A 2018 YouGov poll found that four in 10 women aged between 18 and 36 have been sent a photograph of a penis without having asked for one. Unsolicited dick pics are one of the many drawbacks of the digital era. I’ve received some, you probably have too, and the mere thought of anyone else having to go through the same thing sickens me. Until now, few solutions were offered as means to solve this alternative pandemic. As Tinder recently announced its plans for testing a new AI that monitors DMs in order to cool down the creeps, many highlighted how social media platforms barely did anything to stop those same creeps from sliding into your DMs.
What if I told you that there’s a brand new solution that has appeared, one that, although not fully perfect, comes with an important revenge factor? You’ve heard of NFTs by now, and the many ways people are jumping on the bandwagon—from Cara Delevingne auctioning off an NFT about her vagina to the most popular memes getting sold one after the other more recently, it’s safe to say that anyone can try their hand at coming up with their own non-fungible token.
Zoe Scaman, creative strategist and founder of Bodacious, might just take the cake with her take: using NFT technology to stop men from sending unsolicited dick pics. Scaman, along with some help from the duo Very Serious, turned this idea into a real website. On 24 March, 2021, NFT the DP was created with the simple aim to help even the least tech-savvy among us turn dick pics into cash.
The process is as simple as it gets: if you received an unsolicited nude, you can go on NFT the DP, pay the minting price, upload the dick pic, and start minting. Although the site doesn’t do everything for you, it offers a relatively short list of instructions on how to mint an NFT using two pieces of readily available software, MetaMask and Mintable. This process allows you to create a permanent record on the blockchain ledger of that dick pic with the name of the sender attached as the artist.
The website also includes instructions for what to do if your dick pic has been turned into an NFT by a scorned receiver—if they’ve gotten “NFTDPd.” Those instructions are purposefully less clear, with a generally taunting tone: pay for the NFT, if you can afford it, and send it to a burner wallet. “If you can’t afford it…too bad lol,” the instructions read.
While some of you might find this revengeful punishment too harsh, it is important to note that cyber-flashing is a form of harassment—yet there are no laws explicitly banning the practice in the vast majority of the world. In more extreme cases, law enforcement has used anti-harassment laws to cover it, but for the most part, the law hasn’t caught up with this phenomenon. In the UK, cyber-flashing can potentially fall within the offences of harassment or public nuisance. The same behaviour has been illegal in Scotland since 2010, but England and Wales still don’t have specific laws against it.
The same problem can now be seen with the rise of deepfake porn and deepnudes. The law is yet to catch up on new technologies and the risks they represent. That being said, the legality of NFT the DP also stands on shaky ground, given that revenge porn laws vary greatly by locality.
So, next time you receive an unsolicited nude—because, sadly, they probably will be a next time—be sure to explore your options and potentially consider revenge. You might even end up getting some dolla dolla.