Sometimes the what question is central in the news, sometimes the how question, but the why question dominates around the dick pic. Especially as a successful man with a lot to lose, why would you send women something that they are likely to do? not be happy and well can go directly to the authorities?
It has to do with exhibitionism, the experts say, and with a desire for power. This interpretation is not new: thirty or forty years ago the same motives were mentioned to explain the behavior of the so-called ‘hijgers’. Between about 1970 and 1995, tens of thousands of women received calls every year from men who panted, kept silent or said filthy things. As journalist Els Smit summarized it in the newspaper in 1985 The Free People: “Coming into the world as a woman means the guarantee of at least one hickey in your life.”
The hijacker bit the dust when caller ID was introduced in 1995: his anonymity was gone. But his motives persisted: these days it’s dick pics flying through the wires. Is the dickpic driver the hickey of today, and nothing ever changes? The latter seemed to be the conclusion of Sarah Sluimer, who, after the revelations about The Voice of Holland in NRC described how women always come back ‘with a shock'[keren] to this haunting place.”
Still, if you look in the newspaper archives, as I did, you must conclude that a lot has changed. The hucksters, also called “plague callers,” were then described as madmen spoiled in their youth; as shy types who couldn’t connect in a normal way, or just as men who lacked something in their marriage. “Most pants are more scared than the ones they call,” a male psychiatrist said in a statement Newspaper of the North† “You could compare it with a child who is afraid of a worm, although the worm is of course much more afraid of that child. But in a larger context.” (Who was the worm here and who was the child remained in the middle.)
In 1974 the Dutch Association for Sexual Reform set up ‘masturbation lines’, where female ‘care providers’ fantasized along with horny callers to accommodate the hijackers. In 1985 the lines were lifted again: the operators could not cope with the ever-growing legion of pants.
The solution lay mainly with the panting women: they should not be so afraid. “If you’re brave, strike up a conversation with the hijacker,” it advised Newspaper of the North† The Free People called blowing a whistle into the horn “an effective remedy for panting.” The Telegraph gave a jolly tip: “Hang up! Not yourself, but the receiver of the telephone. If the gasp, the foul-mouthed, the threat, or whoever, experiences this a few times, he looks for a more willing number, and one has to grant someone else something too.”
If all this didn’t work, women could get their name out of the phone book or file a complaint with the PTT. In extreme cases, he could trace the number of the hijacker – but then there had to be “long-term problems with a lot of suffering, for example in families that are at risk of being disrupted”, according to the newspaper. de Volkskrant in 1989.
Little was known about the effect of panting on women, newspapers noted. Perhaps that explains why most pants didn’t feel guilty about their behavior. “I just need it, I need it,” said hijgers to the NVSH care providers. A 31-year-old hijacker from Delft, who was tried in 1986 for harassing and threatening hundreds of women by telephone, The Free People no idea what he had done: “He was shocked that women can be traumatized by such a thing.” The latter is reminiscent of Marc Overmars, who said about his dickpics: “Unfortunately, I did not realize that I had crossed boundaries with this.”
But other than that I see differences. According to the communis opinio, the perpetrators of that time did not have their urges under control: sad, but nothing could be done about it. Apparently it never occurred to people to address the men, instead of advising women to buy a whistle. That’s finally changing: men are now responsible for what they do. You can also call that emancipation.
Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 12 February 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 12, 2022
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