Unsolicited d*ck pics

On my 14th birthday some guy added me on snap chat and proceeded to send me a dick pic with a happy birthday text written above. Obviously I found it strange but at the time my friends and I just laughed about it. For something like that to be perceived as funny just shows the complete normality of it, which must stop.

I feel that when you start using social media as a kid you feel independent and free but at the same time you so quickly lose control. I remember people starting to post pictures of me or send them on snapchat even before I had social media myself. They weren’t compromising photos and so it was not done with intentional malice but I remember getting extreme anxiety about the lack of control that I had over the situation. I wouldn’t have posted or sent those photos. When I asked for an instagram post to be taken down (just the photo of me) they refused as they didn’t want to loose the likes etc that they had on that post. I think people underestimate the impact of the anxiety on young people of using social media and having an online presence.

A friend of mine sent a nude to a friends sister (older). She then took a picture of it and put it on her story. Around 100 people saw it before she took it down. He then got major anxiety and struggled with friends at school. All due to sending a stupid picture online. Word spread around school and before long everyone knew.

I saw a pornographic image online when I was only 10 and I think this was quite common for people my age, and only looking back on it now I realise how young I was. I was told about it by a friend at school and I searched it up on the internet. I found it really odd but it seemed normal because my friends showed me.

when I was 16 I was manipulated into sending nudes to a 21 year old man I had met through discord. At the time I didn’t understand that it was manipulation, he was threatening suicide if I didn’t. I felt so much shame around it that I felt as though I couldn’t speak to anyone about it, I called a suicide hotline on his behalf and the kind woman helped me understand that it wasn’t my fault or responsibility. I have friends that have also dealt with suicide threat manipulation and I think it’s especially effective online when you have no idea what is happening to that person in real life.

When my friends and I were around 13 we started receiving unsolicited dick pics randomly from both random people and people we knew. We used to sit around and laugh at this, finding what we had been sent funny. Recently I started reflecting on how weird this was, not only at the age of 13 but in general. It was so normalised within my social group and no one ever made a fuss or thought to report these unwanted images. I didn't want my mum to ban me from social media so it was easier not to tell anyone.

Nancy

Thank you for starting this „trend“: I was taped when I was 18 after repeatedly saying no to the guy… ever though I said no, he continued going multiple times… I was only 18 and it was the 2nd time I have had sex. I am still unsure of how people will treat me and cannot open up completely.

When I was around 13 years old the ‘Send Nudes’ craze began in my year group. It became the norm that girls phones would be overloaded with nightly messages from various boys in my year asking what underwear they were wearing, complimenting the way they looked around school and eventually inflating my ego so much that I felt like I owed them photos of me in my underwear. It was constant. Every evening, multiple different guys asking the same things.

Lucy

I first downloaded Instagram at 11 years old, we would chat to strangers online, post whatever we felt like, it was such an exciting time. I would often chat to a boy online called "Jake" who was American and 14 years old. I later found out he was 45 a woman and chatting to more than half the boys and girls in my class... Halfway through the school year our grade was told we had a "surprise" meeting in the auditorium. Our head of maths was holding this meeting. She was a loud and Strict American woman, She had the projector on with images of all of the grades social media profiles, mine included. We sat down shocked and silent. She then explained that she had made a fake profile "Jake" a 14 year old boy who liked to skateboard. Oops! She went through everyone who had accepted Jakes follow request on instagram the chats we had with him and all the information we had shared. She showed us from this information she knew where we lived and how to groom us online. We sat in this auditorium stunned and embarrassed. Although I don't know how ethical this whole project was this was over a decade ago and I still remember it to this day.

Sara

I watched porn for the first time at 12 years old. It was at a sleepover with both boys and girls there. One of the boys who had watched it before suggested we should all watch. I remember feeling disgusted and strange. I wasn't even aware of my own body I wasn't ready. The women didn't look like me and they were doing things that I did not understand. The five of us in bed screamed and shut the computer off. I felt sick what had I watched.

Years later I tried to watch porn again. I was 18 and had been sexually active from 17 years old. Porn was different at this age I could choose the category and what I found "sexy" I could learn about my own sexuality and how to express myself in a way that I had not before. I now enjoy watching porn from time to time. It taught me now that female sexuality was positive.

Amelia

There was this period where every time I kissed someone they would grab my neck within the first couple seconds and strangle me, literally in the middle of the dance floor.

It was really confusing because I felt really small but like I was meant to be okay with it because it was sexy.

Eventually I stopped kissing guys in clubs which of course isn’t a terrible thing but I found it very weird that they thought it was so normal that it was an acceptable thing to do surrounded by people.

I asked my friends I was going out with and they said that it is so standard to see in porn that they had also thought that strangling was just part of having sex when they were a teenager.

Amy