To this day, she remembers the racing thoughts, the instant nausea, the hairs prickling up on her legs, the sweaty palms. She had shared a photograph of herself in her underwear with a boy she trusted and, very soon, it had been sent around the school and across her small home town, Aberystwyth, Wales. She became a local celebrity for all the wrong reasons. Younger kids would approach her laughing and ask for a hug. Members of the men’s football team saw it – and one showed someone who knew Davies’s nan, so that’s how her family found out.

Her book, No One Wants to See Your D*ck, takes a deep dive into the negatives. It covers Davies’s experiences in the digital world – that includes cyberflashing such as all those unsolicited dick pics – as well as the widespread use of her images on pornography sites, escort services, dating apps, sex chats (“Ready for Rape? Role play now!” with her picture alongside it). However, the book also shines a light on the dark online men’s spaces, what they’re saying, the “games” they’re playing. “I wanted to show the reality of what men are doing,” says Davies. “People will say: ‘It’s not all men’ and no, it isn’t, but it also isn’t a small number of weirdos on the dark web in their mum’s basements. These are forums with millions of members on mainstream sites such as Reddit, Discord and 4chan. These are men writing about their wives, their mums, their mate’s daughter, exchanging images, sharing women’s names, socials and contact details, and no one – not one man – is calling them out. They’re patting each other on the back.”

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    1 day ago

    It’s insane to me that the greatest threat to women is dating men. Who the hell is raising these guys? Even in my worst days I never blamed women for my dating problems - I blamed myself. Therapy helped with that problem though. But the motives of mass misogyny are just opaque to me. Sort your shit guys, don’t be a bastard.

    • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The internet is raising them. They aren’t going outside and saying these things where at least one man would smack him upside the head in order to correct bad behavior. They aren’t going outside and trying this shit on women who will reject their bad behaviors. Or worse running to legal trouble for harassing or assaulting women. Whereby it used to be the guy would self reflect and realize he’s doing it wrong.

      The internet is telling them stories about how these behaviors are what the “alpha” males are doing to successfully get all the women. What is the bullshit stat? Like 1% of top men get 99% of women or some stupid shit.

      The internet lies to them, painting a dark twisted world. And then these guys go out to the real world to treat women in the way they think the world is some kind of dark world. They get extreme negative experiences. Which to them proves that the internet was right about everything.

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        They aren’t going outside and saying these things where at least one man would smack him upside the head in order to correct bad behavior.

        Expecting men to beat the shit out of people doing the “wrong” things is also a really big problem and isn’t a solution either.

        I remember in the late 80s when i was really young hearing about gay bashing as if it was a perfectly okay thing to group to and go do.

        I remember people talking about Freddie Mercury coming out as gay and not feeling comfortable asking why that is a problem for fear of being targeted myself.

        I don’t have any answers

        • BigxRedxHusker@midwest.social
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          19 hours ago

          In the 80s and 90s we always called our friends gay but to me it was just friendly ribbing.

          One ex friend we did beat the fuck out of for hitting his girlfriend.

        • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          beat the shit out of people

          It’s not literal. You seriously don’t know what social conditioning is???

          gay bashing

          I have no clue how you derived homophobia from this.

          This is either a troll or poor reading comprehension.

          edit: I just saw your other replies. You’re being deliberately obtuse to derail the thread.

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            Make people feel bad about who they are through intimidation and violence. It’s not okay unless you are “over if there good ones”

            “It’s not literal!”

            Cool cool cool

            Meanwhile concentration camps are in vogue

            A rapist and convicted felon is the POTUS

            And Andrew Tate is the new young mans hero.

            Yeah im so unhinged

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          This is unhinged and nonsensical, either you have poor English reading comprehension or this is a troll post. I’ll let mods decide.

          • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            I say let it stand as a testament. Incels bring out the big guns when you get too close to reality. I’ve noticed this pattern over the years.

            The propaganda is something to behold. This is the kind of thing young men are being bombarded with.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              I say let it stand as a testament.

              I know you’re joking around, but I’ll take advantage of the moment to rant on a tangent for a bit. I legit saw this attitude spreading through the moderator space on reddit a decade ago, as they started getting influenced by users to let slide more and more horrible takes so that “the community can judge for themselves” as tender, shut-in lads and lasses who were trying to manage our largest discussion forums without pay were suddenly being bombarded from all sides by people trying to subvert the subreddits and control them for their own agendas.

              And largely, it worked. Many, many times I’ve seen subreddits and forums on other sites fall because the mods got compromised, the other mods got too burned out or emotional to keep doing their tasks, and as a result the conversations started allowing more and more incel-bait, tired tropes of persecution and misogyny, foulmouthed, delusional teenagers who have never left their houses suddenly making profound statements about the state of gender dynamics, and a whole ARMY of foreigners pretending to be normal Americans or Europeans on both sides of every argument, just screaming their nonsense louder and louder until the only users left were the ones who agreed with the delusion. I wish people understood that some of the most famous horrible subreddits and sites started as jokes and were gradually co-opted and hijacked to become unironic hate-spaces.

              This was the plan all across the internet and it worked. We are all so tired of every argument and issue that most people don’t engage anymore. We don’t even try to correct anyone because we assume either other users know better, or will sort it out for us, or who cares anyway, what’s even real? Just tune out, keep scrolling.

              So now I say, no. We need to be far less tolerant of intolerance, we need to burn them out of their nests and dens. Reddit didn’t go nearly far enough with banning the incel subs, they should have banned incel ideology, they should have banned redpill rhetoric entirely. I once would have balked at that kind of “censorship” but I’m now watching my nation dissolve under the stupidest movement ever created and I’m somewhere between shaking with rage and shaking with exhaustion.

              • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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                10 hours ago

                Point taken. Looks like the guy is standing pat with his full blown alternate reality narraive. And he’s still gotten more upvotes inspite of being so unabashedly in bad faith.

                Ah well I wish mods would have nuked the whole comment chain.

              • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                22 hours ago

                Redpill, incel, gender-normative bullshit is violence. It seeks to hurt men by forcing them into the mold of “masculinity” (and defines that masculinity, in some places, in a very toxic fashion) and we all know how it hurts women.

                It needs to be fought back, and as furiously as fascism.

                • Jarix@lemmy.world
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                  16 hours ago

                  This sentiment is why i commented. It does need to be pushed back against. Thank you

                  • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    16 hours ago

                    I don’t think that you and I are entirely in agreement here, however. When I say that we need to fight back against this as furiously as we fight fascism, I absolutely condone the use of violence against fascism. It seeks to harm men, even the people brainwashed into supporting it, and it seeks to harm women, especially those who aren’t willing to be subjugated. The paradox of tolerance is the only reason it’s been allowed to go as far as it has gone. I’m not seeing a peaceful way out of it.

                    ETA: For the record, we’re on the same side, and I love that for us! And I’ve upvoted you. I used to believe that violence was never, ever the answer, even the language of violence. But at this point… I don’t think I can afford to hold that point of view any more.

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            Care to explain how I’m unhinged?

            Speaking of poor reading skills, im specifically referring to physical abuse as a form or deterrent.

            Maybe you havent experienced physical abuse, but i have.

            • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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              18 hours ago

              I felt like I understood your original post, so I hope you’re okay if I try to bridge the misunderstandings? If at any point I misunderstood, let me know.


              They aren’t going outside and saying these things where at least one man would smack him upside the head in order to correct bad behavior.

              Expecting men to beat the shit out of people doing the “wrong” things is also a really big problem and isn’t a solution either.

              I feel like this boils down to: having men use physical violence to coerce other men into “proper” behavior isn’t the solution. The scare-quotes around “wrong” imply the term being potentially misused.

              I remember in the late 80s when i was really young hearing about gay bashing as if it was a perfectly okay thing to group to and go do.

              You note that groups used violence against gay people in the 80s, and that it was considered acceptable. I read this and the next sentence as being an example, provided to support your first sentence.

              I remember people talking about Freddie Mercury coming out as gay and not feeling comfortable asking why that is a problem for fear of being targeted myself.

              The fear of violence was such a severe deterrent, that even questioning why being gay was “wrong” could have led the group to assume you were gay and thus become violent against you.

              I don’t have any answers

              Although you don’t believe in corporal punishment, you don’t know what the answer would be. (Which is totally fair, IMO.)


              Is that the gist of what you meant?

              If so, I suspect people lost track of your point around the term “gay bashing.” Most people these days probably associate that term with someone speaking poorly of gay people, which sucks, but is relatively tame compared to what I thought you meant - which was, groups that went around literally bashing, as in physically attacking, gay people. (Which was, and still is in some places, an absolutely real thing.) It’s possible that this misunderstanding derailed the rest of your comment, leading readers away from your point.

              • UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                16 hours ago

                This was what I took away from his comment as well. His personal experience with physical abuse likely lead him to interpret “slapped upside the head” in a more visceral way than I think OP intended. The jump in ‘rhetorical spiciness’ tends to prime the reader a certain way. He expressed his doubt and confusion but only after bringing up a seemingly unrelated (and potentially bigoted) example.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
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              20 hours ago

              Nobody understands a thing you’re saying, I think you don’t grasp the concept of “context” like so many internet drones. I’m blocking you now, have a good day

    • vga@sopuli.xyz
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      16 hours ago

      Yeah, I tend to think that men who’d want dating women would be easier would like form an organization and lynch those fucks.

      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        Emotionally, I want to agree with you, but lynching is almost always going to hit the wrong people, too. The well connected teacher/coach/advisor who likes to prey on girls is not going to be hit, but the black guy who happens to be at the wrong spot at the wrong time, and triggers all the “we must protect our women!1!” ?

    • dellish@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s insane to me that the greatest threat to women is dating men

      Yet men are the leading cause of death for women. You’re correct, it is absolutely insane, but until those types of men can sort out their fragile masculinity problems here we are unfortunately.

      • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.ca
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        19 hours ago

        What? That’s not correct at all. The leading cause of death for women is heart disease, which accounts for approximately one in three female deaths each year. “Men” or any derivatives thereof on most statistical lists are below even common mosquitoes (malaria) as causes of death. A woman is more likely to be killed by their own kidneys than by a man.

        Don’t spread needless culture war scare bullshit.

        Source: The goddamn CDC.