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.”
I don’t interact with anybody who does this. Really, outside of my wife and my close family I don’t interact with anybody. Partially due to being assaulted multiple times, my anxiety goes through the roof.
It’s horrible how some people treat each other, but understand just because I’m perceived to be part of a specific gender doesn’t mean I have meaningful opportunity to do anything about it. I’m just a human, and while I agree other humans are often bad, it’s out of my scope to do anything really impactful. I understand what is happening. It’s much much worse than you state. It’s worse in ways I probably would get banned for typing out on this site. Worse than you can possibly imagine. That’s something society needs to address, and as an individual I cannot convince other people how bad it is or how extreme of action we need to take. And not for lack of trying.
It’s good threads like this spread awareness, but reduction will not further the cause of improving the situation.