their permission, rather than intentionally sending one’s own genital images to non-consenting recipients (Hayes and Dragiewicz 2018).