Nice is Not a Requirement
Trigger Warning: This piece deals with sexually predatory behavior.
Exhibitionism is defined as: sexual behavior in which sexual gratification is obtained from the indecent exposure of one's genitals (as to a stranger).
I debated for a few days on whether or not to write about this. Is it necessary? Is it valuable? And, in the end, yes, I think it is. We have to talk about these things to understand the underlying conditions which allow this type of behavior to be perpetuated. We have to talk about these individual issues occurring on a small scale to understand how they tie to larger societal trends.
In covid (and even before), more and more people have been engaging in online communities. It’s not uncommon to be a member of a special interest Patreon or Discord these days, and it totally makes sense. Most of us have a desire to connect with our communities where and when we can. These spaces have the capacity to create deep, meaningful connections among members and connect people who would have never otherwise met.
But, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. The anonymity of the internet makes some people bolder. We’re seeing it modeled in pop culture all around us. “The Most Hated Man on the Internet,” a docuseries on revenge porn, is trending as I type this. Several months ago, people couldn’t stop talking about “The Tinder Swindler.” The fact is, social spaces on the internet have created new venues for abusers to set up shop and easily evade accountability. Studies from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence have cited a massive uptick in online sexual violence as a result of increased activity in online spaces during the global pandemic. Fifty two percent of women surveyed for the study said they’d experienced online abuse, including threatening messages, sexual harassment and the sharing of private images without consent. A study is now currently underway which is looking at how this abuse affects groups at the varying intersections of gender and race. Another study states that 90% of all online sexual violence is targeted at women, with “online sexual abuse” defined as…
Sending someone hateful or unwelcome sexual comments based on their gender
Sending unwanted requests to partners or strangers to send nude photos or videos or livestream sexual acts.
Performing sexual acts on webcam without the consent of everyone involved or in inappropriate settings (like during an online meeting or online community space).
Sharing private images or videos without the consent of everyone involved, also known as revenge porn, which is illegal.
Sharing porn in spaces where everyone has not consented to view it (like in Zoom meetings or other inappropriate online communities, often referred to as Zoom bombing).
Grooming children to enable their sexual abuse either online or offline.
The 8th House has an online community. We do classes, share tarot and astrology info, and have a Discord community availble for members to interact in. There are channels for sharing recipes and food photos, sections for media recommendations, and spaces to share tarot spreads and decks we love. Seems inconspicuous enough, right? That’s the backdrop for what we’re going to explore here.
Now, to understand the dynamics of the space, we first have to understand who the members are, demographically speaking. The space is comprised of mainly: women, queer and trans folks, and POC, with lots of members existing at the intersections of many of these demographics. Each of these groups is marginalized to some level or another, by default, in our society. Now, we do have a handful of white cis men in the community, but only one was active in the Discord.
This man, who we’ll call Dick for the purposes of this article, (pun intended) was incredibly active in the space. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pick up on some strange vibes. Aside from some good old fashioned mansplaining, it started small, as abuse typically does. It might be a comment with strange sexual over/undertones here or there, or a photo showing his outfit of the day laid out on his bed that included some…interesting cropping choices. In fact, going back through the content he posted, nearly all of his images included his crotch. He was almost always half-erect and in only boxers. It was strange enough to make you look twice and think, “Wait - is this dude trying to show us his boner?” But also subtle enough to make you think, “I’m just being paranoid. He’s working from home. Lots of people don’t wear pants when they work from home, right?”
This type of “edge-lording” behavior where an abuser tiptoes up to the line of what could be deemed acceptable vs unacceptable is highly typical. This is especially true in spaces such as this, where the perpetrator understands the relative societal privilege they hold over other members in the space. Dick understood that the majority of the people in this group are societally conditioned to “be nice” and “not make waves,” and he was seeing just how far he could push that conditioning. It’s a form of gaslighting. He was doing things that were just subversive enough to be questionable, but plausible enough to be simply coincidental, causing mental and emotional strain on the members in the group who were trying to determine if this was, in fact, a problem or not.
But then it escalated, as it so often does with online sexual abusers. I got some feedback from a group member last year that he had reached out to them via DM in a romantically/sexually suggestive way. The member didn’t feel particularly threatened at the time. They shut down the conversation, and alerted me to the issue so that I could address it with him directly. The member did not wish to have him removed from the space. They simply wanted the issue addressed, which I was more than happy to do. Prior to sending Dick a formal warning about the issue, I was checking some payout information on our Patreon, and I noticed that a handful of people had withdrawn their pledges and left the group citing their reason for leaving as “Dick made me feel uncomfortable in the Discord.” Taking all of this together, a confrontation was more than in order at this point. We have policies for conduct in these online spaces, and he was in clear violation.
I’ve never been afraid of confrontation when it’s warranted. (I’m an Aries sun, and I have an Aries stellium in my natal chart.) This has earned me standard trope of being labeled as “aggressive, domineering, shrill, etc.” throughout my time in Corporate America, where the privilege to be assertive is primarily reserved only for cis men. This informal “exposure therapy” has helped me grow a thicker skin where confrontation is concerned, but I also fall into some marginalized intersections. I’m a woman. I’m queer. So, it goes without saying that I’ve been societally conditioned to give people the benefit of the doubt and avoid confrontation, wherever possible.
This kind of conditioning instills the belief that our instinct to be seen as “nice” should be more powerful than our instinct to protect ourselves. Many people existing in these marginalized intersections are taught a predisposition to caregiving, which gives way to valuing the feelings of others above our own needs, and often our own safety. In fact, this can manifest so intensely that people in these groups can feel guilty for having feelings or needs at all. It even shows up in our day to day dialect. The term “upspeak,” which was coined by James Gorman in 1993, describes a now common “Valley Girl” style of speech where the ends of sentences are gently lifted into questions. The tendency is pretty much universally utilized within the groups I mentioned earlier and regarded as an undesirable habit that should be broken. Just give the term “upspeak” a Google, and see what pops up. However, what a lot of these articles aren’t tackling is the why behind upspeak. The people who utilize it often have conscious or subconscious awareness that simple declarative statements have the capacity to put them in danger. Therefore, having declarative statements costumed more gently as questions helps ensure their safety and allows them to be perceived as less “aggressive” or assertive.
Now, taking all of this into account, my first confrontation with Dick was gentle, but firm. I explained that whether he realized it or not, he holds relative privilege over many people in the space and that I needed him to reflect on that and have more awareness in his interactions with the community. I also conveyed that this space is not his, and he was absolutely not entitled to it. These people were not a captive audience to act as his own personal dating site. Members were here for community around shared interests, not to be harassed by the only cis man in the group.
Dick apologized, agreed to be more conscious of his presence, and took a brief hiatus from the group. We all thought this would be the end of this issue…it wasn’t.
Upon Dick’s return to the group, he was being very conscious of how he showed up in the chats. But, over time, he began to tiptoe back up to the line of inappropriate behavior in his posts. The mansplaining started back up, but no one had reached out to me to say that he was DM’ing them inappropriately, so I was hopeful that he had curbed his urge to contact members directly. However, I was noticing that his posts were growing in sexual over/undertones, and he had returned to including his favorite subject in his photography. You guess it - little Dick Jr…
Eventually, the situation came to a head (pun not intended). I was offline and away from the Discord for a few hours on a Saturday morning, setting up some equipment to fill candles. I heard my phone dinging incessantly with Discord notifications upstairs, so I stopped what I was doing to see what was going on. It had finally happened, in a food channel. There it was…a photo with a bowl of pasta salad and the torso of a man in just a tee shirt (yes, he was full on Daffy Ducking it)… his…dangling participle…in full display. Several members spoke up in outrage and Dick immediately removed the photo and removed himself from the group. He blocked me on Discord and on all socials, and didn’t so much as send a basic email taking accountability for his actions.
What Dick was doing is clinically referred to as Exhibitionism. Now, I’m not a doctor. I can’t officially diagnose him. But, this is the clinical term for the behaviors he exhibited in the space, and like with any clinical disorder, having the disorder is not an inherently shameful thing. However, perpetuating harmful acts on others as the result of an untreated clinical disorder is.
A study from The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, “Long-Term Follow-up of Exhibitionists: Psychological, Phallometric, and Offense Characteristics,” shows several things. First, Exhibitionism is often thought of as a nuisance rather than a crime. This makes sense, as I don’t think I know a single person (who isn’t a cis man) who hasn’t received an unsolicited dick pic. In fact, it’s so common that it’s the punchline of many internet jokes and memes. But, due to the underreporting of the issue, there’s a lot of data missing on this particular form of sexual abuse. The study also showed that around 30% of all offenders are likely to re-offend and are likely to escalate their behavior. This is why I felt it was important to talk about it. Dick evaded accountability by immediately leaving the space and blocking off all forms of contact, and the stats show that there’s a good chance Dick will show up in another online space and do this again. So, it’s important that we bring the behavior into the light and talk about it.
After the incident occurred and Dick had left the group, the chat filled with almost everyone in the group writing about how he had DM’d them and how it made them deeply uncomfortable. Many sent me screen grabs. Dick was being sexually suggestive with members of the group. He was insinuating that he had online sexual relationships with members of the group (he didn’t). He was asking members for their home addresses. As more and more screen grabs poured in, I looked at the dates. All of them were after my initial discussion with him. He knew what he was doing. He was preying upon a group of people who he expected would be “nice” enough not to stand up to him.
The conversation quickly pivoted to shame.
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to cause problems.”
“I just figured I was being too sensitive about it or reading too much into it.”
“I completely froze when he messaged me.”
To be clear, I’m not blaming the members for not speaking up. Dick is the sole perpetrator of harm here. This sits squarely on his shoulders. But I do want to illustrate the phenomenon that he used to his advantage to victimize people. These responses were exactly what he was relying on.
The bulk of the community in this space has been subject to impossible beauty standards that are designed to breed insecurity. Society needs these people to feel self-conscious because less confident people aren’t as likely to assert themselves. The majority of this group has been societally conditioned to live in hyper-vigilance, constantly extrapolating the negative potential in every interaction so that they keep themselves as safe as possible and mentally/emotionally/physically contorting themselves to ensure they never appear as a threat. We’re taught that we should be “sugar and spice and everything nice.” We’re taught that “he only teases you because he likes you.” In short, the folks in this community receive messaging that being nice is more important than accountability.
Now, it goes without saying that I removed Dick from the group entirely, and I emailed him to explain exactly why he was being removed. My tone was far less gentle on this go-around. Not only did he knowingly and intentionally sexually harass a group of unsuspecting community members over which he held relative societal privilege, he also put our small woman-owned, queer/trans-operated business at risk. We lost money and customers because of his behavior. So, I want accountability, even if I’m not explicitly naming him here. He knows who he is, and he knows what he did. Accountability has to be more important than politeness, especially where this kind of harm is a concern.
So, let it be stated, here and now, that “nice” is not a requirement. It’s ok, and frankly necessary, to let go of the need to control others’ impressions of us. Being “nice” adds to our workload. In doing so, we make everyone’s needs and problems our responsibility. The ironic part is, in being so kind, polite, and hardworking for others, we’re often neglectful and unkind to ourselves. Of course, all of this comes with a heaping dose of common sense. This isn’t carte blanche to go out and be an asshole to everyone we meet. But, when someone is violating your mental, emotional, and physical safety, you do not have to be “nice.” The shame you cause this person is their burden to bear, and how they do that is on them.
Happy reflecting, Dick!
