Now this isn't exactly a scientific study, this was just a spur of the moment thing that I did today. It may come as a shock to all of you but I have girl friends (I know!) and they were both gracious enough to give me some of their time to answer a few questions about online sexual harassment. I'm not going to use real names and I'm not going to use the QnA format because both interviews went very, very differently. One of my friends who I will call Sarah does not post nude pictures of herself online. The other friend who I will call Gloria does. Both Sarah and Gloria have online presences and are both very guarded but that still doesn't seem to protect them from sexual harassment. Now seeing how a lot of the justification for harassment is "Well if you didn't post naked pics we wouldn't have bashed you" I wanted to see how true that was if at all.
Both women agreed that posting pictures of yourself, no matter how provocative was not in fact, promoting harassment. Even though Sarah does not have any online pics of herself nude or even in her underwear and Gloria does both women seemed to receive equal amounts of harassment. Sarah actually complained about getting dick pics quite often while Gloria never mentioned whether or not she did. The biggest difference actually came from Gloria who mentioned that at one point she got blasted by women on Myspace when she announced that her marriage was open and they were looking for like minded couples. Another difference was that Sarah's harassment was mostly in the form of private messages while Gloria was harassed publicly. The biggest similarity was that men approached these two women asking for sex quite often. Daily in Sarah's case who has a larger social media presence. Gloria it should be noted has published her nude photos here, on SG while Sarah has never been to this site or any other like it. Both women also complained that they don't feel they can have a social media presence because they are very often harassed whenever they do post something about themselves. Now this harassment isn't exclusively sexual but I want to stick with that topic for now. I think it pretty much applies across the board anyway. Last but not least both Sarah and Gloria talked about having multiple partners over their lives and being judged for it. Gloria told me she was once called a slut in public, in front of her mom no less. Sarah has very often gotten the "How come you'll sleep with (insert name of ex boyfriend here) but not me?" whenever she wasn't in the mood for sex from one guy she was dating.
So what do we make of all this gobbledy-gook of data from these two women? Basically, it doesn't matter if you post nude pics of yourself, if you are a woman with an online social media presence you are going to get harassed. Gloria felt that most of the harassment she got was from family and so called friends who disapproved of her lifestyle choices. Sarah had similar complaints about the men she has dated in the past. Now this is not to say that men don't also suffer online harassment, we do but I can personally tell you that unlike Sarah and Gloria I've never checked in to my facebook account and found an inbox full of pussy pics and requests from women for sex. These women (and many of you reading this I'm willing to bet) have gotten buried in dick pics and demands for sex from men. The whole argument about posting nude pics? That doesn't explain Sarah's case so we can safely call it BULLSHIT.
Harassment is exclusively the fault of the HARASSER, not the victim. I don't know how to be more clear. Two different women, with two different online presences have to deal with the exact same bullshit from men. Look, I know it sucks to hear but guys, we have to face facts. The problem is us, not them. We have to take responsibility for what we say and do. We can't just hide behind the veil of: "She posted it so I can say whatever I want about it." because it just isn't true. Gloria put it best. "You are still dealing with human beings. Someone with thoughts and emotions. That is someone's sister, or cousin or daughter you need to respect them."