This is disappointing, cancelling my account. As a man it feels I’m cattle to be corralled for women’s safety, pleasure, and convenience without so much of a glance as to how all genders, including the alleged offended party, affect the current online behavior. The real world is rough, if we don’t like it we have to change our own behavior, not control it and point the finger, and that starts with us realizing that how we LIKE to act and how we DO act toward others has very real consequences, and unfortunately we can’t have our cake and eat it too.
For example, women are now averaging more sex partners than men and are increasingly accepting of sexting (a significantly higher number depending on the country, and it’s not all women acting this way) but now all of a sudden are prudes that are harmed by an affront to their time, honor, and self-respect? You can’t have it both ways. Are we also including photos of overt sticker cleavage, skin tight mini-skirts, and see through shirts and yoga pants as sexually harassing images? Women know what they’re doing and can do so in stealth, but that doesn’t make them any less a party to the problem you’re trying to solve from a sociological level. We need to be honest about how ALL genders are behind selection of behaviors and social norms.
If women chose to be modest and stopped freely sleeping/sexting with men, the prevalence of dick pics (and breast pics) would lower significantly and marriage rates would increase. Inversely, if more men preached self-respect and held each other accountable for how they engage with women and competing for access (valuing sex exclusivity, knowing women would sleep with only one partner) less pics would ensue. The bottom line is, we all want to act a certain way but ignore the consequences. I don’t really care what women collectively choose as their preferred behavior and what they’re looking for in mates, but I cannot stand hypocrisy in that selection; you have to take the good with the bad. Men do have a hand in it as well, but ultimately it’s women that have the final say and set ground rules for mating. As such, what we’re seeing in dating and marriage now (only a 6.6% chance of a marriage lasting longer than 10 years for Americans), we all chose this.
Also, can we balance out the experience for both genders and score some points for men by defining “ghosting” as harassment? It’s the equivalent of disrespect as spitting in the other person’s face, but I get that all the time as a man. Perhaps every person has a rating on how cordial they are in responding? Women tend to fire-off bullet-list questions instead of investing time to get to know the person (what do you do? how tall are you? etc. — like I’m a product they’re shopping for), hear something they don’t like, and never even get the dignity of a response. I understand it’s uncomfortable, but with such dismissiveness men have no choice but to bombard more women with even more messages. Women then counter by saying on their profiles, “if I don’t respond, don’t be offended,” “I don’t have to time respond,” etc. and the entire experience becomes increasingly more dehumanizing and less cordial and respectful (yes, not responding is disrespectful and takes a toll on society as a whole. If men have to put themselves out there (and women that do so too) it is only fair to reciprocate and respond, no matter how uncomfortable it is to turn someone down cordially).
All that being said, I’m sympathetic to women getting bombarded by messages and I’m also sympathetic to the experience for men, which even psychologists are showing is an abysmal experience for men. Sure, women don’t like sifting through crap profiles, but the experience for men (with OkCupid women rating 90% of all men as undatable) is an utterly demoralizing experience. I’m hoping OkCupid has more fixes in place than policing/censorship to make the experience more enjoyable for all genders.
